Category: History
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Introducing Hansen PhD Scholar Patrick Gigacz
The Hansen Trust, established to advance the study of History at University of Melbourne, includes an annual PhD scholarship for the doctoral program in History in SHAPS. In 2024 the scholarship was awarded to Patrick Gigacz, who is researching the cultural history of electricity in Melbourne. Fellow PhD candidate Jesse Seeberg-Gordon sat down with Patrick for a conversation […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2024/11/19/introducing-hansen-phd-scholar-patrick-gigacz
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Remembering June Factor (1936–2024)
Dr June Factor AM was a distinguished social historian who pioneered the study of children’s folklore in Australia and played an active role in public life, including as president of the Victorian Council for Civil Liberties (now Liberty Victoria), Friends of the ABC and the Australian Jewish Democratic Society. June’s work was an important influence […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2024/10/29/remembering-june-factor-1936-2024
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Jewish Women in Nineteenth-Century France
A new book by Dr Helen M. Davies (Honorary Fellow, History) explores the lives of two remarkable Jewish women in nineteenth-century France. The book sheds light on gender, family, and Jewish experiences in France, from the Napoleonic period through to the Dreyfus Affair. This adapted excerpt introduces the book’s main themes. My book, Herminie and […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2024/10/17/jewish-women-in-nineteenth-century-france
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Does History Have Lessons for the Future?
Roman Krznaric looks to the past to discover the rules for radical hope in his new book, History for Tomorrow. In his review of the book from The Conversation, Emeritus Professor Peter McPhee reflects on Krznaric’s work and on whether the past can provide answers to present and future questions. Answers to the question about the […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2024/09/09/does-history-have-lessons-for-the-future
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Shaping Australian Art & Identity: The Lindsays
Most Australians have heard of Norman Lindsay’s fantastical children’s book The Magic Pudding (1918). Norman was one of ten talented siblings, many of whom became internationally renowned artists and writers during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Lindsays were one of most culturally influential middle-class families in Australian history. SHAPS PhD Candidates Cat […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2024/08/21/shaping-australian-art-identity-the-lindsays
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Sweet Home, Chicago: The Democratic Convention 1968
In this new article, republished from The Conversation prior to the Chicago Democratic Convention on 19-22 August, Liam Byrne (Honorary in History), together with Emma Shortis, RMIT University, reflected on this event in the context of its past, particularly the “traumatic” one of 1968, held in the same city. Democratic Party delegates from across the […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2024/08/20/sweet-home-chicago-the-democratic-convention-1968
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The Decameron: Medieval Lockdown Project or “Wine-Soaked Sex Romp”?
Boccaccio’s fourteenth-century masterpiece, now a Netflix series, shows the universality of human responses to a pandemic (along with some sex). SHAPS’s Catherine Kovesi (History) explores The Decameron in this article, first published on Pursuit. For anyone versed in medieval European history, the new Netflix adaptation of a 700-year-old story about a group of noble youths seems […] -
Bronwyn Beech Jones
Bronwyn Beech Jones (PhD in History, 2024), Textual Worlds: Rethinking Self, Community, and Activism in Colonial-Era Sumatran Women’s Newspaper Archives This thesis examines how women and girls from the island of Sumatra articulated their experiences and conceived of their selves, communities, and aspirations in three Malay language women’s periodicals published between 1912 and 1929. By […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2024/07/11/bronwyn-beech-jones
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Melbourne History Workshop
Melbourne History Workshop is a studio-based research collaboratory in the History Program at the University of Melbourne under the direction of Professor Andrew May. It taps the pooled expertise of staff, research higher degree students and affiliates in order to provide innovative and rigorously-applied historical research, postgraduate training, industry collaboration and community-facing projects. The Workshop’s […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2024/07/05/melbourne-history-workshop
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Can Keir Starmer’s Future Vision Return UK Labour to Power?
