School of Culture and Communication - Theses
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ItemThe decorative works of Sir Edward Poynter and their critical reception( 1999)This thesis examines the decorative works of the nineteenth century British artist Sir Edward Poynter (1836-1919). His achievements as a decorative designer received considerable recognition during his lifetime but in more recent years have been overshadowed by his reputation as an academic painter. The neglect of this important component of Poynter's oeuvre by twentieth century scholarship is partly due to the destruction or dismantling of several of his major decorative commissions. Other schemes which were the focus of extensive public debate during the Victorian era — such as Poynter's designs for the Central Hall of the Palace of Westminster, the Lecture Theatre apse at the South Kensington Museum and the decoration of the dome of St Paul's Cathedral — were either not realised or only partially completed. This thesis aims to establish the extent and significance of Poynter's decorative career by a comprehensive analysis of the individual commissions and their historical context. These works encompass a variety of media, including painted furniture, stained glass, mosaics, ceramic tiles and frescoes. The accompanying catalogue and illustrations document the commissions with particular reference to their design and the stages of their execution. The thesis also locates Poynter's decorative schemes in the context of the wider debate regarding the nature and role of mural decoration during the second half of the nineteenth century. It elucidates, in particular, the crucial role played by materials and techniques in the contemporary reception of decorative works. Another important issue that arises from this study is the previously unrecognised importance of the Gothic Revival movement for the development of Poynter's career. Its influence is apparent in his belief in the role of architecture as a unifier of the arts, and in the emphasis in his decorative designs upon eclecticism and craftsmanship. Poynter's extensive involvement with the South Kensington Museum also had a major impact upon his decorative aesthetic. The strong Renaissance orientation of his mature work, which focusses on pictorial and narrative values, was directly reinforced by that institution. Poynter emerges from this study as an important but neglected figure in the history of nineteenth century British art, whose career illuminates both the positive and negative attitudes to mural decoration that characterise this period.
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ItemUneasy allies: an Englishman in Australia: Henry Vigors Hewitt 1839-1931( 1985)This thesis is an edited selection from, and commentary on, a collection of many hundreds of letters written between 1864 and 1972, diaries written 1860-1864, 1867, 1869-1871 and 1903-1907, and poems. In the first chapter diaries written 1860-1864 by my greatgrandfather Henry Vigors Hewitt are edited. These diaries were written in England, before his emigration to Australia. In following chapters, later diaries written by Henry, and several letters and poems, record his early colonial experience. Henry's second wife Mary Simmons emigrated. to Australia in 1871, and letters written by her in that year are edited in Chapter 6. Subsequent chapters draw on letters written by Henry, Mary and their children, and poems written by Henry and several of the children. Diaries written 1903-1907 by Will Hewitt while on the Coolgardie goldfields are edited in Chapter 15. All of the original letters and diaries were kept, first by Henry, then by Will, my grandfather, and then by my father. Many of the poems appeared in various newspapers; none of the rest of the material has been previously edited or published. My treatment of the material has been chronological, with some overlapping, for instance in chapters concerning the West Australian goldfields and the Boer War. My intention has been to retain the distinctive voice of each writer, while providing an historical and literary framework. For example, in looking at Mary House's poems written on the subject of World War I, I have touched on the origins of her style and convictions, the political climate of the time, and contrasted her romantic and heroic notions with letters written from Gallipoli and the Somme by her brothers Tom and. Deane Hewitt, and of course I have used historical texts as well. Thus I have provided more of a mise en scene than does the editor of Rachel Hennings' letters for example. (The Letters of Rachel Henning, ed. David Adams, Penguin, Melbourne, 1969.) At the same time my outlines of various events are necessarily brief; the material spans, at its furthest stretch, one hundred and eighteen years. It would have been possible to concentrate on one period or theme, as for example Dr. James A. Hammerton does in Emigrant Gentlewomen (Australian National University, 1979), which uses letter books of the Female Middle-Class Emigration Society as a starting-point, or as Judith Wright does in Generations of Men (Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1959) in which she draws on her grandfather's diaries to explore the history of the pioneers of north Queensland. It would also have been possible to restrict my thesis to a biography of Henry alone, which was my original intention. However as Mary Simmons' presence became more insistent and active, she demanded equal billing with Henry, and their childrens' correspondence from, variously, the Coolgardie gold-fields, remote cattle-runs in the Gulf of Carpentaria, and the trenches of. World War I, also drew me on into increasingly tangled personal relationships and wider history. In order to untangle the lives and experiences of the eleven people whose letters, diaries and poems are edited here, I have in effect peacocked this large body of valuable source material. For example, Will's letters and diaries written in Coolgardie between 1896 and 1906 provide an extensive picture of daily life on a diggings. Only a fraction of that material is included in this thesis. The same is true for a wide range of topics which I have touched on: the colonial experience, emigrant women, the squattocracy and the labour movement, the 1890s, Australia at war and so on. My starting-point was not historical. It was a curiosity about the hedonistic and indolent young gentleman who wrote a diary in Bath in 1860. I followed him to Australia in 1864 and watched him change into a hardworking and ambitious landowner. In 1871 the indomitable Mary Simmons sailed into view and things became increasingly complicated. During the 1890s Henry lapsed into disappointment and apathy. But now their children were setting out to discover Australia all over again, this time seeing not through English, but through Australian eyes. Nearly all of the children shared their parents' facility for expression, and individuality of style, and many of them wrote poetry, like Henry. Thus the record of two very different Victorian English emigrants changes into the record of an Australian Victorian and Edwardian family.
