School of Culture and Communication - Theses
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ItemThe billycan in Australian poetry(University of Melbourne, 2007)
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ItemSonic intersections : subjectivity within punk aesthetics(University of Melbourne, 2007)
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ItemObject lessons: public history in Melbourne 1887-1935( 2000-05)The thesis studies history-making in Melbourne’s central civic sphere, from its emergence in the 1880s to its decline in the 1930s. It identifies public history’s major themes and forms, and the relationships between them, based on four main cases of history-making: the articulation of the past and history in Melbourne’s 1888 Centennial International Exhibition; the historical backgrounds, development, unveilings and partial after-lives of Sir Redmond Barry’s statue, unveiled in Swanston Street in 1887, and the Eight Hours’ Day monument, unveiled in Carpentaria Place in 1903; and history-making around Victoria’s 1934-1935 Centenary Celebrations, with special emphasis on the Shrine of Remembrance and a detailed study of Cooks’ Cottage.
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ItemCommunity cultural development-a policy for social change?( 2003-02)This is to certify that the thesis comprises only my original work except where indicated in the preface; due acknowledgment has been made in the text to all other material used; the thesis is 30,000 words in length, inclusive of footnotes, but exclusive of tables, maps, appendices & bibliography.This thesis explores the area of Community Cultural Development (CCD) through a longitudinal Case Study. It postulates that the potential long-term outcomes of a successful CCD process, including the creation of communities and networks, as well as continuing cultural development for the participants, are frustrated by arts policy and funding. The analysis of the Case Study is contextualised by an examination of the history of CCD in Australia and the cultural policy framework for the funding of CCD projects.This thesis addresses the following question: Do the long-term outcomes - of creating networks, creation of communities and continued cultural development - succeed? It is hypothesised that CCD can achieve social change through two types of long term outcomes. The two types of long-term outcomes are - personal level outcomes and community level outcomes. Both levels of outcomes are examined in relation to the Case Study.However, the cultural policy framework for CCD does not support long-term CCD. It is problematic on many levels - funding, evaluation, and the infrastructure support of CCD. It is asserted that there is urgent need for a re-assessment on the way in which CCD is supported in Australia. And that this assessment examines whether the sector is in fact supportive of the aim of CCD - to effect social change.CCD is a process and an artform underpinned by a social change agenda. This research aims to further develop the academic body of work in the field of CCD, to create new questions, ideas and problems for further research to build upon.
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ItemYours faithfully; Werther for the English language stage( 2003)Although numerous English literary translations of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s ‘nobility in suicide’ - themed, epistolary, psychological and therefore “untheatrical” (Atkins 1949) novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (1774) have been published – none of the resultant English stage translations have ever been described as faithful to the original. The various obstacles to the creation of a faithful translation for the English language stage were analysed. The first obstacle is caution by Christian playwrights regarding the proscribed theme of nobility in suicide. Related to this is the second obstacle; the fear of producing ‘imitative’ suicides, which have been labelled ‘The Werther Effect’ by sociologists (Phillips 1974). Other obstacles are form-related rather than theme-related and include the absence of an authoritative English literary translation and the difficulties in translating to the stage the psychological and epistolary novel. With reference to Goethe’s three–tiered model of translation (translated by Lefevere 1977) and cinema academic Geoffrey Wagner’s ‘Three modes of adaptation’ (Wagner 1975) this writer has attempted to write a ‘prosaic’, ‘transpositional’ and unaugmented stage translation by identifying and addressing each of the obstacles, the hypothesis being that if these obstacles were systematically addressed and overcome, then an English language stageplay closely equivalent in meaning to the prominent ideas, themes and form of the novel – that is, a work arguably faithful to the novel – could be created. The research lead to the resultant creation The Sorrows and Sufferings of Young Werther; a Stageplay which is submitted as the creative work component (30%) of the writer’s Master of Creative Arts thesis at the University of Melbourne, Australia, in September 2003.
