School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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Item‘They forget the hard school through which we all had to pass’: Memory of the Great Famine (1929-34) Through the Eyes of Displaced Persons in the Harvard Interview Project on the Soviet Social System( 2023)Famines that wrecked much of the Soviet Union throughout the 1930s have, since the end of World War Two, developed increasingly politicised cultures of memory and memorialisation. Particularly memory of the Holodomor – the famine in Ukrainian territory – has become highly politicised, particularly regarding claims of systematic persecution of Ukrainians at the hands of Russians since the Tsarist and through the Soviet period, and into the post-Soviet era, and claims to genocide of Ukrainians, uniquely. The Harvard Interview Project on the Soviet Social System (HPSSS) initiated opportunistically, due to the ready availability of Soviet refugees in Western Europe following World War Two, captured a range of nascent memories and understandings of these famines, connected with other pre- and post-famine traumas. This thesis investigates the content of these memories to reveal the diversity of interviewees’ famine experience between region, class and interpersonal connections. Then, it investigates the mechanisms of memory, and the different ways interviewees narrativised their experiences and came to possess legitimate claims to memory of the famine. Finally, it investigates how the plurality of memory which existed among Displaced Persons waned and a dominant narrative of Ukrainians as famine victims began to emerge. This thesis hopes to contribute to the growing literature on famine memory politics by investigating the origins of dominant patterns of memory with an eye toward encouraging discussion of a diversity of famine memories.
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ItemThe Sun Rising to the West: The Racialisation of Japan in the US during the Early 20th Century( 2023)'The Sun Rising to the West' traces how the United States understood Japan's rise from an insular nation into a powerful empire before the Second World War and the surprise attack on Pearl Harbour which galvanised American understandings of the Japanese. This thesis specifically focuses on how Americans framed the Japanese as a race. Starting at the turn of the 20th century, this thesis shows how Japan's development into an industrialised and militarised nation forced both politicians and American anthropologists to reconsider the position of the Japanese with American conceptions of a racial hierarchy. Next, 'The Sun Rising to the West' explores a direct confrontation between American citizens and Japanese immigrants in California during the 'California Crisis', analysing how xenophobic attacks against the Japanese race were influenced by the growing power of Japan as a state. Finally, the thesis explores how African Americans reacted to Japan's proposal for a racial equality clause at the Paris Peace Conference, and how Black press understood Japan as a non-white power before the onset of the war. In doing so, 'The Sun Rising to the West' traces how significant race was to Americans in understanding the nation that would become their enemy.
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ItemThe Sun Rising to the West: The Racialisation of Japan in the US during the Early 20th Century( 2023)'The Sun Rising to the West' traces how the United States understood Japan's rise from an insular nation into a powerful empire before the Second World War and the surprise attack on Pearl Harbour which galvanised American understandings of the Japanese. This thesis specifically focuses on how Americans framed the Japanese as a race. Starting at the turn of the 20th century, this thesis shows how Japan's development into an industrialised and militarised nation forced both politicians and American anthropologists to reconsider the position of the Japanese with American conceptions of a racial hierarchy. Next, 'The Sun Rising to the West' explores a direct confrontation between American citizens and Japanese immigrants in California during the 'California Crisis', analysing how xenophobic attacks against the Japanese race were influenced by the growing power of Japan as a state. Finally, the thesis explores how African Americans reacted to Japan's proposal for a racial equality clause at the Paris Peace Conference, and how Black press understood Japan as a non-white power before the onset of the war. In doing so, 'The Sun Rising to the West' traces how significant race was to Americans in understanding the nation that would become their enemy.
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ItemMy shtetl Shepparton : the Shepparton Jewish community 1913-1939(University of Melbourne, 1985)
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ItemAugustan Propaganda: A Discussion of its Origin and Nature(University of Melbourne, 1963)
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ItemVictoria's avenues of honour to the Great War lost to the landscape.(University of Melbourne, 2006)
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ItemThe Melbourne Mechanics Institute 1839-1872(University of Melbourne, 1955)
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ItemThe Presence of Such Monsters: The Moral Arbitration of Sodomy Trials in Victoria's Colonial Press, 1859-1869( 2023)In the decade spanning 1859-1869, newspapers in colonial Victoria began telling lurid stories of sodomy trials and accusations. What provoked this shift from largely noting examples of this criminalised act, to engaging in extensive editorialising? "The Presence of Such Monsters" explores examples of nineteenth-century 'trial by media' as sites of moral arbitration intended, first and foremost, to establish and police the boundaries of the settler civic body: determining who could be reincorporated into respectable society, and who excised from it. Taking a case study approach to the trials of John Flannery, Dr. John Hulley, Ellen-John Wilson and Father Patrick Niall, it interrogates the significance of class in colonial formations of sexuality and gender.
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ItemEngage or balance? Competing visions for China in the George H. W. Bush administration’s national security strategy( 2023)This thesis examines the national security dimension of US China policy during the presidency of George H. W. Bush (1989-1993). In light of subsequent bilateral tensions, Bush’s controversial efforts to seek stable relations with Beijing after the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre and the end of the Cold War warrant revisiting. Bush believed that Sino-American stability was necessary to resolve security issues such as non-proliferation. This served as the rationale for ‘engagement’ with Beijing, a policy continued by his successors. This thesis argues, however that segments of the intelligence and defence communities deviated from the president’s view after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. In response to the display of US military supremacy over Iraqi forces in Kuwait, China quickly accelerated the modernisation of its own armed forces. With Russian support, it increased its power projection capabilities to a degree that shifted the regional balance of power to Taiwan’s detriment. With a surprising degree of foresight, intelligence analysts were already reporting on the potential implications of this new dynamic in early 1991. Possibly for electoral reasons, Bush acted on the advice of the Defence Department and reluctantly redressed the balance by rearming Taiwan’s air force in late 1992. By closely examining this period, this thesis sheds light on the origins of a persistent division in US national security strategy between those who believed in engaging Beijing and those who perceived Chinese military modernisation as a threat to regional stability.