SHAPS Digest (January 2022)
Liam Byrne (Honorary, History) published an episode in the Australian Unions’ On the Job podcast discussing the life and legacy of Melbourne feminist labour activist Zelda D’Aprano (1928–2018).
Andrea Cleland (PhD in History, 2019) published an article in Bass Coast Post about her work conducting an oral history project for the Phillip Island & District Historical Society.
Dang Nguyen (PhD candidate in HPS, now Research Fellow at the ARC Centre for Excellence for Automated Decision-Making & Society) (@digitaldang) published an article critiquing the idea of technological adoption as an easy solution to the problem of social inequality.
Robyn Sloggett (Grimwade) was featured on the SBS program Framed, about the 1986 theft of Picasso’s Weeping Woman from the National Gallery of Victoria.
Samuel Watts (PhD candidate, History) commented in Australian Book Review (behind paywall) and on The ABR Podcast (audio file below) on the recent decision by Melbourne’s Moreland City Council to adopt a new name, after petitioning by Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung community leaders and prominent local non-Indigenous representatives. The petitioners argued that the name ‘Moreland’, adopted in 1839 by Scottish settler Farquhar McCrae, derived from a Jamaican slave plantation. Renaming the council was an opportunity to bring about greater awareness of both the global legacies of enslavement and the history of Indigenous dispossession. In his commentary, Samuel Watts reflects on the politics of renaming and memorialisation in a settler-colonial context. The legacies of both Atlantic slavery and the dispossession of Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung people, in what is now the northern suburbs of Melbourne, are connected in the public debate over Moreland’s name change – as is the function and purpose of historical commemoration and memory.
Academic Publications
Sarah Walsh (Hansen Lecturer in Global History) has published a new book, The Religion of Life: Eugenics, Race, and Catholicism in Chile (University of Pittsburgh Press).
The Religion of Life examines the interconnections and relationship between Catholicism and eugenics in early twentieth-century Chile. Specifically, it demonstrates that the popularity of eugenic science was not diminished by the influence of Catholicism there. In fact, both eugenics and Catholicism worked together to construct the concept of a unique Chilean race, la raza chilena. A major factor that facilitated this conceptual overlap was a generalized belief among historical actors that male and female gender roles were biologically determined and therefore essential to a functioning society. As the first English-language study of eugenics in Chile, The Religion of Life surveys a wide variety of different materials (periodicals, newspapers, medical theses, and monographs) produced by Catholic and secular intellectuals from the first half of the twentieth century. What emerges from this examination is not only a more complex rendering of the relationship between religion and science but also the development of White supremacist logics in a Latin American context.
“The Religion of Life challenges us to rethink what we mean when we talk about ‘race’, ‘whiteness’, and ‘eugenics’, showing us the interpretive flexibility of these categories, along with their various proxies. It greatly enriches our understanding of the distinctiveness and difference of racial thought and practice in Latin America and the Global South. Surprisingly, the racialised reproductive politics revealed here were nourished by both science and religion. In thus specifying local racial formations, this book will make antiracism far more targeted and effective.”—Warwick Anderson, author of The Cultivation of Whiteness: Science, Health, and Racial Destiny in Australia.
James Lesh (PhD in History, 2018, now Postdoctoral Fellow at Melbourne School of Design), Values in Cities: Urban Heritage in Twentieth-Century Australia (Routledge).
This multidisciplinary study integrates the disciplines of urban and public history, historic preservation and critical heritage studies to explore urban, architectural and planning conservation in twentieth-century Australia. It examines the professional, governance, management, community and intellectual processes which transitioned values from the implied to the primary lens for assessing, managing and interpreting heritage places. The aesthetic, architectural, historic and social values attributed to existing settler-colonial urban environments shaped twentieth-century cities, whether modernisation, development and renewal, or retention, adaptation, and conservation. The book surveys the establishment of the Australian profession and the academic discipline of conservation, alongside architectural discourse and planning policy, and the heritage movement and community activism involving the National Trusts, resident bodies, and construction unions. A watershed for global conservation was symbolised by the development of the Australian values-based model and the ICOMOS Burra Charter (1979), national conservation guidelines based on the Venice Charter (1964). As the values-based model continues to shape conservation in Australia and across the world, this book is an essential reference for architecture, planning, construction, engineering, real estate, geography, archaeology, anthropology, and history.
