School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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Item“Romantic, idealistic, fiercely partisan”: emotion and the Communist Party of Australia, 1920-1945( 2022)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’ lived experiences of Party life varied widely. Through the use of oral history interviews, autobiographies, and CPA publications, this research seeks to understand how Party authorities wanted members to experience emotions, and how they hoped these emotions would manifest in individuals’ behaviour. It demonstrates ways that individual members responded to these expectations, and aims to show how communists managed and expressed their feelings in this environment.
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ItemImagining the world from the classroom : cultural difference, empire and nationalism in Victorian primary schools in the 1930s and 1950s( 2005-09)This thesis, then, is about belonging to Australia and to the world. It is about imperialism, nationalism and the quality of goodness told through the lens of primary school students in 1930’s and 1950’s Victoria. I begin by exploring in Chapter One how the joint change in psychology and politics forced profound change to the basic framework of primary school curriculum. Children’s relationship to information was reconceived, and so too were the curricular structures necessary for this new epistemology. Spatial and temporal relations between Australia, Britain and the world were thus destabilized. But we need a much finer lens, and a more subtle understanding of the mechanisms of imaginative national belonging, if we are to describe this changing relationship. I take up this question in Chapter Two by looking at the reading resources given to children, from which they learnt complex lessons about aspects of being Australian. In Chapter Three I examine the impact of nationalism – Imperial and nation-state – in defining the child’s responsibilities. I argue that the project of nation-state nationalism that I describe, forced a change from moral to civic duty, a profound change to expectations about how and for whom children should act.
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ItemPrinciples and paradoxes: the Whitlam government's approach towards the Palestine Liberation Organisation, 1972-1975( 2011)Australian policy towards the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) was the source of significant controversy during the Whitlam government’s term in office. Between the years 1972-1975, disagreement within the major political parties and among the Australian public over responses to the PLO emerged in several crises over the period. Drawing upon archival sources and popular media, this thesis examines the personalities, pressures and paradoxes that shaped the government’s viewpoint on the PLO. The difficulties that Whitlam encountered in maintaining a neutral approach and the domestic debate over the government’s even-handed policies contributed to an issue that, although overlooked in much of the scholarship of the period, proved to be an extremely controversial aspect of the Whitlam government’s conduct of Australian foreign policy. Whitlam’s policies to the PLO have been interpreted as being anti-Israel in their orientation, inextricably tied to Middle East economic concerns and an abandonment of Australia’s alliances and principles in international relations. This thesis argues that contrary to this, the overall purposes of Whitlam’s foreign policies to the PLO are best understood in the context of Whitlam’s desire to reshape Australian national identity. Over the course of the events during 1972 and 1975 and the ensuing debate over the PLO, Whitlam strives to articulate a foreign policy that was free of racial considerations, which upheld the principle of neutrality and that demonstrated Australian independence in the world. Whitlam’s commitment to reshaping Australian international relations and renewing Australian identity provided the foundation for his resilience in seeking to accord the PLO with some level of recognition in Australia.