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ItemRecreating Batman's Hill: a study of urban development changes from 1835-2005( 2005)This thesis is a close study of planning developments on the Batman's Hill Precinct site, Docklands, Melbourne. It focuses on planning proposals, historical documents, descriptive texts and commemorational images to provide the first in-depth history of the Batman's Hill site from initial white settlement in 1835 to 2005. The repeated re-conceptualisation of Batman's Hill as a symbolic and historical place, and a site for urban development, was instrumental to the rapid growth of central Melbourne. The changes in land use facilitated the rapid growth of Melbourne from township to city. This detailed study of the planning and utilisation of the site of Batman's Hill enables a critique of how contemporary development on the Precinct has drawn upon colonial history to market this location. This thesis proposes that the history of Batman's Hill as the location of Melbourne's foundation, and the image of John Batman as Melbourne's founder, have been linked to the site's development at various times. This site has undergone many physical and zoning transformations that relate to the changing importance of Melbourne's cultural heritage for the public, and the need for industrial and transport facilities. Thus, public appreciation of the Batman's Hill site as a culturally significant location in Melbourne's urban history has fluctuated over time. From settlement in 1835, Batman's Hill was used for public recreation and was the first choice for the Melbourne Botanic Gardens. However, the rapid boom in population, as a result of the1850s goldrushes, put pressure on industrial, transport and building infrastructure. It was therefore rezoned to allow for railway and port expansion. Chapter One is a history of the effects of colonial governance on Batman's Hill. It details the change of Batman's Hill from a public space to an industrial zone. The industrialisation of Batman's Hill resulted in the removal of the elevated 'hill' in the late nineteenth century for the expansion of the Spencer Street railway lines. The name 'Batman's Hill' was still used although it was not consciously commemorating Melbourne's foundation or a hill. By the early twentieth century with Melbourne's centenary approaching, there was a renewed interest in reclaiming the identity of John Batman as the founder of Melbourne. Chapter Two discusses this period of industrial land use, and the reinvigoration of the image of Batman through the popular press and historical societies. Batman's Hill remained as an industrial area until the late twentieth century. The City of Melbourne's urban design agenda in the 1980s was to refocus the city's development toward the Yarra River and Port Phillip Bay. Such regeneration of docklands followed global urban design and planning trends. The history of Melbourne's foundation and John Batman, partially achieved in the early part of the twentieth century, was appropriated in the planning for residential development at Batman's Hill Precinct at the Melbourne Docklands. The use of this specific history within urban planning and marketing documents is discussed in Chapter Three. As the developers endeavour to reinstate Batman's Hill as Melbourne's 'Plymouth Rock', the place of 'first' white settlement by John Batman, the history of the site that is repackaged for the public is a fragmented one.
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ItemUncollected verse: an analysis of the decline of the national poetry anthology( 2007)In this thesis I show that there has been a decline in the production of "national poetry anthologies" in Australia since the end of the 1990s and seek to understand the reasons behind this decline. The first chapter examines changes in the economics of publishing and asks how these impact on literary texts, including the poetry anthology. I argue that with the increasing influence of a neo-liberal, deregulated industry context, production is concentrated within a smaller number of firms and that these firms concentrate on titles that might become blockbusters and are reluctant to produce texts — like anthologies — which will never be bestsellers. This is in spite of the fact that, I argue, there remains demand for them. I consider other factors including the introduction of a GST in 2000; the arrival of Nielsen BookScan, also in 2000; changes at Oxford University Press in the late 1990s; and adjustments in Australia Council funding since 1996, which I argue have aided the decline. The second chapter looks at cultural changes that have threatened the legitimacy of the national poetry anthology, including the "new" reality of social fragmentation in Australia and moves within the intellectual environment to express a more complex, diverse image of national culture. The challenge posed to national poetry anthologies by thematic anthologies produced in the 1970s and 1980s is also considered. In Chapter Two, I go on to provide a close textual reading of the eight major national poetry anthologies produced between 1986 and 1998 by focusing on their "paratextual" apparatus, including the Introduction, the cover, the publisher's and anthologist's reputations and the critical reception of these works. In the past, commentaries have tended to look at the selection of poems or poets in an anthology but these paratextual elements shape our reading of the poems in powerful ways and so deserve careful examination. In considering these anthologies, I argue that national poetry anthologists in the 1980s and 1990s were, for the most part, unable to make the anthology reflect social diversity and this made the anthology appear out-dated and irrelevant to contemporary reality. In the conclusion I argue that there is a need for the form of the national poetry anthology to change in order to try to accommodate current social and intellectual conditions.