In anticipation of the UK general election on Thursday July 5, SHAPS Honorary Liam Byrne considered Keir Starmer’s vision for the future and compared it to that of Tony Blair’s campaign nearly 30 years previously in this article, republished from The Conversation. When British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the UK general election outside 10 […] -
Revisiting Normandy: D-Day At Eighty
6 June 2024 marked the 80th anniversary of the Allied D-Day landings at Normandy. In this article History PhD candidate Felicity Hodgson shares some of her work on American women war correspondents who covered this and other campaigns of the Second World War. Through an examination of their newspaper reportage, Felicity shows how their insightful […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2024/06/11/revisiting-normandy-d-day-at-eighty
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Preserving Precious Ukrainian Heritage in Melbourne
The Ukrainian Museum of Australia is an entirely volunteer-run community organisation housed at the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral in North Melbourne. The Museum holds a remarkable collection of objects, including rare books, folk and religious art, craft and textiles. The Museum’s large collection of traditional embroidered items poses special challenges when it comes to preservation and […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2024/05/24/preserving-precious-ukrainian-heritage-in-melbourne
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1968 was an Inflection Point for the US. Is Another Coming in 2024?
Among the global protest movements of 1968, in the United States multiple events represented an inflection point in the country’s history. These included the assassinations of Dr Martin Luther King Jr and Robert F Kennedy, mass protests in support of the Civil Rights Movement and against the Vietnam War, and a Presidential election. In this […] -
Simon Farley
Simon Farley (PhD in History, 2024) “Alien Hordes”: A Cultural History of Non-Native Birds in Australia From 1788, settlers introduced a host of organisms to the Australian continent. They did so largely deliberately, with high hopes, and often viewed these species with immense fondness. Yet now many of these species are labelled ‘invasive’ and killed […] -
Laura Jocic
Laura Jocic (PhD in History, 2024) Dress in Australia: The Materiality of a Colonial Society in the Making -
Elizabeth Muldoon
Elizabeth Muldoon (PhD in History, 2024) Learning History with the Founding Foremothers of the Redfern Black Movementblogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2024/05/08/elizabeth-muldoon
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“Too Many Aboriginal Babies”: Australia’s Secret History of Aboriginal Population Control in the 1960s
In this article republished from The Conversation, SHAPS’s Dr Julia Hurst, together with Dr Laura Rademaker (Australian National University) and Professor Jakelin Troy, (University of Sydney), discuss eugenics policy directed at the reproductive rights of First Nations Australians in the second half of the twentieth century, a period often celebrated as a time of increasing […] -
Meet Hansen PhD Scholar Seth McKellar
The Hansen Trust, established to advance the study of History at University of Melbourne, includes an annual PhD scholarship to the doctoral program in History in SHAPS. In 2023 the scholarship was awarded to Seth McKellar, who is investigating the history of transness and gender deviance. Tell us about your PhD project My research lies at the intersection […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2024/04/03/meet-hansen-phd-scholar-seth-mckellar
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We’ve Taken Smoking From ‘Normal’ to ‘Uncommon’ and We can do the Same with Vaping
Thomas Kehoe (Honorary, History; Cancer Council, Victoria), together with Carolyn Holbrook (Deakin) recently wrote on the history of anti-smoking campaigns in Australia, the effects of those campaigns on smoking rates, and how we can learn from these when it comes to quickly increasing vaping rates, in this article republished from The Conversation. Vaping is a […] -
‘The 1’: Something’s Been Forgotten in the Kanye-Taylor Feud
Ahead of Taylor Swift’s Australian tour, in this article republished from Pursuit, SHAPS History Lecturer Dr Sarah Walsh talks about the drama with another celebrity, Kanye West, that occurred almost 15 years ago, and some of the nuance that has been lost in the discussion over time. Before I weigh in on exactly what happened […] -
Celebrating Student Successes in History & Ancient World Studies
As the year draws to a close, we look back on the achievements of our students, awarded prizes in 2021 for their outstanding work in History and Ancient World studies. Winner of the 2021 Gyles Turner Prize, Maya Del Rio Reddan The Gyles Turner Prize is awarded annually for an undergraduate essay in Australian history. […] -
Introducing Dr Pete Millwood, Lecturer in East Asian History
We are delighted to welcome Dr Pete Millwood, who recently joined SHAPS as our newly appointed Lecturer in East Asian History. Dr Millwood is a historian of the Chinese world’s international and transnational relations, especially with the United States. He obtained his doctorate in History at St Antony’s College, Oxford, in 2018, and has held […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2023/12/15/introducing-dr-pete-millwood
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Ridley Scott: Historians Need to ‘Get a Life’
