SHAPS Digest (November 2024)

Ronak Alburz and Gijs Tol‘s recent research on the iconography of the Cortona lamp gained international attention this year. Their research offers a novel interpretation of the enigmatic iconography on the Etruscan bronze lamp of Cortona by revealing that the key figure depicted had been misidentified until now. This provides new evidence for the previously unrecognised presence of the Dionysian cult in Archaic Etruria. Ronak Alburz was interviewed about the lamp by Archaeology Magazine, and their findings were also recently featured in World Archaeology Magazine.

Angel Alcalde (History) was interviewed by SBS on whether the label ‘fascist’ was applicable to Donald Trump.

Liam Byrne (Honorary Fellow, History) published an article in Pursuit on the historical roots of reactionary mobilisation in the United States.

Matthew Champion (History) was named in The Australian’s list of the country’s top 250 researchers.

A recording of a talk by Paige Donaghy (History), ‘After Birth: A History of the Placenta in European Medicine, 1550-1750’, recently delivered to the HPS Seminar series, is now available online.

Simon Farley (History) has launched a new blog and newsletter, ‘Lunn’s Backyard Diary‘. They aim to capture the whimsical spirit of early twentieth-century nature writing and enhance it with cutting-edge concepts from the environmental humanities. The first post looks at the sacred kingfishers of Melbourne’s Merri Creek, exploring ideas surrounding ecological restoration and more-than-human resilience.

Catherine Gay (PhD in History, 2024) was among the speakers at a History Council of Victoria event, Making Public Histories seminar, ‘Histories of Australian Childhood’. How do historians investigate and recover the lives, experiences and perspectives of children in the past? How have understandings and experiences of Australian childhood changed over time? And how and why have understandings of the rights, roles and responsibilities of children changed?

HPS Podcast published new episodes featuring:

Kerstin Knight‘s (History & Philosophy of Science) presentation ‘A Good Death at Any Age: The Role of Medicine in Managing Death as a Social Event’, delivered as a Medical Humanities Research Lab talk, is now available online.

Marilyn Lake (Professorial Fellow, History) reviewed Nancy Pelosi’s memoir, The Art of Power: My Story as America’s First Woman Speaker of the House, for the Australian Book Review podcast.

David Palmer (Honorary Fellow, History) was interviewed by the Economist (behind paywall) on the Sado gold mine and its significance for the past and present of Japan’s relations with South Korea.

Martyn Pickersgill (University of Edinburgh) launched the Medical Humanities Research Lab with a talk on ‘Exploring the Historical and Social Life of Psychiatric Diagnosis’.

Konstantine Panegyres (McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow, Classics & Archaeology) published an article in Pursuit on ancient Greek and Roman perspectives on longevity and good health.

Iryna Skubii (Mykola Zerov Fellow in Ukrainian Studies, History) was interviewed by Mynizhyn.com (in Ukrainian) on the impact of the 1932-33 famine in Soviet Ukraine, the Holomodor, on Ukrainian society, to mark Holodomor Remembrance Day (23 November).

Frederik Juliaan Vervaet (Classics & Archaeology) published an article in the Conversation on the Gallic tribes of central Europe and the difficulties they posed for Rome.

Tony Ward (Honorary Fellow, History) discussed the proposed ban on social media for under 16 year olds. Considering the evidence on misinformation and social polarisation, he argued that the influence of more traditional media on older age groups was a more important concern.

Appointments & Awards

We are delighted to announce that the following fixed-term staff have been converted to continuing roles:

  • Rose Barrett (Laboratory Coordinator, Grimwade Centre)
  • Bronwyn Beech Jones (Assistant Lecturer, History)
  • Oleg Beyda (Lecturer, History)
  • Martin Bush (Senior Lecturer, History and Philosophy of Science)
  • James Keating (Assistant Lecturer, History)
  • Gaetana Pellegrini (Assistant Lecturer, Classics and Archaeology)

Congratulations are also due to staff members recently promoted to Associate Professor:

  • Kristian Camilleri (HPS)
  • Matthew Champion (History)
  • Brent Davis (Classics & Archaeology)
  • Darrin Durant (HPS)

Mike Arnold (HPS) and Hannah Gould (HPS/Buddhist Studies) and their team have been successful in their application for an ARC Discovery Project grant to support their research project, ‘Do-It-Yourself Commemoration of the Dead’.

