 Imogen is from the College of Arts and Social Sciences. And the title of Imogen's three minute presentation tonight is, Stuck at the Airport, a guide to finding the public intellectual in popular fiction. It's happened to all of us. You're tired at the airport when suddenly the dreaded announcement. Your plane has been delayed by four hours. So you hit the bookshop. You know you should buy the Booker Prize winning novel. But it's the literary equivalent of Weep Biggs. And you're craving the chocolate croissant. You want the courtroom drama. You want the sci-fi fantasy. Well, not meeting Mr. Right by Anita Heiss gives you both. It's an easy, lightweight read, but don't let that fool you. Heiss's fiction is unmistakably and pointedly political, and that's her goal, to write the experience of women like her, women who were young, urban, and Aboriginal, into the consciousness of mainstream, non-Aboriginal Australia. In my research, I argue that Heiss, an Aboriginal woman from Sydney, represents a new kind of public intellectual. Though it's easy to dismiss this figure as a quaint relic from a bygone era, the public intellectual is fundamental to the function of a just and equitable society. In 2009, the conservative journalist, Andrew Bolt, wrote an article claiming that Heiss, along with several others, was too white to be Aboriginal. She took him to court and won. He was found guilty of racial discrimination. By forcefully challenging the stereotype that to be Aboriginal, you must be black, poor, and struggling, Heiss gives voice to the nation's most marginalised group. And she delivers her message in the user-friendly forms of Facebook posts, tweets, and popular fiction. Now, my research does more than simply document a new kind of public intellectual, but that's important, too. I want to find out how effective Heiss has been at creating social change. In terms of the Andrew Bolt court case, her impact is clear. She sparked furious discussion about who we are as a nation and how we talk about one another. But has Heiss's fiction changed people's attitudes towards Indigenous Australians? As traditional literary methods focus on what's inside the novels, I need to do things a little differently. That's why I'm reading book reviews posted on Amazon and blogs to understand how readers interpret the political message of her fiction. So next time you're stuck for a good book, try Anita Heiss. She's a lot of fun with just the right amount of fibre. Thank you.