School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Research Publications
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ItemNo Preview Available'To exercise a beneficial influence over a man': marriage, gender and the native institutions in early colonial Australia(eScholarship Research Centre in collaboration with the School of Historical Studies and with the assistance of Melbourne University Bookshop, 2008)This chapter examines understandings of marriage among missionaries and humanitarians connected with two early colonial ‘Native Institutions’. A comparison of the Parramatta Native Institution in New South Wales and the Albany Native Institution in Western Australia demonstrates that concerns about marriage were central in discussions about the formation and maintenance of these Institutions. Both of these Institutions were established and supported by British evangelicals, who had brought with them to Australia powerful assumptions about gender roles, particularly in marriage. These assumptions influenced their decisions regarding the children who resided in the Native Institutions. Within specific colonial contexts, however, the assumptions of humanitarians and missionaries did not remain static, and debates over the futures of the Aboriginal children they sought to educate reveal complex and shifting hierarchies of race, gender and class.
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ItemNo Preview Available'A longing desire in my heart': faith, family and the colonial frontier in the life of Euphemia Kramer 1887-1971(eScholarship Research Centre in collaboration with the School of Historical Studies and with the assistance of Melbourne University Bookshop, 2008)This chapter considers how writing the life stories of women missionaries can inform larger narratives about Indigenous-settler relations, gender and colonialism, through an examination of Euphemia Kramer, a Pentecostal convert from Victoria who travelled across central Australia with her husband in the 1920s, spreading God’s word. The Kramers’ travelling mission (supported by Adelaide humanitarian group the Aborigines’ Friends’ Association) provided sermons and bibles to isolated Aboriginal groups in the interior, as well as medical and other essential supplies. An effective study of Euphemia’s life must consider her various roles as a ‘missionary wife’, as a missionary in her own right, as a white woman on the colonial frontier, and as a mother. Her intense commitment to the Pentecostal faith, like her husband’s, informed much of her behaviour and actions; indeed, her written recollections are notable for Indigenous people’s absence. Despite working for and with Indigenous people for much of her life, faith and family commanded a much greater focus in Euphemia’s own view. This apparent contradiction runs counter to historical narratives of colonialism which seek to place missionary work at the centre of the European oppression of Indigenous peoples, suggesting instead an approach that considers the missionaries’ many motives.
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ItemArchitectures of the senses: neo-baroque entertainment spectacles(MIT Press, 2003)It was sometime in November 2000. I was walking along an Arabian street, taking in the rhythms of the arabesque decorations and the spectacular, multi-colored buildings; being entertained by the exotic street musicians; and occasionally being lured into various bazaars that offered the temptations of products ranging from Persian rugs and glassware, to Versace gowns and DKNY accessories. At one point, I found myself at a pier. I looked up at the sky and, while soft, fluffy clouds punctured its blue (yet somewhat solid) surface, it seemed like it was going to be a beautiful day. But what do I know? No sooner had I thought this than the rumbling sounds of thunder vibrated through the air and flashes of lightning lit up the now-transformed dark and ominous clouds. And the rain came pouring down, creating restless ripples in the previously still waters near the pier. So I left Arabia and walked across the road to Lake Como, where I took in the sights of the palazzo Bellagio as it stood majestically in the background. Initially, the enormous lake reflected the palazzo in its tranquil waters, then thousands of small tubes began to puncture its surface, and the first bars of music suddenly filled this vast space. I recognized the tune Frank Sinatra's "Lady Luck" - and it was, indeed, a toe-tapper. As hundreds flocked around balconies overlooking the lake, the lake's water began to magically take on a life of its own: spurts of water swayed left and right, back and forth in perfect unison with the rhythms of Sinatra's crooning. And the audience continued to look on, mesmerized by the spectacle they witnessed, astounded by the rhythmic motions of water, which included stretches of up to fifty meters erupting to heights that exceeded one hundred meters.