This project aims to investigate the emergence of contemporary do-it-yourself commemorative practices that are reshaping how people care for and mourn the dead in Australia. The impacts of these self-organised rituals that are increasingly occurring outside of traditional institutions are profoundly significant but poorly understood. Through a grounded interdisciplinary study, this research will produce critical insights and knowledge about how diverse groups are navigating choices at the end of life. The work aims to benefit individuals, communities, professionals, and policymakers by empowering personal expression and advancing sustainability and governance associated with the care of the dead in Australia.

Jacobin Bosman (PhD candidate, History) received honourable mention from the judges for the Australian Queer Archives Thesis prize, for his Honours thesis on sodomy trials in Victoria’s colonial press, 1859-1869.

Matthew Champion (History) has secured an ARC Discovery Project grant with his team on “The History of the Hourglass: Temporalities, Material Culture and Science”. 

This project seeks to write the first history of the hourglass from its origins c.1300 through to its global circulation in the sixteenth century. The most precise time-measurement device of its era, the hourglass changed the course of history through its role in maritime travel, scientific experiments and everyday time management. It transformed time into a silent, interior flow crucial to a wide range of cultural projects: in Cairo classrooms or alchemical labs; in the cook’s kitchen or preacher’s pulpit. Alongside its critical intervention in the history of time, the project seeks to pioneer new scientific methods for analysing these fragile objects, with major benefits for their conservation in Australian and international collections.

Cat Gay (PhD in History, 2024) has been appointed Assistant Curator in the Australian War Memorial’s Gallery Development program, working on new galleries that cover contemporary conflicts and peacekeeping missions from the last 30 years.

Andy May (History) and Tom Kehoe (Honorary Fellow, History) have been awarded an Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia Workshops Program grant to host an interdisciplinary workshop ‘Cancer Culture: Changing Behaviour to Improve Public Health’.

Tim Parkin (Classics & Archaeology) has been elected to Fellowship of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. The announcement noted that this is the highest honour within the humanities in Australia, and described Prof. Parkin’s accomplishments as ‘a leading Roman social historian with a distinguished international reputation for his path-breaking work on the Roman life cycle and especially on Roman attitudes towards, and their treatment of, the elderly.’

Lucilla Ronai (Cultural Materials Conservation) has been elected the new Secretary of the Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Material.

Academic Publications

Santilla Chingaipe, Black Convicts: How Slavery Shaped Australia (Scribner Australia, 2024)

The story of Australia’s Black convicts has been all but erased from our history. In recovering their lives, Santilla Chingaipe offers a fresh understanding of this fatal shore, showing how empire, slavery, race and memory have shaped our nation.

On the First Fleet of 1788, at least 15 convicts were of African descent. By 1840 the number had risen to almost 500. Among them were David Stuurman, a revered South African chief transported for anti-colonial insurrection; John Caesar, who became Australia’s first bushranger; Billy Blue, the stylishly dressed ferryman who gave his name to Sydney’s Blues Point; and William Cuffay, a prominent London Chartist who led the development of Australia’s labour movement. Two of the youngest were cousins from Mauritius—girls aged just 9 and 12—sentenced over a failed attempt to poison their mistress.

But although some of these lives were documented and their likenesses hang in places like the National Portrait Gallery, even their descendants are often unaware of their existence.

By uncovering lives whitewashed out of our history, in stories spanning Africa, the Americas and Europe, Black Convicts also traces Australia’s hidden links to slavery, which both powered the British Empire and inspired the convict system itself. Situating European settlement in its global context, Chingaipe shows that the injustice of dispossession was driven by the engine of labour exploitation. Black Convicts will change the way we think about who we are.

Santilla Chingaipe is a filmmaker, historian and author, whose work explores settler colonialism, slavery, and postcolonial migration in Australia. Chingaipe’s critically acclaimed and award-winning documentary Our African Roots is streaming on SBS On Demand; Black Convicts builds on the research for that, taking it further. Santilla is currently also a PhD candidate in History.

