School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemBeyond the aetiology debate: the “great LSD scandal” at Newhaven Private Hospital & the social foundations of mental health legislation in Victoria, Australia( 2017)This research presents a case for the extension of existing analyses of Australian psychiatric scandals beyond the conclusion that such events are an inherent feature of the profession by virtue of its failure to resolve the aetiology debate. A mid-century impasse in the aetiology debate – the continuous shifting over time of professional commitment between organic and environmental aetiologies of mental illness – has been identified as the catalyst for the emergence of the therapeutic paradigm of eclecticism that fostered the deep sleep therapy and ‘Therapeutic Community’ programs that were central to Australia’s two infamous psychiatric scandals at Chelmsford and Townsville, respectively. While these two affairs were enduring the scrutiny of commissions of inquiry, the recommendations of which translated to the legislative reform of mental health services in the states of New South Wales and Queensland, a third such scandal was unfolding at Newhaven Private Hospital in Victoria involving the “injudicious use” of therapeutic LSD. By the late 1980s and early 90s, a number of former “patients” of Newhaven emerged claiming that they had never suffered any mental illness and that the LSD they had received had not been administered for therapeutic purposes but rather as a recruitment tool for a fringe religious sect known as The Family that had commandeered the hospital and the loyalty of a number of its staff. What constituted the scandal at Newhaven, however, was the fact that these activities continued unchallenged despite the implementation of statutory regulations – the Poisons (Hallucinogenic Drugs) Regulations 1967 – designed specifically to protect against the abuse of therapeutic hallucinogens. Having avoided any formal inquiry of its own, the Newhaven case represented not only a compelling narrative history opportunity, but also a test of the robustness of the prevailing argument that such scandals emerge as a consequence of the profession’s failure to achieve consensus on the aetiology of mental illness against the implication that inadequate legislation facilitated the abuse. Using the case of Newhaven as a working example, this research analyses the historical mental health legislation of Victoria and parliamentary debates to construct a legislative history of the aetiology debate and confirm its role in the emergence of psychiatric scandal, arguing that the Poisons (Hallucinogenic Drugs) Regulations 1967, and indeed mental health policy more broadly, were in fact products of the debate. Furthermore, it demonstrates how, far from being insulated within the profession of psychiatry, the debate itself was informed by wider prevailing social, cultural, political and economic trends. The abuse of therapeutic LSD unfolded under permissive regulations which reflected the permissive nature of broader mental health policy embodied in the Mental Hygiene Acts and their signature initiative of deinstitutionalisation. This permissiveness was a symptom of the underlying atmosphere of eclecticism that characterised mid-century psychiatry in Victoria as it sought to accommodate simultaneously the biological and social bases for the eugenic and community-based measures, respectively, that developed in response to the co-emergent social forces of the ‘mental hygiene’ and ‘anti-psychiatry’ movements.
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ItemA colonial soldier and the Algerian war of independence: questions of loyalty and identity for the Bachaga Boualam( 2017)This thesis examines the impact of colonial occupation and its demise on the life of an Algerian Colonial Soldier: The Bachaga Boualam. Drawing on a vast array of primary sources including books written by Boualam, documents from the French Colonial Archives and newspaper articles the tension between collaboration with and resistance to imperialism is explored. By examining Algeria's history as a colonised country, the loyalty to France which was developed, Boualam's life and the breakdown of colonial structures the thesis allows for a deep analysis about the impact of imperialism on an individual level.
