School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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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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ItemNo Preview AvailableDress in Australia: The materiality of a colonial society in the making( 2023-08)The study of surviving items of dress offers a vital material source for historians that is commonly ignored. Dress sits at the intersections between necessity and self-representation, the assertion of social standing and cultural, economic and technological aspects of society. Yet writings on dress in the Australian colonial context have largely overlooked the extant items, focusing instead on images and text. “Dress in Australia: the materiality of a colonial society in the making” takes a material culture approach to the history of colonial era dress from the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788 to the late-nineteenth century. It pays particular attention to the early years of colonisation and development of colonial society in the years up to the early-1870s. The research methodology, which uses the study of a selection of garments in public and private collections which are known to have been either made or worn in Australia, places surviving items of dress and their materiality to the fore in discussions of European colonisation and Australian settler culture. The close examination of surviving items of dress, coupled with contextual interpretation of objects based on archival research using letters, journals and correspondence, as well as visual material, demonstrates how such an approach enables historical interpretations that would not have been possible from a narrower methodological base. Through the detailed analysis and contextual interpretation of objects, this thesis shows how their materiality prompts new directions and expanded ways of thinking about the significance of dress within a rapidly changing settler society.
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ItemSame-sex marriage in Australia and the transformation of an institution, c. 1930-2017( 2023-05)This thesis explores the history of same-sex marriage in Australia between 1930 and the introduction of marriage equality in 2017. It examines the performance of religious and non-religious same-sex commitment ceremonies and weddings, and advocacy for relationship recognition. This thesis draws on a diverse range of archival sources to argue that there was a prominent and sustained interest in same-sex marriage in Australia and internationally since the emergence of modern lesbian and gay politics in the 1970s. It can be traced even earlier, with same-sex weddings forming an important part of pre-liberation Australian camp cultures. This interest in same-sex marriage was dispersed and haphazard, forwarded by same-sex couples, lesbian and gay Christians and other figures in public sexual politics. Yet it forms an important part of the history of sexual and social change in the twentieth century. The history of relationship recognition reform and activism in Australia was unique but was also shaped by global trends and flows of people and information. Ritual and ceremony played an important role in the development of new sexual identities and the conceptualisation of same-sex relationships, furthering the social acceptance of homosexuality in Australia. This thesis represents one of the first considerations of same-sex marriage as a historical phenomenon in Australia and historicises recent debates over marriage equality. The complicated and contested history of same-sex marriage prior to legalisation reveals much about how sexual politics has evolved in Australia, and how the institution of marriage itself has transformed over the twentieth century.
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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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ItemNineteenth-Century Arcades in Australia: History, Heritage & Representation( 2022)This thesis explores the social and spatial histories of Australia’s nineteenth-century arcades from their beginning in Melbourne in 1853, with an emphasis on their first half century of development. It explores the retail, leisure and business activities they hosted and the lived experiences of the people who worked and played in these spaces. The thesis explores their current place in the Australian urban imagination and how the historic representation of the arcades shapes our present-day understanding and perceptions of these buildings. The thesis examines how the arcade form was idealised in print and visual culture to represent particular notions of civilisation, progress, modernity, and cosmopolitanism in Australia during the second half of the nineteenth-century. Undertaking close analysis of a wide range of sources, it works to challenge and disrupt nostalgic perspectives that developed during this period and that continue to influence our perception in the present day. It argues that the histories of the arcades in Australia (as elsewhere) are far more nuanced than has previously been understood. Rather than rarefied sites of leisure and pleasure for the middle classes, they were sites where Australians from all walks of life played, worked and experienced the diversity of urban life and what urban life had to offer. The thesis aims to break down dichotomies of metropole and periphery that often characterise Australian urban spaces in juxtaposition to the metropoles of Britain, Europe or North America. To do this, it locates the Australian arcades within a transnational context, seeing them as nodes within global networks of exchange: of ideas, people, and things. Further, it explores the arcades not only of the coastal capitals but also considers those constructed in regional areas with a view to broadening our understanding of what it meant to be urban in this period in Australia.