School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemA spectroscopic and chromatographic study of the photochemical properties of daylight fluorescent paint( 2009)Daylight fluorescent pigments fade rapidly, accompanied by a chronology of colour change. Fluorescence is a photo-physical phenomenon which involves emission of light from an excited state. Fluorescent dyes thus have a high susceptibility of being promoted to an excited state; a characteristic in the case of organic fluorophores which infers vulnerability toward photo-bleaching. Multiple organic fluorescent dyes are routinely incorporated into a given daylight fluorescent pigment, to either additively fluoresce or interact through energy transfer. The organic fluorescent dyes employed invariably differ in photo-stability, and upon loss of each species of fluorophore an abrupt colour change is observed. The collective result of this fading behaviour is that in a short period of time a daylight fluorescent paint layer will be of a different hue, devoid of luminosity. As consequence it is almost impossible to colour match a faded daylight fluorescent paint layer without the hues diverging asynchronously, or ascertain the original palette of a daylight fluorescent artwork after a protracted period of time. The predicament is exacerbated by the fact that there is no standard method in cultural material conservation, of documenting daylight fluorescent colour in a painting photographically or colorimetrically. The objective of this thesis is to investigate the photochemical behaviour of daylight fluorescent pigments, to ensure best practice in the preservation of artworks that contain daylight fluorescent paint. Fluorimetrie and chromatographic analysis of the DayGlo daylight fluorescent pigment range at the constituent dye level, prior to and during an accelerated light ageing program formed the basis of the experimental. Given the limited selection of fluorescent dyes suitable for daylight fluorescent pigment manufacture, it is anticipated that the results attained for the DayGlo range will be applicable to all daylight fluorescent media encountered in cultural material. Experimental data revealed the manner in which the fluorescent dyes behind each DayGlo daylight fluorescent pigment were formulated, and provided explanation for the 1colour changes observed upon fading. A prognosis of when and why a daylight fluorescent palette experiences hue shift and the implications this has for display is presented. Methodology for imaging daylight fluorescence, identification of the constituent fluorescent dyes in a daylight fluorescent pigment and colour matching a daylight fluorescent paint layer are presented and applied in-situ, to case studies possessing a daylight fluorescent palette.
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ItemDeath, devotion, and despair: examining women’s authorial contributions to the early modern English ars moriendi( 2017)This thesis examines women’s intervention into the English ars moriendi genre over the course of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. It focuses on three printed works: Rachel Speght’s 'Mortalities Memorandum, with a Dreame Prefixed' (1621), Alice Sutcliffe’s 'Meditations of Man's Mortalitie, Or, A Way to True Blessednesse' (1634), and Lady Frances Norton’s 'Memento Mori: or Mediations on Death' (1705). Expanding upon previous research in this field, this thesis provides the first comparative historical study of all three texts and their authors. It frames these printed works both as meditations on religious practice, and as carefully constructed responses to contemporary debates concerning religious expression, female authority in matters of devotion, learning, and authorship, and cultural standards of appropriate emotional expression.
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ItemIn Black and White: The rise, fall and on-going consequences of a racial slur in Australian newspapers( 2019)In Australia, racism cannot be extricated from settler expropriation of indigenous labour. In this thesis, I trace this entanglement through the lens of a single word – ‘nigger’ – as it has appeared in Australian print media in reference to Aboriginal people and Papuans, from when the term gained currency in the 1860s until its dwindling nearly a century later. I argue that increasing use of ‘nigger’ represented a shift in the way settlers perceived these peoples. Settlers began to conceive of indigenous peoples less as primitive savages or land-occupying natives and more as an exploitable source of cheap labour. This occurred as part of a global process, as Europeans and especially Neo-Europeans consolidated and invested in a dichotomous discourse of race, increasingly figuring themselves as ‘white’ and those whose bodies and labour they exploited as ‘black’. While the use of the slur itself rose and fell, the hierarchical racial schemata of which it was the herald are yet to be dismantled.
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ItemSurvival, camraderie and aspirations: the intimate lives of Chinese and Vietnamese women in Melbourne's 1990s textiles industry( 2019)This thesis examines the working subjectivities of female Chinese and Vietnamese textiles workers in 1990s Melbourne, with a particular focus on raced and gendered agencies. While traditional labour historians elucidate worker resistance through protest and trade union dynamics, such a framework does little to account for the 'hidden' agency of migrant workers who were outwardly circumspect and forbearing. Drawing extensively on oral history interviewing and diasporic memory, this thesis takes a ‘history from below’ approach and hones in on the intimate, personal dimensions of garment factory work that were central to the contestation of power. In doing so, it demonstrates how persistence and tacit expressions of resistance in the workplace amongst Chinese and Vietnamese textiles workers were located in interpersonal factory relationships, class aspirations and motherhood.