Napoleon director Ridley Scott is calling on us historians to “get a life” – and he has a point. Art is about more than historical facts. SHAPS Emeritus Professor Peter McPhee discusses the movie and the director’s stance in this article, republished from The Conversation. The release of Napoleon unleashed a torrent of objections to […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2023/12/06/ridley-scott-historians-need-to-get-a-life
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Annual Fellows’ Research Day
On 21 July 2023, the SHAPS Fellows & Friends of History held the annual Fellows’ Research Day. Fay Woodhouse wrote an overview of the day for Forum, discussing the speakers and their topics, as well as other enjoyable aspects of the day. The Annual SHAPS Fellows’ Research Day, held on a predictably cold Melbourne morning […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2023/11/13/annual-fellows-research-day
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Melanie Brand
Melanie Brand [submitted as Melanie Davis] (PhD in History, 2023) ‘A Question of Trust: Secrecy and Intelligence Accountability in Cold War Australia’ Intelligence oversight and transparency have traditionally been conceptualised as a zero-sum equation in which decreases in secrecy were believed to come at the cost of intelligence agency efficacy. This thesis challenges that view. While […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2023/11/01/melanie-brand
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Meet Dr Oleg Beyda, Hansen Lecturer in Russian History
In 2022, Dr Oleg Beyda was appointed Hansen Lecturer in Russian History. Dr Beyda’s research focuses on the post-revolutionary Russian diaspora, with a particular emphasis upon their experiences of the Second World War. History alumnus Noah Ellis sat down with Oleg to discuss his research and his approach to teaching. Your research focuses upon the […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2023/09/23/meet-dr-oleg-beyda-hansen-lecturer-in-russian-history
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Re-Building: Russia’s War on Ukraine, Part VI
A video-recording of the sixth and final instalment in this series, featuring His Excellency Bruce Edwards, Professor Torbjörn Becker, Slava Balbek, Professor Natalia Kudriavtseva, and Emeritus Professor Marko Pavlyshyn, and Jurij Suchowerskij (November 2022).blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2023/08/24/re-building-russias-war-on-ukraine-part-vi
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Has Russia Contained the Prigozhin Threat?
Its long history of managing violent mercenaries suggests so, as Professor Mark Edele explores in this article, republished from The Conversation. A month on since pundits declared the imminent start of a new Russian civil war, we’re still waiting. Moreover, we still know very little about what went on when Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin launched […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2023/07/24/has-russia-contained-the-prigozhin-threat
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‘Wokeness’ and White Conservatives in America
Conservatives in the United States have launched an offensive against so-called wokeness as they head towards the 2024 Presidential Election. In this article, first published in the Conversation as, ‘Why ‘Wokeness’ has Become the Latest Battlefront for White Conservatives in America’, SHAPS Honorary Liam Byrne, together with Emma Shortis (SHAPS Graduate, RMIT) write about this […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2023/07/04/wokeness-and-white-conservatives-in-america
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Guaraní Labour and British Capitalism
Dr Freg Stokes recently completed his PhD in History, focusing on the history of Indigenous resistance to colonisation in the Atlantic rainforest of South America from the early sixteenth century. In this video, originally produced for the Ka’a Body Exhibition at Paradise Row Gallery in London, he presents his findings on the role played by […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2023/06/26/guarani-labour-and-british-capitalism
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Introducing Dr Andonis Piperoglou
In 2022 Dr Andonis Piperoglou was appointed the inaugural Hellenic Senior Lecturer in Global Diasporas. In this role Dr Piperoglou is teaching on topics related to migration, multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism, as well as the global dynamics of Hellenic culture and diaspora. Andonis frequently engages with the wider public on the relevance of Hellenism’s pasts and […] -
Reading the Nineteenth-Century Diaries of Girls Migrating to Australia
In the nineteenth century, a large number of girls and young women (aged from under 15 to their early 20s) made the long journey to Australia from various locations around the globe published. Hansen PhD Scholarship holder, Cat Gay (History), explored the emotional histories of some of these journeys in this recently published article from […] -
Tribute to Mark Raphael Baker
The School community was saddened by the death in early May of distinguished historian Mark Raphael Baker, inaugural Lecturer in Jewish Studies in 1988 and former Director of the Jewish Studies Program. We re-publish here a tribute by his father-in-law, Raimond Gaita (Honorary Professorial Fellow, Melbourne Law School and Arts), originally published in The Conversation. […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2023/06/11/raimond-gaita-farewells-mark-raphael-baker
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Is NATO to Blame for the Russo-Ukrainian War?
