Author: Michael McDonnell

The postgraduate reps and community have now launched a new postgraduate seminar series called History on Thursday. These seminars are designed to give postgraduate students a chance to practice presenting their work and engage in giving and receiving feedback. The next seminar will be on Monday 6 April, see below for details. They are also looking for expressions of interests for presenters for the May sessions. If you are interested please send an email with an abstract of your proposed talk.
Thurs. 6 April, 1-2pm, The Refectory (downstairs in the Quad, directions/map here)
Presenter: Darren Smith – The early Middle Ages between the World Wars: Pirenne’s Mahomet et Charlemagne and the vision for a new Europe.
Please bring your lunch and join us in the Refectory to hear this week’s presenter. This is also a chance for you to hone your question-asking skills and get to know other post-grads in our mingling time after the talk.

The Department of History at the University of Sydney is pleased to introduce our new PG students who have joined us in the latter part of last year or in the past few weeks.
Below you’ll find a list of new students, their topics, and their email addresses in case you wanted to reach out to them.
I’m delighted we have such a strong cohort of new students who I am sure will enrich the department with their work in the coming months and years.
There will likely be one or two more students joining us in the coming months. We’ll keep you posted.
Many thanks,
Mike M.
Madeleine Dowd (joined us in October): Master of Arts (Research). Supervisors: James Curran and Mark McKenna. I’m undertaking an examination of Paul Keating and Radical Nationalism – so this is looking at a radical display of the Australian self. At this relatively early stage, this involves an understanding of radical nationalist Australian history, and where it came from in Keating’s context. I’ll also focus on how this manifested in terms of policy and an overarching worldview. Contact email: madeleine.e.dowd@gmail.com.
Amy Jelacic: PhD, full-time. Supervisors: Andrew Fitzmaurice and Chris Hilliard. I’m studying the intellectual history of free trade and liberalism in the British Empire, concentrating on the mid-19th century. I’m particularly interested in investigating the history of economic ideas outside of canonical texts of political economy. ajel0816@uni.sydney.edu.au
Emma Wallhead: PhD, PT. Supervisor: Chris Hilliard. Working title of topic: If ‘I am woman’, what is man? Western masculinities 1963-1989.” The period from the early 1960s has been popularly associated with a number of transnational movements that challenged a wide range of social and cultural norms including beliefs about the proper roles of men and women. It was also during this era that masculinity was identified by scholars as a category of historical analysis. Despite the significance of this period to the concept of masculinity, there are relatively few works examining dominant norms of masculinity during the period from a historical perspective. The project will research dominant expectations of masculinity, together with the lived experience of masculinity, through the perspective of the women who cared for, lived with, worked with, loved, hated, and sought or avoided men during the three decades. ewal4299@uni.sydney.edu.au
Jacob Mark: Master of Arts (Research), full time; Supervisor: Chris Hilliard. My thesis looks to explore the reception of Australian and New Zealand democracy in Britain in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Jmar4873@uni.sydney.edu.au
Orla McGovern: Master of Arts (Research). Supervisors: Nicholas Eckstein John Gagne. I’m looking at material cultures of beauty during the Italian Renaissance and their relationship between socially ascribed ideals of beauty and womanhood. omcg2987@uni.sydney.edu.au
Luke Tucker: PhD, full-time. Supervisors: Julie Smith and Nick Eckstein. I am researching the educational practices and philosophy of the devotio moderna, a 14th and 15th century lay piety movement located mainly in the Netherlands. ltuc6374@uni.sydney.edu.au
Samuel Murdoch Webster: PhD, FT. Supervisors: James Curran and Mark McKenna. My thesis will seek to map the changes in Australian security doctrines during the post-British and post-Vietnam period, where the ‘great powers’ featured in Australian geo-strategic imagination, and how these squared with Australian economic interests up to the year 2001. sweb3562@uni.sydney.edu.au
Ryan Cropp: PhD, full-time, supervisor: Mark McKenna. I am working on a biographical study of the Australian journalist, social critic and public intellectual Donald Horne. rcro5900@uni.sydney.edu.au
Darren Smith: PhD, full-time. Supervisors: John Gagné (Nick Eckstein acting), Hélène Sirantoine. In the 1530s, François I of France established formal relations with Ottoman sultan Süleiman as well as a permanent embassy in Constantinople/Istanbul. My project looks at France’s evolving engagement with the Islamic/Ottoman East throughout the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and how concepts of ‘the Turk’ and Islam figured in the French imagination (print media, political discourse, material culture, even theatre). I’m interested in the period ‘book-ended’ by the late crusades, on the one hand, and the Bibliothèque Orientale project of Barthélemy d’Herbelot, on the other. darren.smith@sydney.edu.au