Cordelia Fine (HPS), jointly with students from the undergraduate subject ‘Sex and Gender in the Sciences’ (HPSC20023), letter to the editors, Uncertainty of Adolescent Brain Maturation Sex Difference Claims, PNAS

This letter responds to claims regarding the differences in how pandemic experiences affected female and male adolescent brain maturation.

David Palmer (Honorary Fellow, History), From Mitsubishi’s Sado Mine to Mitsui’s Miike Mine: Stop Censoring Forced Labor History, Northeast Asian History Foundation Conference Proceedings.

Advances have been made in recent decades to uncover the history of Korean forced mobilization and forced labor during World War II under Japan’s colonial occupation. But UNESCO’s vote for Japan’s nomination for World Heritage inscription of Sado Mines without a clear acknowledgment of Koreans as forced laborers there appears to have stalled this progress. This latest development, however, is part of a long history of censoring forced labor history under Imperial Japan that spans eight decades. Initially this involved Japan’s military government destroying documents in 1945. Then hiding documents became the rule. In recent decades censorship has taken on new forms, first through denying the presence of Koreans, then accepting Korean presence in wartime Japan but denying forced mobilization and forced labor, and most recently by accepting that Koreans were “forced to work” but marginalizing their history in Japan or distorting it.

Breaking through this censorship requires increasing public awareness in Japan and internationally of Korea’s long history as an independent nation, its subjugation under Japanese colonial rule, and its struggle for democracy and independence. Secondly, the issue of Korean forced labor must be linked to the broader issue of international human rights and the rights of workers. The history of Allied POW forced labor and Chinese and other Asian people subjected to Japan’s fascist forced labor system needs to be understood – internationally – as connected to Korean forced labor history.

David Palmer (Honorary Fellow, History) reviewed Akihiro Ogawa’s Antinuclear Citizens: Sustainability Policy and Grassroots Activism in Post-Fukushima Japan (2023) for the Journal of Peace Education.

Howard Sankey (Philosophy), Sellars, Quine and Epistemic Naturalism, Global Philosophy.

Wilfrid Sellars suggested that the project of philosophy is a synoptic one. In this essay, Howard Sankey reflects upon this suggestion and brings it into contact with some ideas found in the work of Willard van Orman Quine as well as with later work in the naturalistic tradition inspired by Quine. The result is a naturalistic conception of philosophy that he develops with specific reference to epistemology.

Gijs Tol (Classics & Archaeology) et al., Production Technology and Trade of 4th-Century BC Cooking Jars from the Pontine Region in Southern Lazio (Italy), Rei Cretariae Romanae Fautorum Acta

Previous research conducted as part of the Pontine Region Project in southern Lazio has indicated that 4th-1st centuries BC cooking jars from the low-lying central part of this region were obtained through regional and supra-regional trade networks. Building upon this, the present paper examined cooking jars from three micro-regions of the Pontine region, i.e., the coastal area, the central plain and the foothills of the Lepini Mountains respectively, to reconstruct their production technology and trade networks. The results indicate that the cooking jars from the three micro-regions occur in six compositions; four seem to have been imported from production areas either from the north (e.g., Rome and Tiber Valley) or from the south (e.g., Bay of Naples), while two compositions might have been produced in the Pontine region itself. Possible changes in the relative supply of cooking jars are traced, and different supply routes to and within the three micro-regions are proposed.

Caroline Tully (Honorary Fellow, Classics & Archaeology), ‘Against Nature: Tree-Shaking Action in Minoan Glyptic Art as Agonistic Behaviour’, in Ute Günkel-Maschek et al. (eds), Gesture, Stance, and Movement: Communicating Bodies in the Aegean Bronze Age (Heidelberg: Propylaeum, 2024)