Mark Edele, SHAPS Hansen Professor in History and Deputy Dean, Faculty of Arts, explores this question in his review of Serhii Plokhy’s new book, The Russo-Ukrainian War (Allen Lane), republished here from The Conversation. A year after Russia’s all-out attack against its neighbour on 24 February 2022, volumes trying to explain the conflict to the […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2023/05/26/is-nato-to-blame-for-the-russo-ukrainian-war
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Nicole Davis
Nicole Davis (PhD in History, 2023) ‘Nineteenth-century Arcades in Australia: History, Heritage & Representation’ This thesis explores the social and spatial histories of Australia’s nineteenth-century arcades from their beginning in Melbourne in 1853, with an emphasis on their first half century of development. It explores the retail, leisure and business activities they hosted and the lived experiences […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2023/04/19/nicole-davis-2
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First Nations People Have Made a Plea for ‘Truth-Telling’
By reckoning with its past, Australia can finally help improve our future. In this article from The Conversation, SHAPS Indigenous Postdoctoral Fellow, Indigenous and Settler Relations Collaboration, Julia Hurst, together with Sarah Maddison from School of Social and Political Sciences discusses the perspective of truth-telling in the third article in a series discussing these topics. […] -
The D-Notice System and the Question of Trust
A series of Australian Federal Police (AFP) raids on Australian journalists in 2019 stimulated numerous reviews into press freedom and the impact of Australia’s secrecy laws on public interest journalism. One of the proposals that was subsequently put forward by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security in 2020 with a view to ensuring […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2023/04/06/d-notice-system
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Jewish Antifascism in Post-World War II Australia
For Australian Jews in the 1940s and 1950s, remembering the Holocaust meant fighting racism and colonialism. Max Kaiser (PhD in History, 2019) (@maxyka), looks at the histories of Jewish antifascism and its broader implications in post-World War Two Australia in this article, republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Readers are advised this […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2023/03/27/jewish-antifascism
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Review of Lucy Frost’s Convict Orphans
Janet McCalman reviews Lucy Frost's new book, "Determined Survival, Desperate Poverty and Fractured Families: The Stories of Australia’s Convict Orphans".blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2023/03/23/review-of-lucy-frosts-convict-orphans
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Poetry: Russia’s War on Ukraine, Part V
A video-recording of the fifth instalment in this series, featuring Uilleam Blacker, Yuliya Musakovska, Lesyk Panasiuk, Iryna Shuvalova (14 October 2022).blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2023/03/19/poetry-russias-war-on-ukraine-part-v
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Divya Rama Gopalakrishnan
Divya Rama Gopalakrishnan (PhD in History, 2023) ‘Venereal Diseases and Bodily Excesses: A Social History of Contagions in the Madras Presidency (c1780 to 1900)’ This thesis investigates the discourses around bodily excess and venereal diseases in colonial South India, or, as it was known in the nineteenth century, the Madras presidency. It highlights the epistemological […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2023/03/15/divya-rama-gopalakrishnan
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Lessons from the History of Tobacco Advertising Reform