During the break, we learned that Claire Sellwood, Bruce Baskerville, Addie Leah Lui-Chivizhe, and most recently, Lizzie Ingleson, have all successfully completed their PhDs. This is fantastic news, and makes for a great start to the new year – and inspiration for the incoming cohort as well as those seeing some light at the end of the tunnel in the new year.
Individual citations for the theses can be found below, as well as links to the theses or abstracts via Sydney e-repository. But on behalf of the Department of History, I want to extend a warm congratulations on a huge achievement. This is a mighty accomplishment for each of these four excellent students – or now, ex-students. The product of many years of toil and often difficult work. The glowing examiners’ reports also reflect this achievement. Though not technically official until graduation, I think I can safely offer congratulations to Dr. Sellwood, Dr. Baskerville, Dr. Lui-Chivizhe, and Dr. Ingleson!
Bruce Baskerville’s thesis was entitled “The Chrysalid Crown: an un-national history of the Crown in Australia.” He was supervised by James Curran. This thesis sets out to examine some of the ways in which the crown in Australia has been imagined and contested since the early nineteenth century. Looking at five case studies of cultural interaction relating to the exercise of crowned power the thesis explores the evolving civic personality, communal identities and popular representations’ of the crown in Australia’s cultural and social life, and how these have changed over time. As examiners noted, “this is an original and thoughtful doctoral thesis on a critical, but often misunderstood subject in Australian history.” It is “full of insights and compelling arguments about the place of the British crown in Australian history.” “Riveting.” An “excellent” and an important historiographical intervention in the historiography of the monarchy in Australia, and “represents a substantial and original contribution.” One examiner noted that they were looking forward to it being published, “so that a wider audience can gain from its creative and well-researched findings.” Another said “the candidate is to be commended for his dextrous research, well-written prose and challenging arguments. Further information about Bruce’s thesis can be found here: http://hdl.handle.net/2123/16395
Claire Sellwood’s thesis was supervised by Frances Clarke and entitled, “A series of Piteous Tales: Divorce Law and Divorce Culture in Early Twentieth-Century New South Wales.” It examines the social and legal understandings of divorce in late nineteenth and early twentieth century New South Wales, through a study of the law courts, and media representations of trials. As the examiners noted, the thesis “draws on a strong range of primary sources, including legal documents from the law courts and a significant study of a range of popular media papers and journals.” The “candidate has an exhaustive catalogue of secondary readings, and makes excellent use of these, both in terms of the direct topic and as useful context.” “This is a welcome and important study,” one that brings “significant new knowledge to existing feminist scholarship and a new understanding of the law as it was employed and worked for or against women.” Another wrote: “This thesis is highly impressive in its interdisciplinary research design, the wide-ranging scope of its analysis and the selected source materials which are ingeniously conjoined, its argument is original and contributory and it is impeccably documented and presented. Sellwood is an assured and promising scholar and an unmediated writer.” She has provided an “entirely novel framework through which to consider women’s agency, sexual regulation and liberalisation, legal reform and gender and class relations in public and private space it is fascinating and productive reading.” Details of Claire’s thesis can be found here: http://hdl.handle.net/2123/16517
Addie Leah Lui-Chivizhe’s thesis, supervised by Jude Philp and Iain McCalman, was entitled “Le op: An Islander’s history of Torres Strait turtle-shell masks.” The thesis provides a “rich and highly original” history of Torres Strait turtle-shell masks, which encompasses biological and ecological considerations, the practical and symbolic importance of turtles for Islanders, and the artistic skill and imagination of mask-makers and performers. Turtle-shell masks are shown to be central to Islanders’ engagement with each other and the natural world. The examiners noted it was “powerfully evocative” and an “insightful and nuanced narrative based on solid scholarly research” in which she “skilfully combines archival and object based research with fieldwork in the Torres Strait, oral histories, site visits and archaeological findings.” “The writing style delights as it informs,” and “the thesis is a substantial original contribution to the history of the Torres Strait Islands.” When it is published as a book, one examiner noted, it will bring “much joy” to those wishing to find out more about this oft-neglected part of the world.
Lizzie Ingleson’s thesis was also supervised by Frances Clarke and entitled, “The End of Isolation: Rapprochement, Globalisation, and Sino-American Trade, 1972-1978.” It looks at the diplomatic rapprochement that followed President Richard M. Nixon’s famous trip to China in 1972, which culminated with formal diplomatic normalization in 1978. In focusing on trade relationships between the two countries, the thesis sheds fresh light on diplomatic events, and tells a new story about the political origins of the interdependent economic relationship between the US and China, which began to take shape after 1980, and today very much anchors global capitalism. Examiners noted that it was “an impressive doctoral thesis, distinguished for its depth of research and interpretive reach and potential significance,” particularly given the “immense stakes” of the argument. Another commented that the thesis was “an extremely original approach to a topic that has only received limited attention to date by historians.” Ingleson contributes to a “growing literature on the role of non-state actors in diplomatic relations,” and her research is “extensive and fruitful” “In addition to being thoughtfully argued and well researched, this thesis is also quite well written.” “The author has a lively voice and a great eye for interesting anecdotes
that speak to larger trends or issues.” Information about Lizzie’s thesis can be found here: http://hdl.handle.net/2123/16503

