We also learned recently that thanks to Arta Bayat’s wonderful work for the Maritime Museum of Australia on the James McLeod acquisition concept and proposal, the diary has now been signed off to enter the National Maritime Collection.
In other related news, Darcy Campbell of the 2022 cohort won the prize for the best work in HSTY 3902, and was asked to give a speech at the School of Humanities Awards night, which you can view here.
Tess Dowell who took HBTC in 2019 recently graduated with an MA by research in Archaeology, and told us that she has just secured a full-time job with the Heritage Consultancy firm Everick, based in Annadale. Congrats Tess!
Finally, Darcy and Coordinator Michael McDonnell wrote up a blogpost about their experiences teaching and taking History Beyond the Classroom for Teaching@Sydney.
Congratulations to all our History Prize and Scholarship winners, who were recognised in a special School of Humanities event last Tuesday evening at the Women’s College.
Students from all levels – first, second, third and fourth year, as well as Honours and Postgrad students collected prizes and scholarships – and History probably has more prizes up for grabs than any other discipline in the School.
Fourth-year History Student Darcy Campbell, who won two prizes on the night, gave an excellent and impassioned speech about the importance of History, particularly in regional Australia. You can listen to Darcy’s speech at 45:50 of this link
You can also listen to Michael McDonnell’s defence of History and the Humanities and the excellent qualities of all of our students starting at 32:25 of the same video, followed by the award of all the History prizes.
There is also photo gallery video of the Awards Night which runs for just over 3 mins. You can view it here: https://youtu.be/_D25e9IS9mA
Here is also a link to the School of Humanities Prize Night booklet, which lists the names of all our History award winners from pages 6-8, and you can find a description of the many prizes on pages 16-19 https://indd.adobe.com/view/aa690300-07d1-4770-b2e2-b26d4ce8020f
Again, congratulations to all – and we look forward to seeing many new faces at the Prize ceremony next year!
James regularly weighs in on current foreign policy issues across various media. Some of his latest engagements are listed below – but it is hard to keep up so just google him for the latest.
If you would like copies of any of James’ articles in the AFR (some of which are behind a paywall), James has offered to share them. Simply contact him at [email protected]
Starting in July, James will be seconded to the Australian Financial Review to beef up their Australian Foreign Policy writing, though he will maintain an active presence in the Discipline and at the University. So stay-tuned for further events featuring his work.
Australian Financial Review (AFR) column 6 March on Why America’s New Cold War has China on the back foot
Appearance at Adelaide Writers Festival on 7 March on a panel with Prof John Keane, Fintan O’Toole and chaired by Bob Carr, on ‘Whither America’
Radio interview on ABC’s, The World Today on AUKUS, Wednesday 8 March
TV Interview on Sky news on AUKUS, Wednesday 8 March – a clip of this was on ABC Mediawatch on Monday night
Australian Financial Review column in ‘Perspectives’ last Saturday: on ASIO Annual threat assessments and the question of loyalty in Australian public life
3 x 600 word each Comment pieces in the AFR on 10, 13 and 15 March: these comment pieces were all on AUKUS and all flagged on page 1 of the newspaper
Radio Interview on BBC Newshour, on the BBC World Service on Sunday evening 12 March, on AUKUS
Radio Interview on JJJ ‘The Hack’ on Wednesday 13 March on AUKUS
TV interview on SBS News Wednesday 13 March on AUKUS, for their 630pm news bulletin
Interview today, 16 March, on ABC World Today on AUKUS
Australian Book Review feature on Labor’s Foreign policy (2,500 words) to be a feature in their April issue, accompanied by P.Adams produced podcast
With the upcoming Coronation in the UK taking place this weekend, some of you might want to impress your friends and family with a little historical background to the event. If so, have a look at some of Cindy McCreery’s many media engagements over the last week or so – listed below. I particularly recommend her talk with Richard Glover on ABC radio
A quick round-up of recent media engagements in History
Originally created March 10, 2023
Marco Duranti just finished an interview with SBS on the political situation in Georgia that will be used on their 6:30 news broadcast tonight (Friday). He also did four television interviews last year on the Russo-Ukrainian conflict for Channel News Asia, as well as an ABC radio interview on the French elections.
If you haven’t already read Andres Rodriguez’s amazing new book, you can get a snapshot of it here, in a special article called “China’s Anxious Frontier: Fieldworkers on China’s Borders in the Early Twentieth Century,” in our School (SoH) Magazine https://indd.adobe.com/view/9eafd712-4524-4661-b5df-740b30ffb3de
Kirsten McKenzie, even before she clocked off as Chair, managed to finish two manuscripts – one a a co-edited collection called Mobility and Coercion in an Age of Wars and Revolutions (c. 1750 – 1830) that will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2023, and a monograph, with Lisa Ford, called Inquiring into Empire – a product of their ARC grant. Kirsten was also appointed to the Board of the Museums of History News South Wales as of Dec. 31, 2022 – a major coup and honour for Kirsten!