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ItemEvaluating the photooxidative ageing properties of 3D printed plastics: strategies for their use and conservation in cultural heritage contexts( 2019)3D printing is a fairly ubiquitous term today, due in part to the dissemination of the manufacturing technique to a wide variety of applications. While initially developed as a prototyping tool for product development, enterprising individuals situated outside engineering and concept prototyping have integrated this technology to suit broader applications. The advent of new printing processes and print materials, coupled with the democratisation of this equipment, has introduced this technology to many new end users, including those working within cultural heritage. 3D printing applications in the arts stem from artists who employ the unique printing geometries offered by 3D printers to realise their designs, to curators eager to engage and enhance visitor experience through touch and to conservators who aim to find alternative approaches to treatment when repairing damaged objects. The adaptation of digital technologies within cultural heritage has created extensive opportunities for practitioners within the field; however, there lies an uncertainty in their application and ability to reconstruct missing elements given the recent implementation of 3D-printed material types and the lack of studies detailing their behaviour over time. Many of the materials employed in the 3D printing process are plastic polymers that have, in other forms, presented long-term stability challenges–the reality of which may prove problematic for professionals working within the cultural heritage sector. These synthetic polymeric materials exhibit susceptibility to thermal, mechanical, photooxidative, hydrolytic, and biodegradation degradation processes through pathways that include hydrolysis, photolysis, thermolysis and oxidation. Of these degradation mechanisms, ultraviolet radiation and visible light represent more significant concerns for longevity within a cultural heritage environment, due to the need for light to facilitate visitor access, as well as the destructive impact photodegradation has on the physical appearance of the material–the primary function of which was originally its aesthetic. Visible light cannot be entirely removed from a cultural heritage environment, and ultraviolet radiation is introduced to the environment through solar radiation and in some artificial light sources. Consequently, visible and ultraviolet regions of the electromagnetic spectrum are likely to deleteriously impact 3D-printed polymers. To determine the impact of these conditions, this thesis explores the susceptibility of 9 different 3D print plastic polymers to photodegradation through two accelerated ageing experiments designed to 1) induce photooxidation for comparison and 2) simulate material responses to a museum environment over a period of 40 years. Materials selected for evaluation include examples from each of the primary manufacturing processes–extruded thermoplastics, photopolymers, and binding printers–and represent those commonly employed by artists for fabrication, by museum professionals creating replica models and by conservators fashioning missing components for damaged objects. Accelerated ageing experiments also included four conservation-grade materials currently classified as best-practice for use with objects, which function as a benchmark to interpret the aged physical and chemical changes in the 3D printed plastics. Experimental data revealed a clear delineation in the degradation rates evidenced within individual printed polymers and provided an explanation for the discolouration exhibited following exposure to ultraviolet radiation and visible light. A proclivity for photooxidation was determined to stem primarily from the presence of the unsaturated double-bonded carbon backbone in the butadiene rubber constituent. Additional polymer susceptibility was observed through the photolysis of material bonds and the presence of light-absorbing impurities likely introduced during manufacturing. In all cases, the long-wave UV component precipitated degradation. Across both experimental designs, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) performed the poorest, while polylactic acid (PLA) and acrylonitrile styrene acrylate (ASA) exhibited the best resistance to photooxidation. Overall, the experimental results are consistent with the initial hypothesis that 3D-printed polymers are likely susceptible to photodegradation. Further, in comparison with the 3D printed plastic polymers, the four conservation-grade materials did not exhibit significant material deterioration. These results indicate that materials currently considered best-practice within conservation performed better than the 3D-printed polymers examined in this thesis. Ergo, 3D-printed polymers do not present as an ideal alternative to materials currently employed for loss compensation, unless additional methods are taken to mitigate exposure. When situated within an a cultural heritage context, these results hold considerable significance for the profession. They inform 3D-printed material selections for artists concerned with the iii longevity of materials employed in the manufacture of their art; they facilitate future approaches for curators and conservators tasked with the display and storage of 3D-printed artworks; and they guide the approach for integrating 3D print materials with conservation treatments. Recommendations developed as a result of this research include the elimination of UV-producing light sources and the integration UV filters to block solar radiation. Visible light did not appear to significantly impact the polymers tested, however it was shown to fade the cream colourant present in the acrylonitrile styrene acrylate (ASA) sample.
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ItemGreen bans forever: the public and the Press in the 1970s Sydney green ban movement( 2019)This thesis recounts the relationship between the New South Wales Builders Labourers' Federation and the Press in Sydney between 1970-1975. The thesis contends that the Press maintained an adversarial role in the 'green ban' movement, despite prior claims in the historiography that criticisms of the movement waned as it grew in size and significance.