Minoan gold signet-rings are well-known for their depiction of ritual events. Thirty-one ring images depict ritual scenes in which human figures interact with trees. The majority of figures approach the trees in a calm and seemingly reverential manner; however, eight examples depict the ritual participant clasping and vigorously shaking the tree. These appear on gold rings from Knossos, Archanes, Kalyvia, and Poros on Crete (LM I B–III); Vapheio and Mycenae on mainland Greece (LH II–III); as well as an unprovenanced stone seal in New York. The figures all display a particular body posture: standing with bent knees, sometimes bearing their weight on one leg at the front, while their back leg is both extended and supplying thrust, or kicked back and upwards. The pose is suggestive of active movement and is also seen in glyptic depictions of agonistic scenes such as warrior combat, boxing, weapon use, men in combat with real and supernatural animals, bull-leaping, running, men striding with captured women in tow, and hybrid figures such as minotaurs, bird-men and -women. These iconographic parallels suggest that the tree-shaking pose indicates a coercive or even violent activity. These scenes may depict the attempt to ritually control the natural world through aggression and domination, and to promote the idea that the elite owners of the rings were supremely capable of establishing and maintaining order.

Frederik Vervaet‘s book, Reform, Revolution, Reaction: A Short History of Rome from the Origins of the Social War to the Dictatorship of Sulla (Prensad de la Universidad de Zaragoza, 2023) was reviewed in Bryn Mawr Classical Review. The reviewer, Juan Garcia González (Universitat de Girona), commented that: ‘Frederik Vervaet’s new book in the collection Libera Res Publica addresses one of the most challenging periods to analyse in Roman history: the years spanning the Social War and the dictatorship of Sulla (91-79 BCE), a task that the scholar has undertaken with the accuracy and mastery that characterize his other works….  The book is well written, offering insightful research and fresh interpretations that will attract anyone interested in the period, since Vervaet adeptly engages with current debates and consistently presents novel readings of the historical events and developments explored throughout the volume.’

PhD completion

Daniel Rule (PhD in History, 2024) The Political Life of John Latham

This thesis is a biographical study of the political life of Sir John Latham, the Australian politician and judge, covering his pre-Parliamentary life, as well as his political and judicial careers. It focuses especially on the origins, nature and impact of his free-trader liberalism and cultural puritanism, and shows how such views affected Australian politics through the first half of the twentieth century. In doing so it attempts to trace the contours, continuities and transformation of non-Labor politics during those decades. Latham inherited his worldview both from his father and the broader Victorian milieu, and these influenced his approach to politics and the law for the rest of his working life. His cultural puritan ideas on statesmanship led to him helping to topple Billy Hughes as Prime Minister in 1923, while his free-trader liberalism drove his actions as both Attorney-General and Leader of the Opposition in the late 1920s and early 1930s. This establishes the ongoing importance of free-trader liberalism during these years.

Challenging earlier accounts, this thesis shows that Latham was not responsible for some of the major policies taken in the industrial relations sphere for which he has traditionally been blamed. Rather, it was Prime Minister Stanley Bruce who unilaterally made those decisions. It also shows that Latham was a more successful Leader of the Opposition that has been recognised, and that he was forced to step aside due to his perceived unpopularity. His early ideological development and his time in politics also had an impact on his tenure as Chief Justice of the High Court. His experience as a powerful Deputy Prime Minister partly helps explain his irregular actions in providing advice to politicians from the bench. Furthermore, his devotion to cultural puritanism also shaped his legalistic approach to judgment-making, which led him to support, at times, judicial outcomes which diverged significantly from his political principles.

Supervisors: Prof. Sean Scalmer, Assoc. Prof. Tanya Josev (Melbourne Law School), the late Emeritus Professor Stuart Macintyre

MA Completions

Daniel Crowley (MA in Classics), Herodotus’ Mirror: Unpacking the Purpose of the Plupast

This thesis is a narratological analysis of the ‘plupast’ in Herodotus’ Histories. The plupast is a narrative technique where a historian embeds historical stories within their overall work of history. Most commonly, this happens when a character recounts an earlier historical event. For instance, in Book 5 of the Histories, Socles recounts stories about the Corinthian tyrants Cypselus and Periander during a meeting of Greek allies. The plupast is a meta technique, in that the historian is embedding a version of their own text within the text itself. Accordingly, it is commonly thought that a historian like Herodotus is making some kind of ‘metahistorical’ association between himself and his plupast narrators. By analysing how Herodotus frames the plupast, we can thus infer how he conceived of the nature, purpose and value of his own discipline.