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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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ItemPerformance studies as a discipline?: a Foucauldian approach to theory and practice( 1993)This thesis has three major purposes: firstly, to describe and analyse the institutional power/knowledge relations operating in the constitution of the academic ‘discipline’ of performance/theatre studies. I deploy Michel Foucault’s conceptions of ‘discursive formation’, ‘discursive practice’, and ‘power/knowledge’; in an attempt to demonstrate the ways in which the academy distinctively articulates the discipline. The second purpose of the thesis is to map and critique specific conceptions of the ‘discipline’s’ epistemological profile, through an examination of the discursive practice of theatre at the University of Melbourne from the mid-fifties to the present. Third, I go on to prioritize a specific performance oriented articulation of the field’s epistemological profile, based on an interdisciplinary pedagogy. I describe the techniques, methods and theoretical justifications for such an articulation of the discipline by offering a critical account of The Killing Eye project - a multi-media performance which deals with the topic of serial murder - which was initiated in the context of a third year performance studies course. I conclude with an analysis of the academy’s institutional enablements and constraints in the areas of theatre practice and pedagogy.
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Item"Representing" Anglo-Indians: a genealogical study( 1999)This dissertation examines how historians, writers, colonial administrators, social scientists and immigration officials represented Anglo-Indians between 1850 and 1998.Traditionally, Anglo-Indians have sought to correct perceived distortions or misinterpretations of their community by disputing the accuracy of deprecatory stereotypes produced by ‘prejudicial’; writers. While the need to contest disparaging representations is not in dispute here, the present study finds its own point of departure by questioning the possibility of (re)presenting an undistorted Anglo-Indian identity. (For complete abstract open document)
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ItemThe art school and the university: research, knowledge, and creative practices( 2011)This thesis tracks changes in ‘research’ and ‘knowledge’ emerging from the incorporation of the art school into the university through the end of the 20th century. Identifying the need for historicised accounts of these contemporary institutions, the thesis synthesises the historical transformation of i) the modern university; ii) the art academy; and iii) the genre of the Ph.D. thesis that holds disciplinary knowledge in the arts and sciences through the 19th and 20th centuries. A key finding of this investigation is that these institutional forms have been revised according to different philosophical bases at different times, which is particularly evident in the substitution of science and natural philosophy for theology as the secular organising principle for the modern university. This displacement, which is also a repetition of its Christian heritage, begins in Germany in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, finally dominating higher research study by the 20th century. The investigation also finds that while studio art education has aspired to the status of liberal knowledge since at least the 15th century, its role as a university discipline remains conflicted, lacking a widely-held shared rationale for its modes of research that are nevertheless spreading rapidly through the provision of practice-based doctorates. The thesis argues that as with other new disciplines to the university, it will be through elaboration of a discipline-specific discourse drawn from the field itself that sustains its institutional acceptance, rather than the simple borrowing of other research definitions from other knowledge paradigms. Based on these findings, the final chapters of the thesis use scholarship in the history and philosophy of science to critique the Protestant-dominated moral economies embedded in scientific research paradigms that influence academic justifications for practice based research, with attention to postcolonial and feminist analyses of constitutive subjectivities underpinning these paradigms. The thesis then uses the work of Jacques Derrida and Bernard Stiegler on archives of knowledge to elaborate a process of performative individuation in relation to material ‘bodies of knowledge’, arguing that such a process differs from idealist scientific relationships to constative knowledge, and that this offers a more appropriate paradigm for considering the contributions to knowledge of the visual arts. Drawing upon Derrida’s account of the ‘university without condition’ (2002) and Spivak’s account of humanities learning, the thesis argues that the critical culture of ‘singularisation’ customary to the visual arts can productively address current transformations in the mission and operations of the university. A short postscript considers the implications of this argument for academic policies governing practice-led doctoral qualifications.
