School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Research Publications
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ItemDegradation profiles of silk textiles in diverse environments: Synchrotron based infrared micro-spectroscopy analysis(Springer, 2017)In this paper, synchrotron based infrared micro-spectroscopy was utilized to describe the degradation profile of fibroin contained in silk textiles (Bombyx mori). The spatial distributions of deterioration effects in silk samples artificially aged at an assortment of conditions (thermal, hydrolytic and ultraviolet) were distinctly visualised and in accordance with the findings from conventional infrared spectroscopy in references. Further this method was applied on a historic sample from a private collection in Melbourne, and presented consistent results. This established synchrotron IR chemical mapping method could enable museum professionals to better understand the preservation state of historic silk and make informed decisions for conservation.
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ItemExploring the Outlands: A Case-Study on the Conservation Installation and Artist Interview of David Haines’ and Joyce Hinterding’s Time-Based Art Installation(Taylor and Francis Group, 2021)The artwork by David Haines and Joyce Hinterding, The outlands, 2011 is a time-based art installation composed of sculptural, software and gaming technology exhibited in a gallery space. The work was acquired by the Art Gallery of New South Wales after being awarded the 2011 Anne Landa Award Unguided Tours exhibition prize but has not been installed since. As such, any future iterations will be challenging due to its condition, functionality and machine dependency. This paper explores the value of installing Haines’ and Hinterding’s time-based art installation to chart the conservation assessment processes of documentation, functionality testing and the install itself. It discusses how in-situ artist interview affords artistic agency and contributes knowledge on the materials, conceptual and technical elements of the work, functional limitations and its future conservation management. The outcomes of the conservation interactions have allowed for a deeper understanding of conservation as a reiterative process as issues of software and hardware dependencies, and the situated and spatial relationships between various elements became more salient. This has assisted conservators in preparing for object obsolescence and aims to support future re-activations of The outlands, 2011.
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ItemPopulation Aging and the Retirement Age(Wiley, 2024)Numerous jurisdictions have recently raised the age of retirement or plan to do so. Pressure to extend people's working lives is due to population aging, which makes it harder to fund retirement through existing methods. Raising the retirement age can improve the ‘dependency ratio’ by increasing the fraction of the population that works (and pays taxes) relative to the fraction retired. This article gives sustained attention to connecting the case for retirement with one view about wellbeing, according to which old age is subject to distinctive goods. The importance of being able to access these goods in old age favours an eventual exit from labour market participation that retirement provisions enable. This view is stronger than one that treats retirement as merely a safety net to enable people to stop work only when advanced aging makes it unreasonably burdensome. At the same time, the view likely does not justify status quo retirement ages, meaning that some increase to the retirement age might be defensible. The article also seeks to illuminate ways in which different aspects of population aging – in particular the distinction between dependency ratios and inequalities in longevity – bear differently on the wider debate about justice and retirement.
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ItemBronzino's portrait of Cosimo I de'Medici in armour re-examined(Burlington Magazine Publications, 2023-01)Technical analysis by the Art Gallery of New South Wales of its portrait by Bronzino of Cosimo I de’ Medici in armour has revealed more details of the mysterious underlying portrait first observed in a X-radiograph in the 1980s. It has also established that Bronzino hesitated between making the portrait half-length or three-quarter-length, confirming that the painting is the prime autograph version of the three-quarter-length image.
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Item'A New Prague Spring, but from Below?' Socialist Dissent in the Last Soviet Generation and the Emergence of Solidarność in Poland, 1980-1981(Cambridge University Press, 2024)This article examines the Young Socialists, a left-wing dissident circle of intellectuals from the last Soviet generation, and focuses on their contacts with Solidarność during 1980–81. These dissidents, located in Moscow and Minsk, interpreted the Polish strikes as the possible beginnings of a wider move to socialist reform in the Eastern Bloc. Using oral history and samizdat materials from the Russian and Polish archives and the former archives of Radio Free Europe, the article demonstrates how the Young Socialists’ interactions with Poland developed in the wider context of the transnational history of dissent in the Eastern Bloc at the turn of the 1980s. It argues that a combination of internationalist values and bloc-wide dissident solidarities caused socialist dissidents to view nationalist movements on the Soviet periphery and Eastern Europe as potential drivers of socialist reform on the eve of Perestroika.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableA Re-Evaluation of the Iconography of the Etruscan Bronze Lamp of Cortona(De Gruyter, 2024)This paper addresses unresolved issues in the study of the enigmatic iconography of the Etruscan bronze lamp of Cortona. Drawing upon literary sources and additional iconographic evidence, issues with previous interpretations of the lamp will be discussed. Subsequently, new identities are proposed for the key figures on the lamp, concluding that its iconography is a manifestation of Dionysian thiasus and that the lamp was a cult object associated with the mystery cult of Dionysus. This paper will also contribute to the refutation of the concept of “Dionysism without Dionysus” in Archaic Etruria.
