Sound & Vision

A video-recording of the 2021 Greg Dening Memorial Lecture, delivered by Dr Jenny Bulstrode.

A monthly roundup of media commentary, publications, projects and other news from across the School community.

A video recording of Mary Sheehan's presentation to the SHAPS Fellows & Associates Seminar (September 2021).

Jenny Spinks is a historian of the early modern world, with a particular interest in visual and material culture as historical sources for research and for teaching. To celebrate her recent promotion to Associate Professor, we feature Jenny's work here in this interview with recent graduate Jen McFarland. You can watch the video and/or read the transcript below. https://youtu.be/2d-kbjY5Pkc Transcript Hi, my name is …

In October 2021, Student Conservators @ Melbourne, the student group for the Master of Cultural Materials Conservation program at the Grimwade Centre, held a webinar, 'Introduction to Textile Conservation'. Hosted by Victoria Thomas of Artlab (a graduate of the Masters and former Grimwade Conservation Services employee), the program introduced the types of objects commonly cared for by textile conservators. It …

A video recording of Professor Grace Karskens' 2021 Ernest Scott Lecture Part I (September 2021).

A monthly roundup of media commentary, publications, projects and other news from across the School community.

In mid-2021 a group of alumni of the Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation co-organised the Bali Art & Heritage Conservation Internship Program (#BAHCIP). Developed by Saiful Bakhri, Masters of Cultural Conservation 2018 and winner of a Rising Star Alumni Award in 2020, together with Gadis Fitriana Putri, Lia Sumichan and Laila Nurul Fitrani, the program included an immersive, in-country …

A monthly roundup of media commentary, publications, projects and other news from across the School community.

A video recording of Professor Janet McCalman's presentation to the SHAPS Fellows & Associates Seminar (July 2021).

A monthly roundup of media commentary, publications, projects and other news from across the School community.

In early 2021 Jesse Dyer was the recipient of the first Time-Based Media Conservation Fellowship, offered in partnership by the Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI). This new fellowship supports graduate research in the dynamic field of Time-Based Media Conservation. Samantha Rogers spoke with Jesse about his fellowship. The Tate Modern website …

A monthly roundup of media commentary, publications and projects, and other news from across the School community.

A video recording of Peter Yule's presentation to the SHAPS Fellows & Associates seminar (June 2021).

A monthly roundup of media commentary, publications and projects, and other news from across the School community.

Episode 1 in the 2021 SHAPS 'Control' Podcast Series: Dr Roslynne Bell (Classics & Archaeology).

A video recording of a special lecture by Professor Mark Edele to mark the 80th anniversary of Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941.

A monthly roundup of media commentary, publications and projects, and other news from across the School community.

A video-recording of the 2021 Kathleen Fitzpatrick Lecture, delivered by Professor Lynette Russell.

We are delighted to announce the appointment of Monique Webber as Teaching Specialist in Ancient World Studies. In this role, Dr Webber will coordinate a suite of subjects: Myth, Art and Empire: Greece and Rome (ANCW10002); Classical Mythology (ANCW20015); and Underworld and Afterlife (ANCW30011). Specialising in Object-Based Learning and Digital Humanities, Monique is a skilled and dedicated educator who brings …

A monthly roundup of media commentary, publications and projects, and other news from across the School community.

A video recording of Charlotte-Rose Millar's presentation to the Early Modern Circle seminar (March 2021).

In October 2020, Professor Peter McPhee delivered his final lecture for the undergraduate History subject The French Revolution, rounding off an astonishing fifty years of teaching this subject. To mark this occasion, SHAPS hosted an online celebration in honour of Peter’s outstanding career as an extraordinarily gifted, inspiring and dedicated teacher. Below you can watch the video tributes produced by Peter’s …

A monthly roundup of media commentary, publications and projects, and other news from across the School community.

A video recording of Charles Coppel's presentation to the SHAPS Fellows & Associates seminar (February 2021).

Professor Mike Arnold discusses his research on the intersections between death, technology and society, in this final episode of the SHAPS 2020 'Disaster and Change' podcast series, hosted by Dr Henry Reese.

Newly appointed Lecturer in Gender History, Dr Annabelle Baldwin, is a specialist in twentieth-century European and global history, with a particular interest in Holocaust studies, focusing on Jewish women's and girls’ experience of sexual violence during the Holocaust. Annabelle will be teaching two brand-new undergraduate subjects: the first-year subject Gender Rights and Leadership in History (HIST10017) (Semester 2), and the …

In 2018, current MA candidate in Classics John Henry created his own YouTube channel, Foxwede History, where he delivers mini-lectures on myth, literature and history through his alter ego, Dr Eldon Foxwede. Beautifully produced and presented with humour and creativity, his videos have drawn an audience from many different countries. We spoke with John about this project and how it …

A monthly roundup of media commentary, publications and projects, and other news from across the School community.