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ItemBaby bitches from hell: monstrous little women in film(Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, 2005)The Surrealists were fascinated by what they perceived as the dual nature of the little girl, her propensity for innocence and evil. This theme has also proven an enduring one in the history of the cinema and provided the basis for many acclaimed films from The Innocents to Lolita. The view of the female child as particularly close to the non-material world of fantasy and the imagination was central to the beliefs of the Surrealists. They regarded childhood as "the privileged age in which imaginative faculties were still à l’état sauvage – sensitive to all kinds of impressions and associations which education would systematically 'correct'". "Dissecting mystery is like violating a child", Bunuel was fond of saying.' In the 1924 Manifesto, Breton claimed, "The spirit which takes the plunge into Surrealism exultantly relives the best of its childhood."
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ItemThe ice-age(Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, 2007)Lee Bul’s Mon grand récit: because everything … 2005 is a table-top miniature world. One of a pair of major sculptures sharing the same title and mapping the same mysterious topography, the Govett-Brewster’s Mon grand récit: because everything’s alter ego, Mon grand récit: weep into stones… 2005 was shown at the Basel Art Fair in 2005. The two works are very similar, though the Govett-Brewster version is slightly larger and is dominated by a glossy, sprawling, white base resembling a vast glacier, whereas the same forms in Weep into stones… are suspended in space, like a huge train-set on scaffolding. Both works are composed of images of the wreckage of modern history’s mass utopias, of the twentieth century visions of crazy perfection that were shared by capitalism, fascism and communism. These visions have now disintegrated. First, this essay looks at Mon grand récit: because everything… as a work of art that represents the duration of modern history and its entropic end. It does this by translating duration into metonymic images, into images that represent the twentieth century’s failed utopias by architectural models of never-completed modernist monuments in construction: a hanging, bent wood freeway hovering above a snowy abyss; a mountainous central tower encrusted with miniature crystal models; a tiny scale model of Vladimir Tatlin’s never-constructed Monument to the Third International 1920 perched on a glacial waste. Second, the essay shows that because Lee Bul presents modern history as both personal and shared, the instructional diorama represents her quite strategic and very conscious argument against contemporary art criticism’s hermeneutics of nationality, in favour of a determinedly global perspective.
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ItemSusan Norrie( 2004)The work of Susan Norrie, which now spans more than two decades, is challenging, provocative and inspirational. As with all visionary artists, Norrie’s practice has developed and changed over time, now incorporating painting, objects, still and moving images and sound. from her paintings to her installations and video projections, Norrie’s work combines technical brilliance and extraordinary talent with an acute and restless intelligence.
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ItemDiagrammatology(Alt-X Press, 2007)Drawing together Derrida’s interest in grammatology and the inventive, and contemporary architectural interest in diagrams, this paper proposes the notion of ‘diagrammatology’.7 Diagrammatology is understood here as a generative process: a ‘metaphor’ or way of thinking – diagrammatic, diagrammatological thinking – which, in turn, is linked to poetic thinking. This understanding is informed by contemporary architectural theory which conceives of the diagram as a ‘temporary formulation of intentions still to be realized, a machine for learning and change’, a ‘heuristic method’.8 This paper develops diagrammatology through example, by exploring three iterations of the (architectural) diagram. The first iteration is Derrida’s choral grid diagram, which emerged from his reading of the chora section of Plato’s Timaeus – a reading that framed his collaboration with the architect Peter Eisenman on Bernard Tschumi’s Parc de la Villette project. The second iteration is the use Gregory Ulmer subsequently made of Derrida’s choral diagram and reading of the Timaeus in the development of the genre of ‘mystory’ and ‘heuretics’ (the ‘logic of invention’). The third iteration uses the choral grid as a guiding figure for speculating on the intermingled nature of contemporary teletechnologies.
