This conversation features Tyson Yunkaporta, academic, arts critic, researcher, and member of the Apalech Clan in far north Queensland. Tyson is the author of Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World; Right Story, Wrong Story: How to Have Fearless Conversations in Hell; and Snake Talk: How the World’s Ancient Serpent Stories Can Guide Us.
Unlike our typical episodes which focus on a topic, here Jenny embraces Tyson's generative cultural practice of yarning. Tyson describes a yarn as "like a conversation but taking a traditional form his people have always used to create and transmit knowledge." Thus here we capture a raw conversation between Jenny and Tyson, touching on topics of whiteness, identity, modes of cognition, justice, and the hero complex. Tyson shares the story behind each of the three books in his trilogy, touching on their relevance for the modern technologically driven era.
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