A video recording of Darius von Güttner's presentation to the SHAPS Fellows & Associates Seminar (January 2021).

In the third-year History capstone subject, students are encouraged to experiment with presenting historical research in creative formats. One student in the 2020 cohort, Isabel Hollingdale, an accomplished musician and singer-songwriter, wrote and recorded a song. In the latest of the Forum podcast series, Henry Reese spoke with Isabel about her work, which brings together music and history in a …

Making History is the capstone subject for our History majors — for many of our students this is their last academic unit of History. The subject gives students an opportunity to focus on History in the world as well as History in the academy. We always end the semester with a Closing Conference as an opportunity to celebrate and showcase …

A video-recording of the 2020 Greg Dening Memorial Lecture, delivered by Professor Bronwen Douglas.

As part of the Honours subject The Writing of Australian History (HIST90023), students have the unique opportunity to meet with distinguished historian Professor Emeritus Stuart Macintyre and to engage him in conversation about his work and about Australian historiography more broadly. We share below a videorecording and transcript of one of these sessions, from April 2019. The discussion is wideranging, …

During World War II, Imperial Japan relied on hundreds of thousands of Koreans for its economy. Authorities transported almost 800,000 Koreans from their homeland by force from 1939 to 1945 in the largest migration of non-Japanese into Japan in the country’s history. SHAPS Associate in History Dr David Palmer presented his research on this topic to the SHAPS Fellows & …

A monthly roundup of media commentary, publications and projects, and other news from across the School community.

A monthly roundup of media commentary, publications and projects, and other news from across the School community.

A monthly roundup of media commentary, publications and projects, and other news from across the School community.

Bona (1494–1557) was the Sforza heir to the throne of Milan and became the Queen of Poland. She was a key figure in the politics and economic life of early modern Europe, an economic innovator and reformer, art and architectural patron. Significant extant source base about Bona's activities allows for investigation into, and interpretation of, her actions as an agent …

We are delighted to announce the appointment of Dr Julia Hurst as Lecturer in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander History. Dr Hurst's appointment will open up new opportunities for our students to take subjects in Indigenous history. To welcome Dr Hurst and to introduce her research to the School community, we invited Dr Henry Reese to record an interview for …

In 1901 a new flag was chosen to represent a new nation, and the central emblem was a constellation of the southern sky. By this time, the symbolism of the Southern Cross had been entrenched; almost all previous Australian flag designs had included this device. The meanings of the Cross and the southern stars were, however, diverse and changing across …

The 2020 Ernest Scott Lecture was delivered by Professor Michelle Arrow (Macquarie University). In a rich and thought-provoking lecture, Professor Arrow explored the 1970s as the era when the ‘personal became political’. You can watch a recording of the lecture below; listen to an audio-recording via ABC Radio National; or read a transcript, published on Inside Story. Abstract In Australian history, the …

A monthly roundup of media commentary, publications and projects, and other news from across the School community.

Sandglasses were part of the variegated ecology of time measurement in the premodern world. This was a world attentive to time, where knowledge of the temporal rhythms of the environment reached from the movements of the stars to the fall of granules of lead. Among human-made instruments for time measurement, the sandglass was one of the most useful and accurate. …

A monthly roundup of media commentary, publications and projects, and other news from across the School community.

Famed as the home of the dreaded Barbary pirates, the 'scourge of Christendom', for many early modern Europeans and Britons, the Maghreb was a distant and terrifying place. Some, however, saw the corsairing states as legitimate military rivals, potential trading partners or allies, and even attractive places for migration and personal advancement. Recently, History PhD student Nat Cutter presented for …

By 1700 tailors no longer dominated England’s garment marketplace, as stay-makers, mantua-makers and seamstresses began to produce key items of female dress previously made by tailors. The demise of the tailoring monopoly was a complex process that involved many factors. On 3 September, our McKenzie Fellow, Sarah Bendall, presented the weekly Brown Bag talk, which examined one overlooked aspect of this …

Recently, HPS Alumna Dr Zoë Loh featured on the ABC documentary Fight for Planet A in relation to her role as a senior research scientist at CSIRO. In this interview, Zoë spoke with Samara Greenwood about her love for History and Philosophy of Science and how it has contributed not only to her career, but to building the skills needed …

We are social creatures and the current lockdown isolation is hard on all of us – whether extrovert or introvert. So we thought you might enjoy meeting some of our wonderful students. Philosophy is currently one of the fastest growing majors in the Arts Faculty. These self-made mini videos will give you a glimpse of why this is so, and …

Francis Xavier Gsell is famous for his work among the Tiwi people, from whom he purchased the marriage rights to young women as part of a broad evangelisation strategy. A mythic figure in popular histories of the Northern Territory, Gsell is often remembered as the apocryphal ‘Bishop with 150 Wives’. But Gsell’s complex legacy has rarely received thorough academic scrutiny. …