As we enjoy some eased restrictions in metro-Melbourne this weekend, enjoy your covid-safe picnics! Get your publications, call for papers, announcements and events to me (Anna) by COB Wednesday for publication on Friday.
Seminar
On 22nd September, at 11am, David Tittensor will be giving the CHRG Seminar. The zoom link is here.
Counter Terrorism as ‘Performance’ and the Muslim Bogey Man in Australia
Since 9/11 in 2001, Australia has had a moral panic about the threat of ‘jihadi’ terrorism. Between 2002 and 2007, the government put in place 44 pieces of counter terrorism legislation. This was more than the US, UK and Spain, and this ‘hyper-legislation’ has continued unabated with as many as 92 pieces by 2021. There has also been heightened surveillance and displays of force against Muslim communities with a series of mega raids between 2014 and 2018 involving a minimum of 200 police each time. This is despite terrorism experts acknowledging that the number of cases has been low with just 26 convictions as of 2017, and the threat being comparatively small. As such, I argue that the counter terrorism policy and practice in Australia has become a performative act that inflates the threat as a means of obtaining political support from the public at the expense of Muslim communities.
In the news
Last Friday we mentioned Clare Corbould’s piece in the The Conversation, but she also discussed the 9/11 anniversary on ABC’s The Drum on Friday 10 September and Rear Vision on ABC Radio National.
Nate Moir has also written a piece reflecting on 9/11 in TRENDS Research and Advisory – An unassailable position of total weakness – U.S. Foreign Policy Since 9/11
Klaus Neumann has a new piece in Inside Story – Disappearing Act.
Other (great) news
Congratulations to Ellen Gray who submitted her PhD, Australia and the 1956 Hungarian Revolution: Diplomacy in the UN, last week!
Congratulations also to Clare Corbould who’s book with Michael McDonnell (USyd) – To Choose our Better History: African Americans and the American Revolution from Independence to Today is set to be published by New Press.
Deb Lee-Talbot is presenting at the upcoming Professional Historians Australia 2021 Online Conference- History Transmitted. Deb has pre-recorded her presentation: Working with unique post-war archives: an examination of the Australian Joint Copying Project, 1953-2021. Any viewers with questions can contact me at dleetalb@deakin.edu.au.
Ellie Gardner has a forthcoming publication in Papers on Language and Literature for their special issue at the end of the year. The paper is titled: “To start: I should never have been born”: The Antiheroine as Stranger in Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects and Gone Girl.
Events
The first seminar in the Collecting the West series is on 23 September, 6pm – 7pm AEST.
On the 23 September, 4pm AWST, Professor Andrea Witcomb and Professor Alistair Paterson will present Collecting the West: Project Narratives. Registrations are currently open via Eventbrite. More details are in this flyer.
Collecting the West is a unique collaboration between The University of Western Australia and Deakin University in partnership with Western Australia’s key collecting institutions – the Art Gallery of Western Australia, the State Library of Western Australia & the Western Australian Museum – as well as the British Museum, where many of the state’s collections are held.
Opportunity
CHRG PhD Opportunity
Decolonisation and Photography in Southeast Asia: Histories and Legacies
Successful PhD candidates will be working closely with Susie Protschky on the ARC project ‘Decolonisation and Photography in Southeast Asia: Histories and Legacies’. They will have the opportunity to develop their own research program within the parameters of this project. Expressions of interest are due 1st October, and for more information please email Susie Protschky. There is also more information about eligibility here. Please feel free to share with your networks.
Event Reminders
Book Launch – After the Virus: Lessons from the Past for a Better Future
23 September 2021, 5:00PM – 6:00PM (UK Time)
History & Policy at the Institute of Historical Research is delighted to host a webinar to mark the launch of a new book, After the Virus: Lessons from the Past for a Better Future, by Hilary Cooper, former government economist and senior policy maker, and Simon Szreter, Professor of History and Public Policy at Cambridge University and co-founder and editor of History & Policy. Register for the event here.
Lilith Symposium, Gender in Catastrophic Times
Thurs 23 September – Fri 24 September
Registrations are now open, and are free. Jacqui Baker will be presenting presenting a paper titled, ‘”Was there any activism?”: Finding the splinters of the women’s liberation movement in Melbourne, 1976-1979’.
Reese Lecture: Carla Pascoe Leahy ‘The Maternal Metamorphosis: Becoming a mother in Australia, 1945-2020’
21 September 2021, 7pm – 8pm AEST [Please note the time to reflect Australian time].
Join us online to hear the 2020 Trevor Reese Memorial Lecture, delivered by historian and CHRG Affiliate Member Dr Carla Pascoe Leahy from the University of Melbourne. Her lecture will examine changing cultural attitudes towards motherhood and how mothers’ own experiences are remembered in oral history interviews. The lecture asks what happens to a woman when she becomes a mother and considers whether this transition has become more challenging over the past 75 years. Registration here.