In the latest issue of the journal Emotions: History, Culture, Society, Una McIlvenna (Hansen Senior Lecturer, History) contributed to a discussion, ‘The History of Emotions: Where Are We?’. The discussion marks the tenth anniversary of the establishment of the CHE, the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotion (initially focusing on Europe 1100–1800, with the late Professor Philippa Maddern as its founding Director) and the fifth anniversary of the launch of the journal Emotions: History, Culture, Society (founding Editors: Katie Barclay, Andrew Lynch, and Giovanni Tarantino).
In the same issue, Charles Zika (History) (with R.S. White) published an obituary to Louis Charland (1958–2021).
Nicole Tse (Grimwade Centre) is Editor of the AICCM Bulletin, a peer-reviewed journal produced by the Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Materials (AICCM) since 1975. The latest issue is a special edition on time-based media art (TBMA) conservation, and includes articles by several staff and current and former students of the Grimwade Centre:
Paul Coleman (MA student, Cultural Materials Conservation), ‘The Case for Documenting User Experience as Part Preservation Strategy for Internet-Based Art’
Internet-based art is deeply embedded in the online behaviours, customs and traditions that are constantly emerging through user interaction and engagement. As such, user experience should be considered a fundamental aspect of the artwork in need of considered documentation. This paper provides a historical overview of Internet-based art, that presents the broader socio-cultural aspects of Internet-based art, as experienced by the user. This paper argues that Internet-based art requires the same conservation considerations as more accepted aspects of time-based media art documentation: source-code analysis, materials and equipment lists, variability and artists’ intent. By documenting user experience, it enables opportunities to navigate the culturally embedded principles of Internet culture and contemporary technological standards that may be lost if preservation strategies utilise a more material/code specific preservation strategy. Highlighting experience as a necessary pillar of the identity of Internet-based art, in conjunction with other widely accepted aspects of time-based media art documentation approaches, allows for a richer picture and understanding of defining qualities of works, whilst providing further evidentiary activation into preservation approaches.
Catherine Collyer (MA in Cultural Materials Conservation, 2016), ‘Tracking the Invisible: Collection Management and Conservation of Time-Based Art at QAGOMA’
Time-based art (TBA) in the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art’s (QAGOMA) Collection has expanded in conjunction with the development of the Asia Pacific Triennial (APT) exhibition series. A survey of TBA acquired following the 1st to 9th APT exhibitions collected data on the status of this group of works. Coinciding with the development of a cross-disciplinary TBA working group and the beginning of the Gallery’s Digital Transformation Initiative (DTI), the survey findings have helped to inform how collection management practices for TBA at QAGOMA can be improved to meet the unique conservation needs of this group of works of art. Using information gathered, conservators dedicated to the preservation of TBA have been adapting traditional conservation processes and developing new approaches for the active management of TBA within the Collection. The survey is a small but enlightening step in the ongoing process of TBA conservation and collection management development at QAGOMA.
Robert Lazarus Lane (Grimwade Centre), ‘Updated? Teaching Conservation through Time-Based Media Art’
Time-based media art challenges conventional conservation methodologies. Can the disruption caused by new modes of practice contribute to disciplinary development? This paper reflects on teaching cultural material conservation through time-based media art. In particular, it focuses on how producing documentation engages conservation students and collecting institutions in a learning partnership. The outcomes generated by documenting time-based media art foregrounds twenty-first century conservation practices. Reflexive analysis reveals the way persistent practices and critical situations order these new modes of practice, renewing core approaches to conservation education. This paper argues that time-based media subject design can integrate emergent and established knowledge, and the exchange created enables important disciplinary updates to occur.
Nicole Tse co-authored, with Asti Sherring and Mar Cruz, ‘Exploring The Outlands: A Case Study on the Conservation Installation and Artist Interview of David Haines’ and Joyce Hinterding’s Time-Based Art Installation’
The artwork by David Haines and Joyce Hinterding, The Outlands, 2011 is a time-based art installation composed of sculptural, software and gaming technology exhibited in a gallery space. The work was acquired by the Art Gallery of New South Wales after being awarded the 2011 Anne Landa Award Unguided Tours exhibition prize but has not been installed since. As such, any future iterations will be challenging due to its condition, functionality and machine dependency. This paper explores the value of installing Haines’ and Hinterding’s time-based art installation to chart the conservation assessment processes of documentation, functionality testing and the install itself. It discusses how in-situ artist interview affords artistic agency and contributes knowledge on the materials, conceptual and technical elements of the work, functional limitations and its future conservation management. The outcomes of the conservation interactions have allowed for a deeper understanding of conservation as a reiterative process as issues of software and hardware dependencies, and the situated and spatial relationships between various elements became more salient. This has assisted conservators in preparing for object obsolescence and aims to support future re-activations of The Outlands, 2011.