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ItemThe rules of the game: Evil dead II . . . meet thy doom(Duke University Press, 2002)Interdimensional doorways finally make possible space travel between the two moons of Mars: Phobos and Deimos. The Union Aerospace Corporation's research into interdimensional travel is a success. Or is it? In a climactic series of events, things start to go terribly wrong. Some people sent through the gateways disappear. Others return from Mars's moons as zombies. Then the moon Deimos vanishes without a trace. Enter the hero-leader of a specialized team of space marines. He sends his troops ahead of him through the interdimensional gateway; armed with a Space Marine Corporation gun, he follows them through, but once on Phobos his worldview changes. The space marines have vanished. Instead, dark surroundings envelop him, and eerie, atmospheric music accentuates the suspense-filled moments. The marine leader begins to scour the corporate installation in search of any living human being ... but it's not the living who come to greet him. Seemingly out of nowhere, an array of bizarre creatures charge down dim-lit corridors and through automatic doors: zombified humans, demons, imps, minotaur-like forms, evil spirits. And so it begins. He must explore the installation to find out what happened, then get the hell out of there at any cost! Picking up weapons along the way, he attacks the monsters like a man gone berserk-with fists, chainsaw, gun, rifle, and missile launcher. His body takes a beating, but his victims also pay the price. Hundreds of those demonic bodies audibly erupt, explode, and splatter before him-and he revels in every gory detail. A sequel to Aliens: Aliens Meets the Demons of Hell? Or perhaps Evil Dead II in outer space? This is no film space. The horror of this story belongs to the cult computer game released by id Software in 1993: Doom: Evil Unleashed.
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ItemLa Trobe: the making of a governor(Melbourne University Press, 2006)Charles Joseph La Trobe was Superintendent of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales and Victoria's first Lieutenant-Governor (1851-54). His administration, which coincided with the turbulent challenges of the Victorian gold rushes, was highly controversial.He departed from office a disappointed man whose contribution to the development of the colony was not immediately recognized. His was a vision of a cultured, economically viable and Christian society, with equality of opportunity for all. Any recognition of his achievements eluded him, especially regarding the Aboriginal people and the goldfields administration.As Dianne Reilly Drury shows in this fascinating investigation of the man, La Trobe's actions, ideas and behaviours during his fifteen years in office in Melbourne may be best understood by an examination of the way his character was shaped--especially by the influences on him of the Moravian faith and education, by his passion for travel and by the devotion and support of his family and friends in England and Switzerland.
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ItemLa tentation néoclassique: les plafonds peints romains de Panini à Mengs(Musee Fesch, 2002)The following is the original English text of: Marshall, David R., ‘La tentation néoclassique: les plafonds peints romains de Panini à Mengs’, in Jean-Marc Olivesi (ed.), ‘Les Cieux en Gloire’. Bozzetti et modelli pour les eglises et les palais de la Rome Baroque, Musee Fesch, 2002, pp. 377-386. In 1711 Giovanni Paolo Panini arrived in Rome from Piacenza; fifty years later in 1761 Anton Raphael Mengs left Rome for Madrid. The former, better known as a painter of architectural capricci and vedute, was the heir to the Bolognese Baroque tradition of quadratura, or illusionistic architectural painting; the latter at the Galleria Albani rejected Baroque illusionism for the strict quadro riportato, or fictive framed easel painting, and so produced the first Neoclassical ceiling. Their paths seem hardly to have crossed, yet both worked for Cardinal Alessandro Albani, and both had to accommodate themselves to the mainstream of Roman ceiling painting, the illusionistic tradition stemming from Pietro da Cortona and reformulated in the last quarter of the seventeenth century in terms of an opposition between Carlo Maratta and G.B. Gaulli, Il Baciccio. Common to the masterpieces of these artists—the ceiling of the Salone of the Palazzo Altieri and the vault of the Gesù—is the ceiling cartouche, or rectangular field with semicircular ends, a framing motif that played so conspicuous a part in subsequent Roman ceilings that the history of the eighteenth-century Roman ceiling can be written in terms of the history of the relationship between the cartouche and the rest of the ceiling.