Roberto Chauca was awarded a prestigious 2023-2024 Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study individual Fellowship (https://nias.knaw.nl/). He is now trying to figure out whether he can actually take up the offer!
Niro Kandasamy, James Findlay and Thomas Café successfully launched the History Extension mentoring program in December with five disadvantaged schools, approximately 40 HSC History Extension students, and about 20 of our own History Students acting as mntors. The program will continue over the coming months with reciprocal visits between schools and the Uni. For more details of the launch date, see the blogpost
Julia Horne has been awarded a Humanities Research Centre Visiting Fellowship for 2023 for 6 weeks at the ANU on the annual theme of Repair. Her topic is “Universities and Post-war Repair: The idea of ‘reconstruction’, 1943 to 1957” (https://hrc.cass.anu.edu.au/highlights/2023-repair); and has just published (in December) a co-edited collection entitled Australian Universities: A Conversation about Public Good. Book launch (we hope) in early March https://sydneyuniversitypress.com.au/products/182526
Finally, Clair Sole, a History student who recently finished her BA Advanced degree (and who most of you know already!), received a 95 for her 4thYear Individual Project for creating a History and Social Inclusion High School Program DET Grant Application based on her own field research, and also secured a full-time continuous job with SoH on the 6th floor!
On the 7th of December, History and Classics and Ancient History at the University of Sydney re-launched our long-running high school outreach efforts with the 2022/23 History Extension Mentoring program. Pre-covid, the mentoring program was one of several initiatives collaboratively devised by students, high school teachers, and Faculty here in Sydney. This year, we re-introduced the History Extension mentoring program with a more ambitious scope.
The program, piloted by Chifley College Senior Campus and Cecil Hills High School in previous years, involves current University students acting as mentors to high school students who are working on their major projects in the challenging History Extension HSC course. The student volunteers undergo training and then meet with their mentees over the course of five visits between December and July, supervised by a team of academics and their teachers.
For 2022-2023, we again invited Chifley College and Cecil Hills to participate. But we also expanded the program to two new schools, Birrong Girls High and Canley Vale from western Sydney. Further, we invited our first-ever regional school, Corowa High, whose campus lies 60km west of Albury-Wodonga on the NSW/Victorian border. We were delighted at the enthusiasm of teachers and principals alike to participate in the program, and especially pleased to hear that this is the first year the Birrong Girls High offered History Extension.
On the day, we had Corowa and Canley Vale join us via Zoom and Birrong, Chifley, and Cecil Hills visited on campus. In total, we welcomed forty HSC History Extension students alongside twenty student mentors from the University of Sydney, including undergraduates, post-graduates, and even one alumni!
The day started with an introduction from Professor Mike McDonnell, who welcomed our Zoom mentors and mentees, our in-person student and mentor groups, and additional teacher volunteers Melanie Stephens and Emma Dixon.
Mike addressing our hybrid attendees in the CCNESA Conference Room.
Following a moving introduction from Mike on the program’s history and the importance of the Social Inclusion Program, Dr Niro Kandasamy and Dr James Findlay treated the groups to a presentation on the importance of historiography and how questions of historical debate and methodology factor into their research.
The presentation aimed to help the students continue thinking about their projects and the types of questions a historian asks about their secondary sources. The critical aspect of a history extension project is not so much about understanding the past but how historians’ writing is a product of their time and place. We received fantastic feedback on these presentations and are looking ahead to recording these in a structured, digital format for the students to revisit and hopefully for the use of wider cohorts.
After these excellent presentations, it was time for the real work to begin! Our in-person mentees got to meet their mentors, break the ice a little bit, and head out on a mentor-led tour of the campus after some morning tea. We received feedback from the high school teachers, before and after the day, that the campus tour can be a really formative experience for their students. It can be easy to forget your first time seeing the Quad, graffiti alley, or any of the fantastic architecture across the campus when you’re a student walking among it most weeks of the year.
During the campus tours, our Zoom groups continued their ice-breaking and discussions of history projects. Despite the limitations of zoom, we’ve had excellent feedback from Corowa and Canley Vale teachers and students. Our teachers and students were particularly pleased and impressed with the friendliness and engagement of the mentors. We are currently in discussions with both schools (yes, even Corowa!) for their visits to campus in February and March next year once the term is back in session.