“There are uncanny parallels between the public health challenges posed by gambling advertising today and tobacco advertising 50 years ago.” Thomas Kehoe, Honorary Fellow, SHAPS and Historian, Cancer Council Victoria, together with Carolyn Holbrook, Senior Lecturer in History, Deakin University, explore the history of tobacco advertising and its demise, as well as the connection to […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2023/03/06/tobacco-advertising-in-the-1970s
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Assessing Joe Biden’s Place in History
Speculation over US President Joe Biden’s intention to run for office again is reaching fever pitch. Biden is, reportedly, on the verge of announcing he will indeed seek reelection. Opinion pieces are being churned out at a rapid clip. Polls are being commissioned with a feverish intensity. Liam Byrne (Honorary Fellow in SHAPS) and Emma […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2023/02/28/joe-biden-in-history
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Essentialising ‘Russia’ won’t end the war against Ukraine
In this article, republished from the Conversation, SHAPS Hansen Professor in History and Deputy Dean, Mark Edele, reviews Keir Giles's Russia’s War on Everybody and the long historical context of Russia's war on Ukraine. -
Natham McCall
Natham McCall (MA in History), ‘Divergent Dominions: Comparing Pre-First World War Defence Policies of British Dominions and their Effects on the Introduction of Wartime Conscription’ By the third year of the First World War, the voluntary enlistment rates in Australia, Canada and New Zealand had fallen to a level that could not be relied upon […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2023/02/06/natham-mccall
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Katherine Molyneux
Katherine Molyneux (PhD in History, 2023) ‘Getihu: Peddlers, Cadres, Housewives and Everyday Exchange in the Chinese City of Nanjing 1949–1985′ In the early 1980s, a growing number of small merchants and peddlers appeared on the streets of China’s cities. They became known as ‘getihu‘. The getihu were early symbols of the new era of ‘Reform […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2023/02/05/katherine-molyneux
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Ravando
Ravando (PhD in History, 2023), ‘A “New Newspaper”: Sin Po and the Voices of Progressive Chinese-Indonesian Nationalists, 1910–1949′ Ravando’s thesis examines the emergence and development of the Chinese-Indonesian-run newspaper Sin Po from 1910 to 1949, focusing on how it shaped political and social thinking and discourses in colonial and post-colonial Indonesia. Ravando argues that Sin […] -
Tonia Sellers
Tonia Sellers (MA in History, 2023) ‘“Romantic, Idealistic, Fiercely Partisan”: Emotion and the Communist Party of Australia, 1920–1945′ This thesis questions and explores the role of emotion in the Communist Party of Australia (CPA), 1920–1945. During this time, the CPA grew from a small fringe group to the dominant force in Australia’s Far-Left, and members’ […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2023/02/02/tonia-sellers
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Jonathan Tehusijarana
Jonathan Tehusijarana (PhD in History, 2023), ‘Between the Pen and the Sword: Student-Soldiers and the Image of Ideal Youth in Indonesia’ Jonathan‘s thesis examines the tentara pelajar (Student Armies) of Indonesia that fought in the country’s war of independence (1945-1949), and whose veterans influenced a newly independent Indonesia afterwards. Using archival documents, news publications, memoirs, […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2023/01/30/jonathan-tehusijarana-2
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Neville Yeomans
Neville Yeomans (PhD in History, 2023) ‘A History of Australia’s Immigrant Doctors, 1838–2021: Colonial Beginnings, Contemporary Challenges’ Since colonisation in 1788, Australia has been populated by immigrants. Among them, for all this period, there have been practitioners of Western medicine who qualified overseas. This thesis is about them, now termed International Medical Graduates (IMGs). Starting […]blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2023/01/28/neville-yeomans
Number of posts found: 256