APH
On the APH website this week we have a very timely book review by Jess Urwin, looking at Ian Lowe’s new book Long Half-life: The Nuclear Industry in Australia.
International Symposium on Public Health
9 November 2021
APH and CHRG are delighted to host a stellar group of academics and policy experts from across the world to discuss public health policy from historical, policy and international perspectives. Speakers will examine the place of public health care in the public imaginations of Australians, Canadians, Britons and Americans. Registrations will open soon, and more information is available here.
Opportunity Reminders
Freilich Project Early Career Research Small Grant Scheme
The Freilich Project offers up to three grants of $5000 each to emerging scholars as part of its Early Career Research Small Grants Scheme. The grants assist research into the causes, histories and effects of ethnic, cultural, religious and sexual bigotry and animosity. They also support research that explores how such intolerance can be combatted, and co-existence promoted. Applications due 12 November 2021. More details here.
Allan Martin Award
The Allan Martin Award is a research fellowship intended to assist early-career historians further their research in Australian history. It is available to all early career historians (within five years of the award of their PhD degree), whether academic, professional, or public historians working in museums, war memorials and other institutions. Funding of up to $4500 is awarded every year to assist towards the expenses of a research trip – in Australia or overseas – undertaken in support of a project in Australian history. Intention to submit due 1 October 2021, applications close 1 December 2021. More info here.
Magarey Medal for Biography
This is awarded biennially to the female person who has published the work judged to be the best biographical writing on an Australian subject. The 2020 Medal will be awarded for a book published in 2020 or 2021. For the 2022 round, the Magarey Medal will be administered by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL). Applications close 31 January 2022. More information is here.
The W. K. Hancock Prize
This prize recognises and encourages an Australian scholar who has recently published a first scholarly book in any field of history. 2022 Prizes will be awarded for a work published in 2020 or 2021. Applications close 31 January 2022. Further details here.
Journal of Applied History Seeks Submissions
The Journal of Applied History, published by Brill, welcomes articles on a wide range of subjects using an Applied History approach. Information about the journal and how to submit an article is available here. The journal would be grateful if members of the Contemporary Histories Research Group at Deakin could share this information with other faculty, their networks, and advanced graduate students. Please direct any questions to CHRG affiliate Nathaniel Moir at nmoir@hks.harvard.edu
Paul Bourke Awards for Early Career Research, Academy of Social Sciences in Australia
Four Paul Bourke Award recipients are selected each year by members of the Academy’s Panel Committees, on the basis of excellence in scholarly publication, academic prizes, presentation at leading conferences and contribution to public policy. Nominations due 31 August 2021.
Call for Paper Reminders
Jewish History in a Global Context: Telling Transnational Stories
Australian Association for Jewish Studies
Deakin University, City Centre Campus
Melbourne, Australia
13th – 15th February, 2022
Supported by the Contemporary Histories Research Group at Deakin University.
Ever since the seminal 2005 volume Connected Worlds; History in Transnational Perspective co-edited by Ann Curthoys and Marilyn Lake brought transnational approaches to Australian history into focus, a growing scholarship has examined the ways in which the past and its representations are shaped through processes and relationships across national borders. Jewish historical scholarship has traditionally been alive to these approaches with mobilities, diaspora, travel, memory and mobilities as key themes (Kahn and Mendelsohn 2014). Despite this, as Sarah Green (2008) and others remind us, borders are processes; acts of imagination as well as objects that perform in myriad ways to try and halt the movement of people, things and ideas. This conference seeks to explore what new ways of approaching Jewish histories might be developed through the intersection between transnational histories and border studies. How have borders interrupted the transnational flow of people, things and ideas? How have material and imaginative borders been overcome? In what ways can thinking with and across borders shed new light on the people and process of the past? How have the complexities of these transnational histories been told and represented through film, photography, testimony, literature and in galleries, archives, and museums?
We invite proposals for papers relating to current research in this broad area.
• Proposals for special sessions (roundtables, film screenings or discussions of new book releases will also be considered).
• Outstanding papers on other Judaic related topics will be considered but preference will be given to those bearing directly on the conference theme.
Papers should be no longer than 20 minutes. Deadline for proposals is September 18, 2021. Submissions should include an abstract of no more than 250 words, and a short biographical note, no longer than 50 words and sent to: steven.cooke@deakin.edu.au
We encourage postgraduate students to apply. After the conference, presenters are also invited to submit written articles for consideration for publication in the Australian Journal of Jewish Studies. Presenters at the conference must be current AAJS members for 2021 (membership can be paid as part of the conference registration fee).Further details about the conference can be found at: http://www.aajs.org.au/next-conference/ Convenors: Associate Professor Steven Cooke (Deakin University), Dr Donna-Lee Frieze (Deakin University), Dr Anna Hirsh (Jewish Holocaust Centre, Melbourne)