Andrew Barton “Banjo” Paterson is best known to Australians as the poet of the Bush.  Less well known is that Paterson was fascinated by the latest technologies of his day such as the phonograph, the steam-powered artesian borer and the car, and that he published a short science-fictional story in 1891 called “The Cast-Iron Canvasser.”

The story - inspired by Thomas Edison's 'talking dolls' that spoke through miniaturised photographs - relates the darkly humorous adventures of an automaton travelling book seller, sent to the sleepy town of Ninemile by the publishers Sloper and Dodge, to substitute for their human book canvassers who have been violently attacked by the countryfolk.

Please join Distinguished Professor Genevieve Bell and Professor Chris Danta from the ANU’s School of Cybernetics as they discuss Paterson’s fascinating transposition of Edison’s uncanny talking dolls to the literary landscape of nineteenth-century Australia and its surprising relevance to our present-day society.