School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Research Publications
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ItemNo Preview AvailableEvangelists of empire?: missionaries in colonial history(eScholarship Research Centre in collaboration with the School of Historical Studies and with the assistance of Melbourne University Bookshop, 2008)In recent years, renewed interest in the role of Christian missionaries in colonising projects has helped inform and challenge current concepts of gender, race and colonial governance. "Evangelists of Empire?" gathers together a diverse group of scholars around these evolving new histories in Australia and other colonial sites. Utilising a range of source material and a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches, this ground-breaking collection offers the reader new ways of assessing the uneven paths of mission endeavours, and examines the ways in which Indigenous peoples responded to - and took ownership of - aspects of Christian and Western culture and spirituality.
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ItemImperial legacy: the politics of display in Australia( 2004)Somewhere among the countless rows of objects currently on display in the British Museum’s Enlightenment exhibition there rests a flaking bark shield. This battered, utilitarian object stands somewhat apart from the splendidly exotic artefacts that surround it. Yet beneath its unprepossessing appearance there lies an extraordinary provenance. It was taken in 1770 from the Eastern Australian seaboard by Captain Cook’s landing party during its initial encounter with the first inhabitants of the land incorporating what is now known as Sydney. The shield has been placed in a display of non-Western artefacts acquired during the period of Enlightenment discovery “through gift, trade or purchase”. In truth, however, none of these words could be used to describe its acquisition. It was hardly given, since it came into the party’s possession as a result of their shooting at a group of Eora people who left the cover of trees, apparently shouting at them to leave. Neither was it traded, unless one views a bullet fired in anger as a fair offer of exchange. Nor could it be called a purchase, unless one counts as a purchase price the blood shed by its original owner as he was hit trying to flee the invaders.
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ItemComing home to the land( 2006)A version of this essay appeared as Leslie, D. (2006). Coming home to the land. Eureka Street, March-April, 30-31.This essay is a tribute to artist Lin Onus. It explores and assesses his artistic legacy as a journey into a healing land; a place of refuge and Aboriginal tradition which encourages empathy. Onus’s painting is contemplated for the inspiration it presents, not only in regard to increased understanding of Aboriginal and cross-cultural Australian histories, but to the medium of painting as a way of bridging the cultural gap and transcending the limitations of history.
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ItemMedea in Australia: responses to Greek tragedy in contemporary Australian theatre( 2006)In this article I briefly examine three productions of Medea that reflect some of the dominant responses to Greek tragedy in Australia during the past twenty years. I experienced these productions at first hand in Melbourne between 1984 to 1993 – some were also performed elsewhere. To avoid preconceptions of theatrical forms I call these styles ‘hysterical/realistic’, ‘body theatre’, and ‘opera-theatre’. I have expanded my analysis of these performances more recently through archival research in preparation for a much larger project on the reception of Greek tragedy in Australia from the beginning of European settlement late in the eighteenth century to the present. Of all the extant Greek tragedies, Medea appears to have received the most attention here. As I argue in another paper that focuses on the 2005 Indigenous Australian production (Black Medea, in preparation) a number of Australian productions and adaptations of Greek tragedy invite a scathing postcolonial critique. Here I simply analyse some of the trends that the three productions of Medea illustrate. Each of them deserves a fuller analysis than is possible here.
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ItemThe time of reconciliation & the space of politics( 2003-08)In this paper, I presuppose that it is a political mistake to think of reconciliation in (moral community) terms, given the starkly opposed narratives in terms of which members of a divided polity typically make sense of past political violence. A project of reconciliation is unlikely to ever get off the ground, in such contexts, if it is made conditional on first establishing a shared moral account of the nature of past wrongs. Community can not be presupposed because the politics of reconciliation turn precisely on the question of belonging, of who"we" a
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ItemBeauty contest for the British bulldogs? Negotiating (trans)national identities in suburban Melbourne(Melbourne University Press, 2003-11)‘Britfest’ is a local festival held in the Melbourne suburb of Frankston. Like the numerous festivals of ethnicity in Australia that simultaneously celebrate cultural distinction and national incorporation, Britfest offers a historically specific reaction to the re-imagining of the nation. This article examines this new expressive tendency within the context of recent debates about Britishness in Australia, and explores the ramifications for identity formation and cultural affiliation among British migrants. By locating this analysis in Frankston, we aim to provide a situated example of the ways in which British ethnic identities are being negotiated. Such localised and specific responses, however, are operating within and are influenced by the broader context of shifting representations of a diverse British diaspora. Like British-Australians, members of this diaspora also inhabit nations shaped by the legacies of British imperialism, colonisation and migration. Shifting meanings of Britishness also represent and inform a more general ‘crisis of whiteness’, indicating how culturally embedded the colonial equation of Britishness with whiteness has been for those who imagine themselves at the core of the contemporary Australian nation.
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ItemRed reflections on the sea: Australian army nurses serving at sea in World War 1(Naval Historical Society of Australia, 2009)The onset of World War 1 placed immense strains on the medical treatment and evacuation plans and organisation of the Australian defence force. This article examines and describes the roles played in this essential service by the nurses of the Australian Army, many of whom found themselves serving in ships and sharing the risks and conditions experienced by all at sea in a war zone. The contribution that these women made led to the development of better nursing services in the war that followed in 1939.