On campus, we finished our day with a mountainous feed of pizza and pide from the folks at UniBros, who came in clutch on the day. After lunch, our in-person groups continued their lively discussions about their history extension projects. In addition, Niro, James and Mike mingled with the mentoring groups and provided extra support and guidance to some of the students whose projects sat close to our historian’s interests.
Though it was an exhausting launch day for all, it was also a rewarding one. Preparations are now underway for our next sessions, which will take place here on campus in February. We are also super excited about the opportunity to visit our extension groups at their schools.
We have several important people to thank for the day’s success. The first of these goes to our teacher and post-graduate volunteers Emma and Melanie, who played a crucial role in watching over Zoom calls to ensure nothing went wrong, helped bring the food, and run some great discussions with the History Extension teachers. More thanks go to all those in the Faculty who helped book, unbook, and reboot rooms to host such large groups of in-person and digital teacher, mentors, mentees, and academics! Finally, we want to thank Mike McDonnell, Niro Kandasamy and James Findlay for their hard work and support in getting this year’s iteration of the program off to a flying start.
But most importantly, we need to thank the mentors, extension teachers and mentees. For our wonderful mentors, we want to acknowledge their incredible passion for history and for giving up their time to help provide a space and platform for those exceptional young people willing to take the risk and commit to participate in the HSC History Extension course. For our teachers and mentees, thank you for taking a chance on History Extension and for allowing us to support you in that journey.
We are already looking to build on the success of the launch day in the new year and look forward to seeing our mentors at work with the students once again. Happy holidays and happy new year to all involved!
Throughout working with the Jessie Street National Women’s Library I have reflected on how we tell women’s history and the stories that get told and those which remains only as memories. Precious to a few, but not important enough to be recorded as more than family heirloom.
With the Jessie Street National Women’s Library I worked alongside the wonderful and friendly volunteers on the Tapestry project. This is project surrounds women’s stories. The Library holds a series of short memoirs , all written by women either about their life, or that of a family member or loved one. These stories vary drastically, covering many time periods are are written by women of all walks of life. Tapestry allows for women to write their own story. They are not focused on writing for an audience but write to honour the people in their lives.
I helped the volunteers make changes to the website to help make the Tapestry stories more discoverable and easier to navigate. I worked alongside them, suggesting ways to improve the website and making social media content to increase the profile of the Tapestry project.
In addition, I created promotional material for this project as it is incredible valuable and I wanted as many people to get the change to read some of the Tapestry stories. These stories provide so much detail into the social history of Australia, from so many diverse points of views. Tapestry allows for family histories to be recorded and for other the learn of the experiences of women.
History is not just what we record, but how we chose to record these stories. The Tapestry project allows for women to be the center of their own narratives. I think this is a method of storytelling that deserves more attention. It is empathetic and empowering. Allowing people to speak about whatever aspect of their life that they think is most critical to history.
There is a vast divide between these self recording histories and larger historical narratives. Tapestry helped me understand why that gap existed, and focus empathy in my historical work .
Driving along New South Wales’ country roads, you’re bound to see dozens of local museums. Given there are so many dotted around Australia’s regional communities, it can be easy to think that these museums must surely all become the same after a while, merely offering their spin on local bric-a-brac like farming equipment, clothing and décor. My project argues that this view ignores the unparalleled insight that regional organisations like Port Macquarie’s Douglas Vale Historic Homestead and Vineyard offer into the ways we embed ourselves in historical communities, and above all, use the past to create meaning in our lives.
Douglas Vale—which began its life as a vineyard in 1859 and was reborn as a volunteer-run museum and winery in 1995—is a testament to the ways that history-making is a life-affirming activity for many of us. For example, one of Douglas Vale’s gardeners, Mike Smith, told me that he decided “with the head not the heart” to move into an apartment in Port Macquarie for retirement, but that his work at Douglas Vale is a meaningful “replacement for the greenery I left”. As my project argues, stories like Mike’s are resounding evidence that History does not only live in the classroom, but also in the quiet resilience of volunteers who show up three days a week to tend to an aging homestead and the delicious taste of wine made from 19th century grape vines.
Digitising Douglas Vale’s Physical Collection
In making this argument, my project drew on two types of sources. Firstly, as I mentioned in my previous blog post, Douglas Vale has an outstanding collection of physical sources. These objects provide visitors with a tangible entrance into Douglas Vale’s past, so I decided to digitise some of them. It is notoriously difficult—and expensive—to set up an online catalogue, meaning that while Douglas Vale had an excellent physical catalogue, there was no trace of its collection online for potential visitors, researchers or donors to peruse.
So, I proposed that we create an account on eHive: an internationally-recognised museum database that helps organisations easily and freely digitise their collection. I included visitor information, my own photos of the site and a description of the collection in the profile to boost interest in visiting Douglas Vale. You can find Douglas Vale’s eHive profile here and see a screenshot below.