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ItemChanging the landscape: the life and art of Moya Dyring( 2002)This thesis brings back into focus the life and art of Moya Oyring 1909-1967, who for a time played an important role in Australian art history. From 1937 she lived mainly in France and during her lifetime produced a substantial body of work, most of which was sold at exhibitions throughout Australia. Dyring's early work was figurative, her style strongly defined by the George Bell School and an early foray into Cubism. After settling in France the figures gave way to the constantly changing landscape as she travelled throughout the countryside of France, Spain and Italy. She recorded the life of the country villages the seaside towns and the vistas of Paris. But as her life slowed down in the late 1950s and early 1960s and she travelled less, the figures of children, playing in the parks and gardens blending with the cityscape of Paris, took over from the predominate landscape of earlier years. This thesis is presented in two parts. The first part takes the form of a biography, reconstructing the life of the artist from letters and interviews. Fifty six letters were sent to John and Sunday Reed by Dyring, over a period of thirty years and are now held in the archives of the State Library of Victoria. These letters and other relevant archival material have been used to reconstruct the life of the artist in consultation with family members and friends. Secondary sources, including catalogues and relevant art historical texts have provided additional knowledge of significant people and events that have had an impact on the artist's life, such as John and Sunday Reed, Sam Atyeo and Herbert and Mary Alice Evatt. The second section studies her work and the critical reception it received. It places the artist in the context of her own history, her art practice and art history as it relates to Dyring's gendered experience, politically and personally. Lack of knowledge of the artist's life and work has contributed to her being almost completely disregarded in exhibitions of women artists working in the thirties, forties and fifties. Her contribution to the emerging modernist scene in Melbourne and the part she played in the circle surrounding John and Sunday Reed at Heide, has been reduced to a few lines in art historical texts, yet a studio in Paris bears her name in homage to a great supporter of fellow artists. She had a rare gift for friendship and extended generous hospitality to a large circle friends and young artist visiting Paris from Australia. Like so many women artists of her generation her place in history has been ignored and her art forgotten. This thesis tells her story and places Moya Dyring and her art and life, back into the landscape.
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ItemBogan: exploring images of Australian cultural marginalisation( 2004)This thesis engages with a pressing contemporary concern: the negotiation of Australian national identity. Specifically, it argues that Australian media practitioners reconcile some of the complexity and ambivalence of Australian identity by deploying a discourse called 'bogan'. The bogan discourse creates a mediatised figure of the bogan, which is innately 'Australian' yet is also a social outcast for Australians to laugh at and loathe. By personifying traits and practices that do not accord with pre-existing ideologies of Australianness, the figure of the bogan helps reconcile contested and ambivalent ideas of national identity. Despite its assumed contemporary roots and actual existence, the bogan is purely discursive; and many of the rhetorical techniques used to produce bogans today were developed as long ago as the 1860s. This thesis assembles journalistic, literary, filmic and televisual conceptions of bogans through discussions of case studies including nineteenth-century larrikinism, the murder of Jaidyn Leskie, and the pilloried Paxton family. The bogan discourse operates in and through very different cultural contexts, without being limited to a particular era or location, because it is articulated through ideologies of national identity that are the subject of cultural anxiety and contest. These nationalist ideologies include the 'bush hero', the 'battler', 'community parenthood' and the 'do-it-yourself' ethos. While it has come to seem ‘true’ that the figure of the bogan is innately deviant and monstrous, and while the bogan discourse certainly requires and refers to empirical social realities, the figure of the bogan does not reflect the material conditions of a socioeconomic class, nor the self-articulated formations of a subculture. Rather, the bogan discourse produces understandings of reality through representations in journalism and popular culture. The social processes this thesis analyses, while anecdotally well-known, have never been studied academically as a social phenomenon. Thus this thesis proves its originality and importance by identifying a central figure in the Australian national imagination.
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ItemDrawing a line: the colonial genesis of the Hume highway( 2006)The colonial archives of the Hume Highway return to an inception narrative containing tropes of intrusion and conflict. In Chapter One a survey of the maps and literature relating to the 1824/5 expedition leads to a discussion of these tropes. The first of these, 'intrusion', concerns the process through which Aboriginal place was first reconfigured as colonial space. Beginning with Hamilton Hume's act of 'drawing a line' through the blank space of a government supplied skeleton chart, this act of intrusion was rapidly followed by the expedition party's penetration into the Aboriginal countries of south-eastern Australia. The second trope, 'tug of war', concerns the rivalry between Hovell, a British free settler, and Hume, a first-generation Australian. Throughout the 1824/5 expedition differences between the two men smouldered, before erupting in controversy in 1855 when Hume published his vitriolic pamphlet Facts. By placing the expedition and these men in their colonial context, Chapter One draws parallels between this conflict and class tensions within the Australian colonies during the same period. Such information enables the reader to appreciate the inception narrative of Chapter Two. How the expedition party made the road during their three and a half month expedition is recreated by drawing from associated exploration texts. By contrasting the explorers' distinct attitudes to the land and the Aborigines, the relationship between the two tropes also becomes evident. As the two men walked the road, so they would write it. Chapter Three examines the key moments and motivations of their controversy. With the publication of Facts 1 in 1855 Hume reasserted his authority over a road since inscribed with the regular traversings of settlement and gold traffic. In doing so, Hume also drew a line through the name of Hovell and ensured that the line in the skeleton chart eventually became known as the Hume Highway.