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ItemLaw and Order Under La Trobe: The First Prisons of Port Phillip(The La Trobe Society, 2023)
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ItemCultural responses to the migration of the barn swallow in Europe(ANU Press, 2019-05-09)This paper investigates the place of barn swallows in European folklore and science from the Bronze Age to the nineteenth century. It takes the swallow’s natural migratory patterns as a starting point, and investigates how different cultural groups across this period have responded to the bird’s departure in autumn and its subsequent return every spring. While my analysis is focused on classical European texts, including scientifc and theological writings, I have also considered the swallow’s representation in art. The aim of this article is to build a longue durée account of how beliefs about the swallow have evolved over time, even as the bird’s migratory patterns have remained the same. As I argue, the influence of classical texts on medieval and Renaissance thought in Europe allows us to consider a temporal progression (and sometimes regression) in the way barn swallow migration was explained and understood.
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ItemTracing Breton footprints from Fleury to Reims: the codicological evidence for the exegetical compilation in Orléans 182 and Reims 395(CNRS Éditions, 2023)The focus of this article is a compilation of biblical exegesis, here entitled Glossae Floriacenses in Vetus et Nouum Testamentum, that ranges from short explanatory glosses to more extensive passages of interpretation, and also incorporates two independent works in their entirety: Adrevald of Fleury’s De benedictionibus patriarcharum and the Venerable Bede’s Nomina regionum atque locorum de Actibus apostolorum. The Glossae Floriacenses also preserve multiple layers of Old Breton glosses (main text, interlinear, marginal additions), as well as several Old English glosses. This dynamic work survives in two codices, Orléans, Médiathèque, MS 183, and Reims, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 395. The methodology employed here involves a detailed survey of these codicological contexts in order to expand our understanding of the transmission and use of the Glossae Floriacenses. In the case of Orléans 182, there is strong evidence for Fleury as the provenance of the codex as a whole, but this analysis also evidences substantial interactions with nearby regions, particularly Brittany and Auxerre. In the case of Reims 395, several manuscript in the codex date to the eleventh century, and include the Glossae Floriacenses, Odo of Cluny’s Sermo de sancto Benedicto, and a range of works dedicated to the celebration of Mary Magdalene. This grouping indicates links of transmission between a number of Loire Valley and Burgundy regions, particularly Brittany, Fleury, Cluny, Auxerre, and Vézelay.
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ItemSearching for the potters behind the pots: re-examining the Tell Ahmar Neo-Assyrian ceramic assemblage(The Australian Institute of Archaeology, 2023)Ceramic studies have been crucial to the development of archaeology. This paper is concerned with a re-examination of the pottery, and the potters, of Tell Ahmar (ancient Til Barsib), Syria. It focuses on the ceramics from the Australian excavations in the Middle City (Area C), especially the more than 250,000 items from the 7th-century BCE Neo-Assyrian Stratum 2. The Stratum 2 assemblage was readily grouped into seventeen ware types. The various wares reflect different production systems: some hand-made products were manufactured locally, possibly by individual households; other wares, characterised by high rates of uniformity, were probably produced by large-scale, centralised pottery industries; another ware group exhibits considerable investment in the application of different surface treatments, indicating specific uses. The Area C assemblage provides a rare opportunity to examine a large and relatively complete well-dated corpus. Observations and explanations relating to the technology of preparing, forming, decorating, and firing these ceramic vessels casts light on the circumstances of their manufacture and, in turn, on the potters behind the pots of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.