Arts Collected Works - Theses
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ItemFictions of memory : Christoph Hein's pre- and post-unification literature(University of Melbourne, 2016)This thesis examines the theme of memory in six novels by the East German author Christoph Hein. It analyses three works that the author published before 1990 � Der fremde Freund (1982), Horns Ende (1985) and Der Tangospieler (1989) � and three published after the Wende � Willenbrock (2000), Landnahme (2004) and In seiner fr�hen Kindheit ein Garten (2005). In doing so, it presents a longitudinal account of Hein�s treatment of memory over the course of his career, and pays particular attention to the author�s depiction of the dynamics at work in memory politics (Ged�chtnispolitik) in GDR and unified German society.Whether in history, politics, media studies or neuropsychology, recent decades have seen rapid growth in memory studies as an area of interdisciplinary scholarship and increasingly recognised, inter alia, the importance of memory in the organisation of individual and collective life. While literary accounts of the past are not isolated from other disciplines, such as history or politics, much attention has been paid to literature�s capacity to both depict the past and offer meta-commentary on what it depicts, through illustrating the processes, media and mental structures through which individuals attempt to reconstruct their past and the social, political and metaphysical limitations of these attempts. In its approach to memory, literature and the relationship between them, this study draws upon the research of Aleida Assmann and Jan Assmann on collective memory, Ansgar Nunning, Vera Nunning and Astrid Erll�s work on narratology and the memory function of literature, as described by the Erinnerungskulturen project at the University of Giesen. In the context of GDR studies, the thesis considers literature as a potential �Gegen-Erinnerung� that comments on and qualifies the official memory of the East German state according to the foundational narratives of socialism and antifascism. The opportunity to use memory theory to examine Hein�s novels is particularly enticing given the recent dearth of scholarship on the author, the most recent monograph having appeared in 2002. This lack of full-length scholarly works on Hein contrasts with the author�s own productivity in this same period, during which he has published a further four novels, often to critical acclaim. In this latter respect, Hein remains one of the few authors to have experienced success both in the GDR and after German unification. The longitudinal focus of this study contributes to existing work on Hein that examines aspects of continuity and discontinuity in his body of work across the historic rupture of German Unification. More broadly, it also contributes to studies of East German authors and public intellectuals and how they adapted to the changed publication climate and political landscape of the Federal Republic, finding new topics and audiences following the collapse of the �Leseland DDR�, in which they had occupied a prominent position on account of state censorship of the public sphere. What unites Hein�s GDR novels is that they retell the East German past through the life of the individual and concentrate on figures whose experiences under socialism were at odds with the East Germany�s institutionally-supported official memory of the past. This friction between personal and official memory is shown to have produced a number of coping strategies, where individuals either refused to discuss the past entirely or repressed personal experiences in conflict with the official memory of the state for reasons of expedience. Those unwilling or unable to do so are shown to have suffered repeated political persecution. While the Wende in 1990 posited Germany�s second �Stunde Null� of the Twentieth Century and the beginning of a new democratic order, Hein�s post-unification novels similarly focus on individuals whose experiences under capitalism challenge the ideals of democracy and the foundational narrative of the �Rechtsstaat� on which the Berlin Republic is based. His three post-unification novels examined here reveal the mixed fates for individuals under global capitalism, where the state appears to have limited ability to protect the welfare of its citizens against unemployment and transnational crime. At the same time, the state, together with a capitalist media operating under a profit imperative, is shown to have an interest and the ability to control the depiction of the past to protect its own foundational narratives, official memory and political legitimacy. In such a context, literary works such as Hein�s can reveal alternate and divergent narratives of the past that might otherwise go untold. Beyond their common interest in the potential conflict between personal and collective memory, this thesis demonstrates that Hein�s pre-and post-unification novels are also united by their awareness of the social and constructive nature of memory, its subjective limitations and ultimately its status as fiction. By revealing the dynamics that govern how individuals and collectives construct and re-construct a useable past to help them navigate the challenges of the present, and by offering alternate narratives of the past to those in power, this thesis argues that Hein�s novels are in many respects �fictions of memory�, which testify to the central place of memory in individual, social and political life.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableThe Cocharelli Codex : illuminating virtue : a fourteenth-century father's counsel to his son(University of Melbourne, 2016)
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ItemNo Preview AvailableOut of the shadows : female puppeteers and the changing tradition of Javanese shadow theatre(University of Melbourne, 2016)