Screenshot of Douglas Vale’s eHive profile
Then, in collaboration with Ian Cupit (the site’s excellent curator) we chose three of Douglas Vale’s most interesting objects for me to catalogue. I attached photos and descriptions of the objects’ provenance and historical significance, trying to highlight the uniqueness of the collection for potential visitors.
Recording the Volunteers’ Oral Histories
However, I doubt I would feel the same pull towards Douglas Vale’s physical sources if it wasn’t for its volunteers, which is why I sought to record their oral histories as part of my project. They told me countless stories about the collection and how it had evolved since they rescued the site in 1995. Even the volunteers who declared they had no interest in the site’s history beamed with pride as we spoke about the organisation’s past, present and future. Indeed, Mike told me he wasn’t an “avid historian” and had “no” connection to the site’s past but then spoke eloquently with me for 40 minutes about the role he played in conserving Douglas Vale’s heritage.
In total, I conducted three interviews with a diverse range of volunteers: Mike Smith (Douglas Vale’s gardener), Claire Smith (Mike’s granddaughter) and Merrel (Douglas Vale’s Vice President). From these interviews, I created three short clips, each corresponding to one of the three objects I digitised. Over the summer holidays—Port Macquarie’s peak tourism season—I intend to work with the Douglas Vale PR coordinator to publish each clip with a link to the relevant object on eHive as part of a marketing campaign to attract more visitors. I also hope that these materials can help Douglas Vale apply for state heritage listing and grants in the future. In the meantime, however, I’ve included a sample of one of the social media posts below!
We often hear that Douglas Vale is one of Port Macquarie’s best kept secrets. So, we thought it was high time we let you in on some of the magic behind our bamboo entrance. This is why we’ve started digitising our historical collection: we want everyone to enjoy our unique taste of history!
We’ve kicked things off with this 1884 photo of the Francis family and their pet kangaroo next to the homestead garden. Thanks to the hard work of our current volunteer gardener Mike Smith and his granddaughter Claire Smith, the garden looks pretty much identical to this photo over 100 years later. You can find out more about this photograph by following this link to the digitised record, but we thought who better to let you in on the secrets behind the garden then Mike and Claire themselves? Have a listen here!
FYI: The clip will be embedded in the social media post as a YouTube video, rather than a Google Drive link.
Summary
I initially thought that my project would benefit Douglas Vale by filling key business needs, such as boosting visitation numbers. However, I quickly realised it also filled the need to recognise Douglas Vale’s volunteers for their outstanding history-making efforts. These volunteers make Douglas Vale their entire world, working tirelessly to put up netting, organise open days, clean the homestead and maintain the vegetable patch. This work deserves to be celebrated in equal measure to the sophisticated exhibitions and slick interactive tours of Sydney’s museums. Therefore, I’ve realised that my project’s true significance lies not in its potential financial benefit, but in its advocacy of Douglas Vale’s unique taste of history and the hard work that goes into safe-keeping it.
For my HSTY3902 unit, I completed a two-episode podcast series for Autism Spectrum Australia, also known as Aspect. In this podcast, the history of the organisation was discussed with four other individuals who were previously and currently connected with the organisation: Adrian Ford, Jacqui Borland, Dr Trevor Clark and Thomas Kuzma. Both episodes were 27-30 minutes long. The first episode includes a general history of the organisation and the second episode discusses the future directions for Aspect.
My overall argument with the project was to appreciate and value the work Aspect has done for the Autism community and respective families. As a sibling with a brother with Autism who went to Aspect’s Vern Barnett school, I’ve heard from my parents about the autism-specific teaching that was provided for Harry and how their early-intervention strategies immensely helped my parents. However, upon discussions with my interviewees, I became more educated about the work that still needs to be done in the community and how Aspect must stay aligned with the interests of the Autism community.
What’s important about this project is that it brings together different individuals from different areas of the organisation to reflect on Aspect’s role within the community and its achievements. The podcast provides a space in which the interviewees could freely discuss Aspect’s history and draw out any specific developments and movements during the organisation’s lifetime. For me personally, if I didn’t do this podcast I would’ve never learnt about how the organisation is pushing for more Autistic voices and how neurotypical individuals sometimes forget and misplace the importance of giving Autistic individuals the power to ensure their community’s wants are being met.
I am immensely grateful for the opportunity Aspect has granted me to create these podcast episodes and for the new knowledges gained by speaking to my interviewees. They all taught me new developments, changes and shifts that are occurring within the organisation and the Autism community. Furthermore, they showcased the amazing work being done by Aspect to continually meet the needs of Australia’s Autism community.