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ItemThe transformation of Australian military heroism during the First World War( 2019)This thesis examines how Australian heroism was defined and represented during the First World War. I present an in-depth analysis of two sets of primary sources: Victoria Cross (VC) medal citations and Australian wartime newspapers. Victoria Cross citations are official British military descriptions of battlefield acts that have earned a serviceman the VC medal and therefore offer a window into how British and dominion commanders awarded and prescribed heroism. My analysis of all British and dominion VC citations, from the institution of the medal in 1856 to the end of the First World War in November 1918, show that the type of act that was primarily awarded the VC changed in late 1916 and early 1917. While most VCs were awarded for acts of saving life before this point, this changed to an emphasis on acts of killing. Statistics compiled from VC citations also show that Australians were exceptional in the way they were awarded the medal during the conflict, receiving proportionally more awards for killing and fewer for life saving than any other British or dominion nation. Analysis of major Australian newspapers’ representations of military heroism during the war reveals a similar trend. Australian newspapers primarily represented stretcher-bearers and wounded men as the heroes of Gallipoli in reports throughout 1915, yet from the entry of Australian forces into the Western Front in 1916, newspaper representations of heroism focused far more on men who killed the enemy. This thesis offers an original contribution to the literature by showing how and why pre-war ideals of heroism transformed in Australia during the course of the First World War. It specifically identifies the dominant model of Australian heroism that existed in 1914, and traces how it was displaced by new ideals of heroism considered more necessary and apt for the conditions of the Western Front. In identifying the shifting ideals that were officially recognised and widely represented as epitomising the highest forms of military valour, this thesis is the first to examine the nature of Australian hegemonic heroism during the First World War. In analysing the dominant heroic model in Australia during the First World War and showing how and why this model transformed over the course of the conflict, this study presents new insights into the nature of heroism and masculinity in wartime Australia.
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ItemVirtue and the Three Monkey Defence: Regulating Ethical Conduct in the Australian Public Service.( 2019)The thesis is an investigation of the efficacy of the “values-based” ethics regulation system (“system”) operated by the Australian Public Service (“APS”). Normative propositions which identify virtue, human character, or dispositions to behave, as determinatively contingent factors in public officials’ compliance with their statutory ethics obligations serve as an entry-point for the investigation. The proposition, that a public officer’s compliance with statutory ethical obligations is down to virtue, is critiqued from the standpoint of the tension which arises from two mutually incompatible narratives argued to coincide in relation to perceptions of ethical conduct in the APS; the first ‘official’ narrative is in the form of the APS Commissioner’s annual State of the Service Report, which regularly reports near perfect compliance of APS officers with their ethical obligations. The second narrative arises from myriad news reports, parliamentary inquiries and whistleblower disclosures, of apparently considerable and systemic misconduct, serious misconduct, corruption, and other forms of misfeasance. In order to put this analysis into effect, the thesis poses the following questions: - To what extent is virtue – expressly or impliedly – a constituent theoretical component in the development of the liberal-democratic tradition and, in particular, the model of Westminster public administration which developed from this tradition in the nineteenth-century? - Does the APS system of ethics regulation rely upon a virtue-ethics type methodology, or is one implied in its design? - What challenges are posed to the efficacy of the APS system of ethics regulation from the standpoints respectively of situationist ethics and sociological theories of interaction? The thesis investigates the historical place of virtue (and related concepts) in the theoretical formation of the liberal-democratic project, and particularly the conceptual development of the social contract and the Westminster model of public administration. The triumvirate concepts of trust, legitimacy, and consent, provide an analytical prism through which to critique the notional place and operation of the statutory system of ethics regulation in the APS and, particularly, certain (arguably) virtue-like statutory provisions which are traditionally emblematic of, or otherwise fundamental to, the principles of Westminster public administration. Nineteenth-century developments such as the disappearance of “virtue” from public discourse and the formative development of the idea of the ‘permanent civil servant’ are analysed in their historical context. The evolution of the modern APS, from its traditional Westminster formulation, to the current results-focused “values-based” system, is described and critiqued in terms of the resulting tensions for the accountability and impartiality of public servants. Finally, the proposition that virtue must properly constitute the basis for a public officer’s compliance with statutory ethical obligations is critiqued from two theoretical perspectives that pose a challenge to virtue-ethics: firstly, the current debate between situationist ethicists and virtue ethicists as to the validity of the so-called fundamental attribution error; and, secondly, interactionist theories, focusing in particular on the work of Harold Garfinkel, Erving Goffman, and Anthony Giddens. The thesis proposes that the (unacknowledged) primary purpose of the APS ethics regulation system is to manage perceptions of legitimacy for the sake of the social contract.
