Achievements. 

Congratulations to Dr. Tiffany Shellam, who has been awarded a commendation in the Australian Society of Archivists Mander Jones Award for her book Meeting the Waylo: Aboriginal encounters in the Archipelago (UWAP 2019).

Congratulations to Dr. Kristine Moruzi, who has been recognised as the field leader in Literature & Writing in The Australian‘s Top 250 Researchers Report. 

Publications. 

Professor Klaus Neumann‘s journal article titled ‘The appeal of civil disobedience in the Central Mediterranean: German responses to the June 2019 mission of the Sea-Watch 3’, has been published in the Journal of Humanitarian Affairs, vol. 2, no. 1: 53-61. You can find the article here. 

In The Media. 

Honorary Fellow Roy Hay was interviewed by Claudia Craig on 3CR’s Monday Breakfast program about his book, Albert ‘Pompey’ Austin: A man between two worlds. You can listen back to the interview here (interview starts at 24:26).

Australian Policy and History Update. 

In APH’s latest author Q&A, Clive Moore talks to Bethany Keats about his recent book, Tulagi,which focuses on the British Solomon Islands Protectorate (BSIP) and its original administrative centre.

You can now follow APH on LinkedIn. Stay up-to-date here. 

Seminar Series. 

Zoom invitations for Greg Burgess’ seminar have been emailed. If you didn’t receive an invitation (or if you would like to be re-sent the zoom invitation), please contact Jacqui (bakerjacq@deakin.edu.au). We look forward to seeing you there!

30th September: Greg Burgess, Senior Fellow, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne. 

Title: Completing the Work of 1789. France 1946, the Social and Economic Rights of Man, and Post-War Rights Ideas before the 1948 Universal Declaration.

Abstract: ‘It is at the grave hours of their history that a people rethink their institutions and the principles on which their societies are based.’ So stated the rapporteurof the Constitutional Commission of the French Provisional Government when he introduced a new Declaration of Rights in March 1946. The deputies of the Provisional Government were very conscious of their role in completing the historical task of updating and completing the original declaration of rights of 1789. They set about declaring social and economic rights, which alone would ensure true equality and therefore true liberty. I want to look behind this moment with a review of the period from the 1930s to the late 1940s, when, the sociologist Georges Gurvitch wrote when presenting his own bill of rights in 1944, declarations were the order of the day. We must suspend our assumptions of international human rights that are fixed on the 1948 United Nations Declaration and remember the purpose of rights – to assure freedom and equality certainly, but through them national governments would make a pledge to respect the dignity of their peoples through social and economic rights to complement civil and political rights. My focus is on France, but these ideals can be seen in wider contexts.