SHAPS Digest (March 2023)

Ángel Alcalde (History) discussed the 1938 Anschluss for the ABC’s Nightlife.

Bronwyn Beech Jones (PhD candidate, History), co-authored with Rachael Diprose (SSPS) and Ken MP Setiawan (Asia Institute) an article for Melbourne Asia Review on reversals in gender equity in rural Indonesia caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cordelia Fine (HPS) reviewed Hannah Barnes’ book The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Tavistock’s Gender Service for Children for the Times Literary Supplement.

Building on sands of ignorance

Tristan Grøtvedt Haze (Philosophy) discussed his book Meaning and Metaphysical Necessity on the New Books in Philosophy podcast. 

Holly Jones-Amin (Grimwade Conservation Services) discussed the restoration of Chinese processional dragon Loong in an article on the history of the Chinese-Australian community on SBS.

Max Kaiser (PhD in History, 2019) was interviewed by The New Books Network about his book, Jewish Antifascism and the False Promise of Settler Colonialism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022).

James Keating (Teaching Associate, History) (@Keating_JW) and Michelle Staff (ANU) reflected for Australian Policy and History on why the radical history of International Women’s Day receives so little attention today.

Ten-Herng Lai (Teaching Specialist, Philosophy) published an article, ‘Civil Disobedience, Costly Signals, and Leveraging Injustice‘, on Ergo Blog. 

Undergraduate student Andrew Lim published a short history of the Melbourne University Classics and Archaeology Student Society, exploring its ups and downs over the past two decades.

Mia Martin Hobbs (PhD in History, 2018; now a Research Fellow at Deakin University) wrote for The Conversation on the experiences of women and minority soldiers deployed in the invasion of Iraq.

Iain McIntyre (PhD in History, 2018), Paul M. Buhle and the Graphic History Collective published Mr. Block. The Subversive Comics and Writings of Ernest Riebe (Between the Lines Books), an anthology of the works of radical cartoonist Ernest Riebe. 

Andonis Piperoglou (Hellenic Senior Lecturer in Global Diasporas, History) featured on the SBS mini-podcast series In the Club. The series explores the past dynamics of ethnic clubs in Australia and what the future might hold for them.

 

Academic Publications

Rustam Alexander (PhD in History, 2018) (@rusxander), ‘AIDS/HIV and Homophobia in the USSR, 1983–90‘, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History (Winter 2023).

Building on previously unexplored sources, this article examines debates and discussions on AIDS in the Soviet press and official documents from 1983 to 1990, with a focus on homosexuality. It demonstrates that homophobia underpinned the Soviet government’s reluctance to deal with AIDS in the early 1980s and affected its responses to the epidemic in the mid-1980s. The article also argues that AIDS contributed to the visibility of homosexuality in perestroika-era press and that reactions to the issue shifted from overt homophobia to more compassionate and understanding discussions of Soviet homosexuals’ predicament during the period in question. 

Oleg Beyda (Hansen Lecturer in Russian History) and Xosé M. Núnez Seixas, ‘”Defeat, Victory, Repeat:” Russian Emigres between the Spanish Civil War and Operation Barbarossa, 1936–1944′, Contemporary European History 

Tens of thousands of White Russians were forced to leave their country after 1920. Many of them were career officers and soldiers imbued with anti-communism, who were then hired by diverse armies. They acted as transnational soldiers of the counter-revolution during the interwar period. This article analyses the trajectory of some dozens of them, who volunteered for the Francoist army in 1936–38 during the Spanish Civil War. Afterwards, many of them joined the ranks of the Spanish ‘Blue Division’ as interpreters to take part in the invasion of their home country by the Germans. Their experience as occupiers was highly ambiguous and oscillated between disappointment and nostalgia once they perceived that the objective of the invasion was not to liberate Russia from communism, but to enslave the country and its inhabitants. However, once they returned to Spain, they cultivated a hero myth of their past experience and regarded themselves as winners.

Cancy Chu and Caitlin Knight, ‘Everyday Books: An Introduction to Short Run Commercial Bindings in Early Twenty-First Century Australia’, AICCM Bulletin

Since the turn of the nineteenth century, Australian binders have produced books to serve local publishers, businesses, and individual consumers. Over the past two centuries, the printing and binding industry has grown in response to changes in technology and customer demand to suit the present day Australian context. A consumer can now choose products ranging from traditional fine-binding styles to online instant print-and-bind services. Increasingly, collections of bound materials reflect the diversity of available binding styles and products. This paper aims to aid collection care professionals in the care and understanding of contemporary book bindings in early twenty-first century Australia. In contrast to existing literature on fine bindings and mass market book production, this paper examines short run commercial bindings. Drawing from historical sources and professional experience working in local binderies, the context of these cost-effective bindings is described. An outline of the materials and methods found in a selection of popular styles, namely perfect, case, and wire bindings, is provided, with reference to sources from manufacturers and suppliers. Conservation issues associated with contemporary commercial bindings are detailed, highlighting problems related to non-archival adhesives, plastics, and physical structures. Recommendations are made on how to best care for these increasingly prevalent bindings.

Ashleigh Green (PhD in Classics & Archaeology, 2020), Birds in Roman Life and Myth (Routledge, 2023).

Thomas Kehoe (Honorary, History) edited, together with Vicky Nagy (UTAS), a special issue of the International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy. The time has never been more appropriate than now for a discussion about the integration of history and criminology in Australia and New Zealand. Throughout 2020 and 2021, the people of both countries were subject to extraordinary government interventions into their daily lives to control the spread of the novel coronavirus. Given a respiratory pandemic of the same scale had not occurred for 100 years, we watched in real time as policymakers fumbled for guidance for the benefits and likely social consequences of imposing police-enforced legal restrictions on otherwise normal behaviours like freedom of movement and gathering with friends. Whether these were ultimately the correct decisions for controlling the disease is perhaps a question for others. Indeed, analysis of the interactions between the public and the state have always been the purview of criminologists and historians, yet we ceded this ground to epidemiologists who have little expertise in key issues of criminalisation and offending, or justice and policing, which are central to any system of state control.