This thesis challenges scholarship by Jonas Grethlein, Emily Baragwanath and Deborah Boedeker, who have all analysed Herodotus’ use of the plupast. The orthodox view of these scholars is that Herodotus tends to emphasise the problematic aspects of his characters’ plupast recollections. Thus, these characters act as metahistorical foils, accentuating the strengths of Herodotus’ historiographical method. Through close analysis of each of Herodotus’ 11 plupast episodes, I argue that this conclusion needs to be revisited. In 2 notable instances, Herodotus paints plupast narrators in a decidedly positive light, highlighting their tremendous rhetorical success. Elsewhere, the plupast functions as a more straightforward dramatic technique, helping Herodotus convey the tension, irony, or suspense that a particular scene requires. In one final instance, the plupast allows Herodotus to make a wider point about how and why historical consciousness is formed. Ultimately then, I set out a new, more multi-faceted interpretation of the plupast than existing scholarship has provided.

Supervisors: Prof. Hyun Jin Kim, Assoc. Prof. James H. K. O. Chong-Gossard

Leo Palmer (MA in Classics), Athenian Democracy in Context

The birth of democracy in Greece, and indeed the world, is often dated to the reforms of Cleisthenes the Athenian in the late sixth century, or at the very latest, to the reforms of Pericles and Ephialtes in mid-fifth-century Athens. However, such claims rely on anachronistic notions of ‘democracy’ since there were vast differences between ancient Athenian society and our modern conceptions of consensual government and political rights. This thesis argues that classical Athens in the sixth and fifth centuries, right through the so-called ‘golden age’ of Pericles’ leadership, had yet to become a fully-fledged demokratia. Instead, like its Peloponnesian rival Sparta, Athens’ political system at this time more closely resembled a complex mixture of monarchy, tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy, with elite aristocratic factions led by Pericles firmly at the helm. An analysis of contemporary definitions of demokratia and related terms reveals that it was a highly elastic concept, often more closely intertwined with religion, mythology, and tradition, than with political ideals in the modern sense. Institutions of Athenian government were highly prone to elite manipulation, with many key democratic reforms affecting the council, assembly, and the law courts not taking place until the fourth century.

A re-evaluation of the contrasts which are typically made between Athens and Sparta suggests that both city-states shared more common features than distinctive ones. Athens’ social structure and domination of allies reflected Sparta’s oligarchic political structure, albeit on a larger scale. While a large population of metics (foreign residents and freed slaves) at Athens remained disenfranchised, Sparta’s non-citizen population (perioikoi) enjoyed a considerable degree of autonomy. Although the reforms of Cleisthenes in 508/7 brought the regional population of Attica into the citizen population of Athens, similar citizenship grants were used by sixth-century tyrants as means of shoring up support for their own factional power base. Altogether, these findings should prompt us to reconsider the extent to which democracy was a unique and revolutionary development of classical Athens. Athenian democracy developed instead through a gradual evolution, influenced by broader regional shifts from monarchy to elite-led regimes.

Supervisors: Prof. Hyun Jin Kim, Assoc. Prof. James H. K. O. Chong-Gossard

Other happenings

Over 30 staff, postgraduates and undergraduates from SHAPS and SCC gathered on 6 November to take part in the Palaeography Day workshop, coordinated by Sarah Corrigan (Classics & Archaeology). The day began with a viewing of manuscripts and papyri from the University of Melbourne Art Collection in the Object Based Learning Labs. Presentations were given by numerous staff members on Greek and Latin scripts from the first century to the eighteenth, and participants worked on transcribing texts from sample folios. Participants also had a wonderful time using calligraphy markers, dip pens, and ink to reproduce scripts from different periods and decorate ornate initials. Huge thank you to SHAPS and the Faculty of Arts for supporting this very successful inter-disciplinary event!

SHAPS staff, fellows, students, alumni: if you have news items for the monthly SHAPS digest, email us the details.

Feature image: Terence, Fabulae, ‘Comedies’, with commentary by Donatus. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, manuscrit latin 7899, folio 6r. 9th c., France (Reims?). Caroline minuscule.