The latest issue of Sophia: International Journal of Philosophy and Traditions, edited by Purushottama Bilimoria (Principal Fellow, Philosophy) was published.
Darius von Güttner (Principal Fellow, History) has a new book chapter coming out: “The Periphery of Europe and the Idea of Crusade: Adaptation and Evolution of Crusader Ideology in Poland under the Piast Dynasty (1100–47)” in P. Srodecki and N. Kersken (eds.), The Expansion of the Faith: Crusading on the Frontiers of Latin Christendom in the High Middle Ages (Brepols 2022).
This volume offers a comparative approach to the crusade movement on the frontiers of Latin Christendom in the high Middle Ages, bringing a regional focus to research on these peripheral phenomena. It features several key questions: Which military campaigns were propagated as crusades on the peripheries of the Christian West? What efforts were made to gain recognition for them as crusades and what effects did these have? What value did the crusade movement have for societies at the fines christianitatis? What role did the cruciatae have in strengthening pan-Western sense of togetherness and solidarity, and what role did they have for creation of a crusader and frontier identity? The eighteen papers, ranging in scope from the southern and eastern Baltic regions to Iberia, Egypt and the Balkans, provide new insights into the ways in which crusade rhetoric was reflected in the culture and literature of countries involved in crusading beyond the Holy Land.
Awards & Appointments
Kate Davison (PhD in History 2020, currently Lecturer in Queer History at Goldsmiths, University of London) has been appointed Lecturer in the History of Sexuality at the University of Edinburgh, commencing August 2022.
Robyn Sloggett (Grimwade Centre) was awarded the 2021 University Marles Medal in Humanities and Social Sciences for her interdisciplinary and cross-cultural research in arts conservation which has had a significant impact on the communities with whom she has collaborated. The Marles Medals were established in 2020 to complement the Woodward Medals.
Grimwade Conservation Services received the award for Outstanding Conservation Treatment of the Year, at the 2021 Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Material (AICCM) awards for the restoration of a pair of seventeenth-century wall maps, Asia Descripto Novissima and Archipelagus Orientalis, sive Asiaticus, by Dutch Master Cartographer Joan Blaeu (1596–1673). The maps, which are to be on semipermanent loan to MONA, Hobart, were purchased by the Wilson Family, who also funded the conservation. The project team was led by Libby Melzer, head of Paper Conservation at the Grimwade Centre. You can read more about the project on the Faculty of Arts news page and on the YouTube video below.
The initiative ‘Then and Now: Our Story in a Box’ has been awarded a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade/Council for Australia-Arab Relations grant. This project is designed to grow cross-cultural empathy between young people around the world through the process of object-inspired storytelling. Participants will be given the opportunity to share stories of special objects in their lives with peers in another country. The project is a continuation of the schools engagement work pioneered by Sharyn Volk (PhD in Classics & Archaeology, 2019) (@SharynVolk) during her time at the University of Melbourne and which Sharyn currently carries out through the not-for-profit organisation that she has founded, the Hands-on-Humanities Project. ‘Then and Now: Our Story in a Box’ will be presented in mid-February at the Australian pavilion at EXPO2020 Dubai.
Caroline Tully (Fellow, Classics & Archaeology) has accepted an invitation to become associate editor of the journal The Pomegranate. Pomegranate is the first international, peer-reviewed journal of Pagan studies. It provides a forum for papers, essays and symposia on both ancient and contemporary Pagan religious practices. The Pomegranate also publishes timely reviews of scholarly books in this growing field. Caroline Tully was guest editor on a special issue on ‘Pagans and Fashion’ and another forthcoming special issue on ‘Pagans and Heritage/Museums’.
Darius von Güttner (Principal Fellow, History) is part of a team that has been awarded a grant by the Polish Ministry of Education and Science to support the research project ‘Marriage in Medieval Poznan. Evidence from the Consistory Court in Poznań’ (Principal Investigator: Magdalena Biniaś-Szkopek, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań).