The latest issue of Melbourne Historical Journal was launched this month. A peer-reviewed post-graduate history journal, MHJ is the oldest student-run academic journal in Australia. 

The issue features:

• an editorial by MHJ collective members Simon Farley, Thea Gardiner, Catherine Gay, James Hogg, and Jonathan Tehusijarana;
• a tribute to Stuart Macintyre by Joel Barnes;
• Bronwen Douglas‘s 2020 Greg Dening Memorial Lecture, ‘Encounters, Agency, and Race in Oceania’.
• an article by Thea Gardiner, ‘The Changing Commemorative Landscape during the Australian Interwar Period. The “Pioneer Woman Citizen” Joins the “Citizen Soldier”‘;
• an article by James Hogg, ‘Green Bans Forever: The Public and the Press in the 1970s Sydney Green Ban Movement’;
• a review essay by Catherine Fist, ‘Set in Stone? Physical Memorials to Frontier Violence in Australia’;
• book reviews by Jack Norris; Simon Farley; James Hogg; and Catherine Gay.

Awards

Madaline Harris-Schober (PhD candidate, Classics & Archaeology) has won the 2023 Sean W Dever Memorial Prize for the best paper presented at a conference by a PhD candidate in Syro-Palestinian or Biblical Archaeology. Maddi won the prize for her paper, ‘The Mystery of “Shrine 22”: A Philistine Ritual Space from the Early Iron Age’, presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR) in Boston, MA in 2022. The prize is awarded by the William F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem.

A proposal to create an Open Science Atlas was one of four projects shortlisted for the prestigious Einstein Foundation Awards (Early Career category). The team consists of Fallon Mody (History & Philosophy of Science), Tom Hardwicke (Melbourne School of Psychology), as well as Robert Thibault and Stylianos Serghiou (both from Stanford University). The Open Science Atlas project is aimed at promoting transparent methods in health research and establishing continuous monitoring of transparency standards using crowdsourcing and algorithms.

The Open Science Atlas

 

PhD completions

Gordon Dadswell, ‘Working Wood: The State, Wood Science and Industry, Australia, 1918–1949’ (PhD in History and Philosophy of Science, 2023)

This study identified the role of three national forest products laboratories and their relationship with other government agencies and specifically, to the Australian timber industry. The laboratories were established with several objectives, including to reduce the importation of timber, develop industry strategies for the use of Australian timbers, identify the properties of Australian woods and minimise problems for the timber industry. A further aim was to implement ‘national efficiency’ (discussed below). The work of the laboratories was based on a common theme: to encourage industries to understand that by using Australian timber, they would help both the nation and their businesses. A major objective of this thesis is to address the ‘doing’ of science in laboratories in conjunction with industry and government.

Archives from Australia and the United Kingdom were used. Not all of the archives had been opened which suggested that the thesis filled a gap in the history of the Australian wood science. Libraries were also used in Australia and the United Kingdom. A further methodology identified a ‘Triple helix’ between research, industry and government, which focused on collaboration between three organisations whose goals were to conduct research, to develop research outcomes and increase National efficiency. Archival material exposed the frequency of communications between the laboratories and the secondary timber industry. Six stories provided a broad perspective of the research conducted by the laboratories. Time frames of each chapters partially overlapped. The subjects connected across time, and provided depth to the thesis. Using the helix as the framework, the relationship between the laboratories, industry and the national science organisations was identified as collaboration, conflict, innovation, knowledge transfer and networking.

Supervisors: Dr James Bradley, Professor Mike Arnold

Research Higher Degree Milestones

PhD completion seminars:

Madaline Harris-Schober (PhD candidate, Classics & Archaeology, SHAPS, University of Melbourne / Ludwig Maximillian Universität München), ‘Ritual Architecture, Material Culture and Practice of the Philistines’

The Philistines have long been an elusive group of seafarers who appear in the Southern Levant ca. 1200 BCE. This study focuses on the identification of ritual and cult-related architecture, material finds and practices of the Philistines and their neighbours through the application of comparative analysis and a reassessment of legacy data. The archaeological dataset of the Philistines is rich and important, allowing for a multi-scaled perspective and understanding of migrant group(s) becoming entangled in indigenous populations and undergoing subtle cultural transformation. This research aims to present a new way of viewing the ritual architecture of Philistia and the wider Eastern Mediterranean.

This talk presents the argument that misogyny should be conceptualised as the social, physical and economic penalties towards women that enforce a hierarchical gender order. Consistent with this account, this PhD research project has found that Twitter misogyny towards Hillary Clinton increased after her 2016 presidential campaign announcement, when she threatened male political dominance. It also found evidence that the motivation to uphold hierarchies predicts more lenient reactions to sexual harassment and assault, and may be implicated in motivated reasoning when evaluating allegations of these misogynistic behaviours. It presents the conclusion that theorising misogyny as a form of hierarchy maintenance is a fruitful approach that sheds light on what exacerbates misogyny, and varying reactions to it.

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Feature image: The return to face-to-face learning on campus this semester has enabled us to take advantage of the cultural and intellectual institutions on campus to enrich teaching and learning. Students taking the subject ‘Gender in History’ (HIST20090) have been visiting the Break the Binaries Exhibit, currently on at the University of Melbourne Science Gallery, to reflect on how the exhibits explore and engage with major themes of the course and to generate ideas for their independent research essays.