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ItemNo Preview AvailableA place 'midway' between the old life and the new : a case study of the migrant hostel at Maribyrnong(University of Melbourne, 2013)This thesis presents a new case study of the Maribyrnong/Midway Migrant Hostel, which operated from 1949-88 at the site of the present Student Village owned by Victoria University. Maribyrnong Hostel also known as the Midway Migrant Centre was one of over forty Commonwealth migrant hostels created by the federal government from 1948 to provide temporary, on-arrival accommodation to government-assisted migrants and refugees. Maribyrnong Hostel operated from the beginning until the end of the program and a case study of this hostel affords us a detailed view of the wider hostel program and a chance to investigate the quality of government accommodation extended to newcomers over four decades of Australia's post-war migration history. Through extensive research, a new archive on hostels has been assembled. This thesis extends previous scholarship on hostels that has focused on the early 1950s. It also includes new knowledge and analysis of the government company, Commonwealth Hostels Limited (CIIL). CHL played an important role by providing services to newcomers at the hostels. Analysis of CI IL's operations, and also their personnel, indicates how and why different groups of migrants and refugees experienced similar issues with hostel food, tariffs and rules. Yet, while attuned to the similarities in the hostel experiences of many migrants and refugees, this thesis also presents analysis of the specific historical, social and economic contexts for the migration experiences of new arrivals at the hostel, primarily: the Displaced Persons who arrived in the immediate postwar period, British migrants in the 1950s and 1960s and Indochinese refugees resettled from the late 1970s into the 1980s. The key focus of this thesis is the history of the hostel, but the relationship between the hostel and detention centre is also considered. In recent years, former hostel sites at Maribyrnong and Villawood have been of interest to cultural commentators who have argued that the hostel represents an example of hospitality to migrants and refugees that is radically different to the detaining of asylum seekers in detention centres. This thesis argues that care, control and management were consistent themes throughout the history of Australia's hostel program. It offers a more nuanced understanding of the hostel's past and illustrates how this past experience of accommodating newly-arrived migrants and refugees cannot simply be characterized as `good' or `bad'. Comparisons between hostels and detention centres need to take into account the hostel's long and complex history of hospitality and hostility towards newcomers, which is presented in this updated history of Australia's migrant hostels.
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ItemAn ethical defense of modern zoos( 2015)Zoos have been a largely uncontested part of the social fabric of cities for over 2,000 years. The nature and form of zoos have changed as sentiments and wealth of nations changed. While providing a place where animals and humans come into contact, zoos continue to hold and display animals in a relationship of vulnerability and dependence. Increasing threats to wild populations, public pressure to justify captivity and shifts in attitudes, have resulted in modern zoos adding research and conservation outcomes to their traditional benefits of recreation and entertainment. Yet a lingering question remains, can modern zoos be ethically justified? This thesis describes the workings of modern zoos and considers the core ethical challenges which face those who choose to hold and display animals in zoos, aquariums or sanctuaries. Using a number of normative ethical frameworks this thesis explores impacts of modern zoos. The impact of zoos include the costs to animals in terms of animal welfare, the loss of liberty and even impact on the value of animal life. On the positive side of the argument are the welfare and health outcomes for many of the animals held in zoos, increased attention and protection for their species in the wild and the enjoyment and education for the people who visit zoos. I conclude that zoos and aquariums are ethically defensible when they align conservation outcomes with the interests of individual animals and the interests of zoo operations. The impending extinction crisis requires large scale interventions which address human values and facilitate consideration of wildlife in decision making. Considering the long term relationship zoos have with animals, their extensive reach within communities and their reliance on animals to deliver positive experiences for people, it is appropriate that zoos pay back some of humanity’s debt to wildlife by making a meaningful contribution to wildlife conservation. Compassionate conservation demands that this contribution is not at the cost of individual suffering, rather that the interests of individual animals are aligned with the actions taken to save species.
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ItemSBS independent: productive diversity and counter-memory( 2013)This thesis explores SBS Independent (SBSi) (1994-2007) as a cultural institution characterised by productive diversity and counter-memory. It examines its cultural policy developments and uses a creative labour approach to demonstrate how the economic resource of productive diversity has conditioned new practices in management, production and distribution, in the Australian film and television industry. It also analyses content commissioned by SBSi and demonstrates how staff manoeuvred within this neo-liberal regime to generate new counter-memorial narrative representations, which continued to challenge white racial hegemony in Australia.
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ItemA viable abortion: emotional intelligibilities of choice in contemporary Australia, 1969-2008( 2013)This thesis examines representations and registers of abortion speech in Australia from 1969-2008. While ‘choice’ was exclusive to early pro-abortion campaigns it has, over time, achieved hegemonic status in both pro-choice and anti-abortion utterances. This thesis argues that the centrality of choice to all abortion discourse has not liberated women from compulsory motherhood. Rather, by virtue of the emotions that attach to choice, it has recuperated aborting women to the very maternal identity that deems abortion to be an illegitimate choice for pregnant women. Choice and emotion work together to (re)produce aborting women as deviant subjects.