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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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ItemGlory boxes: femininity, domestic consumption and material culture in Australia, 1930-1960( 2009)This thesis investigates glory boxes as cultural sites of consumption, production, femininity, sexuality, economy and transnationalism between 1930 and 1960 in Australia, a period of considerable economic and social change. Glory boxes were the containers and collections kept and accumulated by many young single women in anticipation of their future married and domestic lives. The nature and manifestations of the glory box tradition have uniquely Australian qualities, which had its roots in many European and British customs of marriage preparation and female property. This study explores a number of facets of women's industrial, communal, creative and sexual lives within Australian and international historical contexts. These contexts influenced glory box traditions in terms of industrialisation, changing consumer practices, the economics of depression and war, and evolving social definitions of femininity and female sexuality. Glory boxes provide an effective prism through which to scrutinise these broad social and economic developments during a thirty year period, and to highlight the participation of young women in cultural practices relating to glory box production in preparation for marriage. Oral testimony from migrant and Australian-born women, the material culture of glory boxes and the objects collected, and popular contemporary magazines and newspapers provide important documentation of the significance of glory box practices for many Australian women in the mid-twentieth century. Glory boxes track twentieth-century shifts in Australia in terms of a producer and consumer economy at both collective and individual levels. They reveal the enduring social expectations until at least the 1960s that the role of women was seen as primarily that of wives, mothers and domestic household managers. Nonetheless, a close investigation of the meanings of glory box collections for women has uncovered simultaneous and contradictory social values that recognised the sexual potential of women, while shrouding their bodies in secrecy. This thesis suggests that a community of glory box practitioners worked through a variety of collective female environments which crossed time, place, generation and culture. It demonstrates the impact of the act of migrating on glory box practices which were brought in the luggage and memories of many post-war migrant women to Australia. These practices were maintained, adapted and lost through the pragmatics of separation, relocation and acts of cultural integration. This research has identified the experiences of young single women as critical to expanding understandings of the history of domestic consumption in Australia, and the gendered associations it was accorded within popular culture. It has also repositioned the glory box tradition as an important, widely practised female activity within feminist historiography, by recognising its legitimacy as female experience, and as a complex and ambivalent symbol which defies simplistic interpretations.
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ItemNot just routine nursing: the roles and skills of the Australian Army Nursing Service during World War 1( 2006)This comparative labour history seeks to reveal the working life and nursing practices of female military nurses I the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) during this period, and to highlight the importance of trained female professionals in caring for soldiers within many allied medical services. Official histories concern themselves with the logistics and administrative arrangements for the AANS rather than discussing the elements of hands-on nursing, and secondary sources tend to highlight the travel adventures of, and the impact of war on, the nurses themselves. Through a detailed examination of archival sources, this thesis explores the development of the AANS’s roles and skills from a military perspective. From an examination of pre-war civilian nursing, it explores in detail the impact of foreign physical environments, other allied personnel and systems, the military itself and war diseases and injuries on nursing work. While A.G. Butler, the official medical historian, may have thought that work in Australia hospitals in France was ‘routine’, this study explores the many events such as the ebb and flow of war that make military nursing different to civilian nursing. Australian army nurses did not limit their war work to nursing care. The exigencies of war expanded the scope of nursing into medical, military and non-nursing roles. The AANS performed military administrative roles such as Orderly Officer and in known roles such as that of Home Sister, now transformed into something akin to a hotel manager. They took on medical roles such as anaesthetist and assistant surgeon. Often providing the only female presence to soldiers who had been at the front for months, they also provided important mental comfort, moral support and friendship. In many cases, the expansion of their roles, skills and authority helped them to save more lives. During World War I, military nurses formally became part of the Australian military system for the first time. In doing so, they created a recognized niche for future military nurses.
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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.