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…
Robert Randolph Garran and the Australian Commonwealth: a study in public service.
Seminar
A seminar with Mr.Colin Milner This paper draws on a biographical study of the lawyer and public servant Robert Randolph Garran (1867–1957), an influential figure in the creation of the Commonwealth of Australia and the development of its status within the British Empire-Commonwealth. Garran’s…
The Edwin Fox: How an Ordinary Sailing Ship Connected the World in the Age of Globalisation, 1850–1914.
Seminar
A seminar with Professor Adrian Shubert and Assoc. Professor Boyd Cothran It began as a small, slow, and unadorned sailing vessel—in a word, ordinary. Later, it was a weary workhorse in the age of steam. But the story of the Edwin Fox reveals how an everyday merchant ship drew together a…
Environmental History Week HDR Showcase
Workshop
Call for Papers Environmental History Week HDR Showcase Wednesday 24 April 2024 Centre for Environmental History, Australian National University, and Monash University, Clayton Campus The United Nations has designated the year 2024 as the International Year of the Camelid. Individuals…
Attempting totality: the making of an interdisciplinary
Seminar
A seminar with Prof. Cameron Gordon Roughly 250 years ago material output, income, and wealth took off, first in Europe, and then across the rest of the world. Economic historians generally define this transformation as a process of individual economic agents moving within…