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ItemDe Se Communication: language, thought and co-aboutness( 2019)This dissertation is about the co-aboutness problem of de se communication. An essential requirement of successful communication is that participants of communication must talk about the same subject matter. I call this requirement the co-aboutness condition of communication. According to the traditional picture of communication, what is communicated is transmitted between participants of that communication in accordance with the replication transmission model. In that case, the co-aboutness condition is satisfied by same-saying, which is the replication of one other’s linguistic expressions. The basic idea behind the same-saying strategy is that we talk about the same subject matter if we use the same words. However, for an idiosyncratic type of communication, which is de se communication, same-saying simply does not work. De se communication is the communication of de se thought. In de se communication, we will definitely talk past each other if we just replicate one another’s words. For example, if I say, ‘I am happy’, and you reply, ‘I am happy’, we are not talking about the same subject matter because I am talking about my feeling and you are talking about your feeling. So, how can we satisfy the co-aboutness condition in de se communication? This question is the central question of this dissertation. I argue that in de se communication, what is communicated is transmitted in accordance with a new model, the translation transmission model. In order to satisfy the co-aboutness condition of communications which conform to the translation transmission model, a new strategy must be developed. I call the new strategy ‘translation’. Participants of a de se communication talk about the same subject matter by means of translating one another’s words. The most important part of this translation strategy is the translation of first person terms. The singular first person indexical ‘I’ is representative of first person terms. So, in this dissertation I will focus on the translation of ‘I’. For the purpose of fulfilling the co-aboutness condition in de se communication, which term is a good translation of ‘I’? In order to answer this question, I introduce Worsnip’s analogy between the intrapersonal incoherence and interpersonal disagreement (Worsnip, 2019, pp. 252-259). Based on this analogy, I develop a further analogy between the intrapersonal de se inference and the interpersonal de se communication. This analogy gives us an important clue for looking for a good translation of ‘I’: if ‘X’ is a good translation of ‘I’, then the co-referential relation between ‘X’ and ‘I’ must closely imitate the co-referential relation between two tokens of ‘I’. So, the term whose co-referential relation with ‘I’ best imitates the co-referential relation between two tokens of ‘I’ is the translation of ‘I’ for which I am looking. This term, I argue, is ‘you’. The analogy between the ‘I-I’ same-saying and ‘I-You’ translation is sustained by three similarities. The first similarity is that the ‘I-I’ co-reference in de se inference and the ‘I-You’ co-reference in de se communication are both explained by explanations of the externalist approach, and their externalist explanations are analogous to one another. This similarity is the most important one of the three similarities. Why is there ‘I-You’ co-reference in de se communication? How does my ‘I’ co-refer with your ‘you’? I argue that the co-reference of ‘I-You’ translation is established by the match between the mutual recognition relation and the ‘I-You’ reciprocity in de se communication. The second similarity is that the ‘I-I’ co-reference is transparent to the producer of de se inference, just as the ‘I-You’ co-reference is transparent to the participants of de se communication. The third similarity is that both the ‘I-I’ co-reference and the ‘I-You’ co-reference are immune to the effect of misrepresentation. I articulate those three similarities. My articulation justifies the legitimacy of the analogy between ‘I-I’ same-saying and ‘I-You’ translation. In this articulation, I examine the ‘I-You’ translation by three criteria for determining the proper connection between translation and co-aboutness. After this examination, I conclude that the ‘I-You’ translation satisfies all three criteria. At the end of the dissertation, I provide my answer to the central question of this dissertation: when participating in a de se communication, we fulfill the co-aboutness requirement by using ‘I-You’ translation.
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ItemThe Forgotten Broadcaster: Alan Bell and the Spirit of England( 2018)From Prologue: As he stepped off the boat at Circular Quay, Alan Bell was wonderstruck. “Was it England I had come from?” he asked, “or some misty outer planet?”1 England, with its wintery landscape seemed a whole world away when Bell met the lazy blue skies of Australia in May 1942. Having spent weeks at sea, the well-known London journalist had arrived in Sydney fascinated by the country he would call home for the duration of the war.2 Melbourne would be the city from which he played his part in the conflict as a radio broadcaster for 3DB.3 Every night of the week, except Saturday and Sunday, Bell delivered ten minute talks that discussed and analysed Australia’s involvement in the war.4 His broadcasts served as a propaganda service that demonstrated a clear bias towards Britain’s war effort in Europe, informing his listeners that defeat of Hitler was more necessary to the war effort than defeating the Japanese in the Pacific………