Research Higher Degree Completions
The following theses have successfully passed examination:
Josipa Mickova, ‘On the Relationship between the Infinite and Finite, and between Adequate and Inadequate Knowledge in Spinoza’s Philosophy’ (MA in Philosophy)
The relationship between substance and modes is an enduring problem in Spinoza studies. How this relationship is understood is consequential on all aspects of Spinoza’s tightly knit philosophical system. This thesis focuses on two problems downstream from this core issue, namely the relationship between the infinite and finite, and that between adequate and inadequate knowledge, both of which are also matters of ongoing debate. I propose new solutions to these problems that avoid the consequences of fatalism and escapism that, I suggest, are endemic in dominant solutions to these problems in the contemporary Anglo-American literature. The latter are characteristic of naturalising renderings of Spinoza’s system that, I suggest, level the ontological ground between substance and modes, thereby construing substance as a top-down force that determines modes. By contrast, I maintain an ontological distinction through a bottom-up model, on which substance becomes the determining ground that determines modes insofar as it enables them to be modes. My solution explains the relationship between substance and modes through Spinoza’s causal apparatus, which allows for these downstream problems to be reframed and thereby dissolved.
Supervisors: Dr Andrew Inkpin (SHAPS), Dr Knox Peden (SHAPS), Dr Joe Hughes (SCC).
Sakinah Munday, ‘Pragmatic Silencing’ (MA in Philosophy)
Philosophers have long theorised that we use our words not just to communicate ideas, but also to perform everyday actions known as ‘speech acts’. More recently, feminist philosophers have argued that speakers, particularly individuals from marginalised groups, might be systematically and unjustly prevented from performing certain speech acts. This idea has sparked a wealth of work in feminist philosophy of language, commonly referred to as the ‘silencing’ literature. Because the term ‘silencing’ is broad, and other terms are theoretically laden, I suggest we label the phenomenon ‘pragmatic silencing’.
The question of how we should conceive of this nuanced form of silencing is not yet settled. My goal is to contribute to this enquiry. Specifically, I explore two questions. First, what do we want to achieve with a concept like pragmatic silencing? That is, what are the political and social aims for implementing such a concept? Second, given these aims, how should the concept be constructed, and which (if any) theoretical tools are most apt for the job?
In answering these questions, I sketch how the notion of pragmatic silencing has the potential to radically challenge existing mainstream paradigms around ideas of language use and its value, paradigms that are often socially and politically detrimental to marginalised speakers. I then argue that, to realise this potential, we should not articulate pragmatic silencing through an intentionalist lens. Instead, I advocate for an amended conventionalist framework: our understanding of pragmatic silencing should account for the central role of social norms in constraining and enabling speech acts.
Supervisors: Associate Professor Laura Schroeter, Professor Greg Restall
Alisha Rajaratnam, ‘Disjunctivism, Perceptual Capacities and Our Point of View on the World’ (MA in Philosophy)
Negative Disjunctivism is a frequently misunderstood position. Disjunctivists of this stripe hold that all that can be said about the phenomenal character of a hallucination of an F is that it is introspectively indiscriminable from a veridical perception of an F to a subject (Martin 2004; 2006). Many take this account to be unsatisfying in that it fails to account for the sensory nature of hallucinations. What critics are missing is that introspective indiscriminability, when properly interpreted, characterises a subject’s apparent point of view which is sufficient for phenomenal consciousness. I argue that a positive claim can be derived from Martin’s (2006) position, that characterises a subject’s apparent perceptual ‘point of view’ which is sufficient for phenomenal consciousness. I argue that the notion of a ‘perceptual capacity’ can bolster Martin’s notion of a ‘point of view.’
The following are two constraints that a disjunctivist approach must adhere to:
Constraint 1: The indiscriminability of a hallucination from a veridical perception to a subject does not entail that the two share introspectable phenomenal properties in common.
Constraint 2: The phenomenal character of a hallucination must be characterised derivatively from a veridical perception.
I develop a proposal that utilises Schellenberg’s (2018) Perceptual Capacity Approach to specify a ‘point of view’ in terms of a subject exercising perceptual capacities to discriminate and single out. In doing so, I argue that my proposal meets constraint 1 & constraint 2, staying true to Disjunctivism.
Supervisors: Professor Howard Sankey, Associate Professor Laura Schroeter
Research Higher Degree Milestones
Thanos Matanis (MA candidate, Classics & Archaeology) delivered his MA completion seminar this month, on the topic ‘Beyond an Antagonistic Approach: The Role of Universalism in the Formation of Koine Culture’.
Classical scholarship has tended to emphasise dichotomies and polarity when addressing the topic of Greek/non-Greek relations in antiquity. This anachronistic paradigm however is insufficient for understanding the multidimensional nature of Greek/non-Greek interactions and exchange during the Hellenistic period. Rather, this thesis argues the dominant strategy adopted in cases of Greek/non-Greek interactions was both sides appealing to certain similarities and commonalities (universalism) that would allow diverse cultural traditions to bridge the gaps between them and overcome barriers to acculturation and exchange.
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