Postgraduate welcome drinks
Mon. 13 March, 4:30pm, REGS battlements
Kick off the new year and meet our incoming students at these drinks for postgraduate students and history staff. Drinks and nibbles will be provided.

Postgraduate Professional Development Seminar
Wed. 22 March, 3-5pm, SOPHI common room
Bringing together a panel of historians including Professor Shane White, Professor Andrew Fitzmaurice and Dr. Sarah Walsh, this seminar will engage with the translation of archival material into an historical argument. Topics will range from the rituals of writing to the decision making process behind selecting which documents should be included and which should be omitted. The first hour of the seminar will be dedicated to panel presentations and the second to question and answer discussion. Afternoon tea will be provided.
Please RSVP (for catering purposes) to: Sarah Dunstan (sdun9166@uni.sydney.edu.au)

Women in Academia Seminar
Thu. 23 March, 4:30-6pm, New Law Annexe – Room SR340
Join Professor Sheila Fitzpatrick and Dr. Chin Jou at the inaugural session of Women in Academia, a forum designed to discuss the challenges and issues specific to women pursuing a higher degree. Hear from these historians about their research and career, and their expertise on topics including publishing and grant funding, and the differences between working in Australia and overseas. You will have the opportunity to ask questions in the second half of the session. Drinks and nibbles will be provided.
Please RSVP (for catering purposes) to: Hollie Pich (hpic9296@uni.sydney.edu.au) or Marama Whyte (mwhy6621@uni.sydney.edu.au)
Miranda Johnson The Land is our History book launch
Tues. 28 March, 5pm-6.30pm, REGS Western Tower Balcony, Quadrangle
Come along to help celebrate the launch of Miranda Johnson first book The Land is our History, recently published by Oxford Press. All are warmly invited to attend, please see our previous email for the further details.
Please RSVP to: James Dunk (james.dunk@sydney.edu.au).