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ItemThe instant image: a critical and creative exploration of the one-off photographic images( 2017)The research questions that underpin this thesis arise from my search for an alternative photographic process within my creative practice, following the demise of Polaroid in 2008. This study first investigates the history of photography and the many processes that created one-off finite images, including the contemporary adaptation of these processes. It then documents my creative work in reproducing and modifying several historical photographic processes, such as cyanotype and tintype, and my application of alternate means of photographic expression that maintain the unpredictable outcome achieved using Polaroid techniques. This doctorate is by exegesis and creative practice. It is in two volumes. In Volume One, the first four chapters trace the history of photographs, the scientific and artistic developments that led to the phenomenon we know as photography. My research outlines the scientists and practitioners behind the many evolving photographic processes, particularly those that produced one-off unrepeatable images. These chapters review the significance of each of these one-off processes, examining in detail such photographic processes as cyanotype and oil printing, how they were achieved and what influence they may have had on the further development of photography up to the present day. The thesis reflects on the individual nuances, veracity and limitations of the various processes that produced one-off tactile images that were unrepeatable without mechanical intervention. Chapters five to seven discuss the applications associated with the various one-off processes and the creative work that emerged from my trials and adaptations of them. These chapters document my experiments and how the processes may be adapted, altered or modified with contemporary technology or updated chemistry. I have also investigated the resurgence of the historical processes, now deemed ‘alternative’, among artists and photographers who, like myself, are seeking a new creative expression in their work. Volume Two is my creative portfolio. This provides the culmination of my archival and applied research and documents the public exhibitions of my creative work that comprises the doctorate. The creative portfolio showcases the outcome of the experiments undertaken to explore, review and revise various historic photographic processes, producing a body of one-off unrepeatable images that maintain the perfect imperfections, unique artifacts and veracity shown by my earlier work with Polaroid.
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ItemRedemption, redemption, redemption: slaves, souls and silver in the life of John Harrison, c.1604-1638( 2016)This thesis explores the world of a seventeenth-century English diplomat, mostly based in Morocco but also visiting France, the Dutch Republic and Bermuda. It examines his binding motivations and beliefs in order to understand his actions.
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ItemThe internet and conflicting narratives of history: a stolen generations case study( 2016)This paper investigates the different narratives of a contentious chapter of Australian history, the Stolen Generations, and the use of the Internet as a platform for narratives of history that differ from an official narrative. This work also discusses the various ways institutions are utilising the Internet to make their holdings more accessible to Indigenous Australians, and including them in the archival process.
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ItemScience in our hands: physiotherapy at the University of Melbourne 1895-2010( 2015)At a time when medicine could offer little therapeutic benefit, physiotherapists cured medical conditions by increasing circulation, strengthening muscle, breaking down adhesions, improving metabolism, affecting the nervous system, and restoring symmetrical and normal development and movement. Physiotherapy cured whilst medicine waited for nature to heal. This untold story of physiotherapy education in Victoria, Australia, is seen through the bifocal analytical lens of professionalisation and embodiment in the development of physiotherapists. As narrative and autobiographical history it identifies key physiotherapists and the relationships with medicine and medical sciences. It provides the background to the emergence of practitioners in the nineteenth century and their local recognition by the end of the century. The major professionalisation milestones include the formation of an association and education in conjunction with the University of Melbourne in 1906, and the expanding clinical roles of women and men physiotherapists in the two World Wars. The itinerant physiotherapy services, commenced in the 1930s to treat people with poliomyelitis, extended its services to a wider community, becoming the forerunner of primary contact autonomous practice in 1976. These significant events influenced education. Whilst continuing to undertake biomedical sciences subjects at the University of Melbourne, the School of Physiotherapy became established initially at Fairfield Hospital and then Lincoln Institute. The proposal to transfer Lincoln to La Trobe University in the 1980s induced the members of the physiotherapy profession to campaign successfully for the University of Melbourne to commence its School of Physiotherapy in 1991. The development of comprehensive education and research programmes and an expanding physiotherapy epistemology conclude this exploration of the professionalisation journey.
