What is History in a Settler Colonial Society? Mapping the limits and possibilities of ethical historiography
Lecture
In his 1995 study of history, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History, Michel-Rolph Trouillot insisted on the need to recognise the discipline’s power to curate and control. Critical, structural analysis of history-making would expose not only the past under examination, he…
‘The name of the product I tested is Life’: The Life and Poetry of Peter Porter - ‘Duelling with diffidence’
Seminar
In a time of debased international politics and media manipulation of truth, the spin-and-cant-skewering precision of poetry is more important than ever. This talk argues for a new look at Peter Porter (1929-2010), lauded Australian poet whose broad international span (poems on subjects as diverse…
Historians, Bodies and Visual Culture
Seminar
A seminar with Professor Ludmilla Jordanova In many ways, history is a field that cleaves to central themes over substantial periods of time, as is reflected in the long-standing distinction between political, economic and social history. Arguably political history generously defined still takes…
The Lethal Maternal: The Past in the Present and Future Projections
Symposium
The conviction of Kathleen Folbigg in 2003 for the manslaughter of her first infant child and the murder of three others over a ten-year period exposed her to a torrent of hatred. Tarred ‘the most hated woman in Australia’ and a ‘monstrous mother’, she became a cipher for deeply rooted feelings and…
The peripatetic life of landscape artist Eugene von Guérard: discovering the man behind the art
Seminar
The peripatetic life of 19th century landscape artist Eugene von Guérard spanned both hemispheres of the globe and most of the 19th century. The ‘facts’ that scaffold his life are frequently reiterated in commentaries about his art, but the man behind the public persona has been largely ignored.…
‘It’s life Jim, but not as we know it’: exploring Theophrastos’ conception of the environment through his writings on plants.
Seminar
A seminar with Professor Jay Winter As modern ideas about the environment evolved, some scholars became enthusiastic about citing Greek philosophers of the 5th and 4th centuries BCE such as Plato, Aristotle and Theophrastos to support their views. However, these early philosophers did not write…
The World of Mab Grimwade: Australian Women, Biography and Archives
Seminar
Searching for the imprint of a woman’s life is a challenge repeatedly expressed by the biographers of women, and Mab Grimwade is no exception. Born into a genteel family of pastoralists and investors in colonial Victoria, Mabel Louise Kelly (1887–1973), or ‘Mab’ to those who knew her, would grow up…