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ItemThe good death: historicising euthanasia in Australia( 2016)This thesis provides an historical perspective on the contemporary push to legalise euthanasia in Australia. It traces the rise of euthanasia activism from the first proposal to legalise a physician-assisted death in England in the 1870s to the enactment of the world’s first voluntary euthanasia legislation in Australia’s Northern Territory in 1995. In order to apprehend how a death hastened by a physician became a conceivable and even desirable way to die, it argues that the movement must be examined in relation to changing cultural conceptions of the good death, dying and suffering. Drawing on Foucault’s concept of genealogy, this project historicises the thoughts, feelings and customs that gave rise to the euthanasia debate and today make it so compelling. It sees the beginnings and flowering of the movement as entwined with shifting Western understandings of the good death that are themselves inextricably tied to changing deathbed practices – notably the rising prominence of the doctor at the bedside of the dying. The thesis contends that ultimately the increasing popularity of the euthanasia cause needs to be grasped in the context of a dramatic shift in Western conceptions of the pain of dying that can be traced back to the nineteenth century. In taking this approach, the thesis contributes to histories of dying and suffering. Many scholars of the history of dying in twentieth-century Western societies have emphasised the idea that as medicine developed unprecedented means to cure the sick, death came to be seen as a medical failure and the pain and suffering of the dying was neglected. Through a history of euthanasia, this study traces a different shift in cultural attitudes towards terminal illness and pain as well as another, less well-examined aspect of the medicalisation of dying. It argues that the increasingly popular euthanasia movement reflected and reinforced a growing medical as well as cultural concern not to preserve or prolong life, but to eliminate pain and suffering.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableBroadening Perspectives on Jewish Resistance in Nazi-occupied Poland: A Comparative Study of Jewish Agency in the Lodz and Warsaw Ghettos( 2016-05-17)This thesis discusses Yehuda Bauer's nuanced approach to Jewish resistance in Eastern Europe during World War Two. It applies his reinterpretation of the Hebrew term 'amidah', and the idea of 'sanctification of life' as resistance, to the Nazi-occupied ghettos of Eastern Europe. It takes specific focus upon the largest two ghettos, that of Warsaw and Lodz. In addition to the application of Bauer's concept of resistance to these ghettos, a comparative analysis is made. This study considers what forms of resistance were displayed in each ghetto and why this was the case. By so doing, it offers a new and more nuanced approach to Jewish resistance within the ghettos.
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ItemHistoricizing cosmology: the shifting scenes of modern cosmological inquiry( 2015)Modern cosmology emerged as a distinctive field of physics in the 20th century. Over time, a number of important shifts occurred in (i) the questions and problems that were deemed intelligible; and (ii) the methods, techniques and epistemic practices that made these questions and problems tractable. These fundamental changes have been obscured by historical accounts that focus exclusively on cosmological theories. By tracing the history of its questions and practices, my approach analyzes the shifting scenes of modern cosmological inquiry—the evolving ways in which inquirers ‘get to grips’ with the cosmos as a whole. The thesis also draws out the somewhat hidden role that the historical style has played in the radical transformations in conceptions of the universe. Historicizing cosmology means investigating the historical conditions under which, and the means with which, the cosmos as a whole was made into an object of scientific knowledge. Yet the title also denotes the way in which the historical style unfolded in the domain of cosmological inquiry. The cosmos as a whole is now universally understood in terms of historicity. Practices such as forwards and backwards temporal extrapolation (thinking about the past evolutionary history of the universe with different initial conditions and other parameters) are now commonplace. I trace the emergence, evolution and subsequent entrenchment of the historical style. The scene has gradually become dominated and entirely constituted by historicist explanations. This has configured (and re-configured) the terrain of possibilities for the scenes of inquiry. In short, the universe has been historicized and the historical style has made the universe tractable. In order to trace the emergence and evolution of the historical style, my approach is to examine five major ‘turning points’ or ‘signature moments’, which paved the way for new phases in modern cosmological inquiry. These five turning points also highlight challenges to the historical style, and its struggle to establish itself against opposing tendencies.
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ItemLost property: the marginalisation of the artefact in contemporary museum theatre( 2015)The use of performance as an interpretive tool in museums has a long, although largely under-researched, history. Central to this thesis is the paradoxical observation that performance in museums, or ‘museum theatre’, regularly fails to engage with collection items. The title of the thesis, ‘lost property’, refers to both the apparent displacement of collection objects as the subject of museum theatre and the complexities of performing historical artefacts in a museum without reducing their significance to the status of a theatrical prop. Traditionally, the object has been central to the concept of ‘museum’. With the advent of a new museological approach to the running of museums, the exhibition object seems to have taken a subordinate role to the presentation of ideas and concepts through exhibition design and interpretation. This thesis draws on disciplinary literature, case studies, site visits and interviews with museum theatre practitioners to identify and examine the factors that have contributed to the shifting focus of performance based on objects to performance based on ideas.