In post-Mabo, post-Green Australia, local history has a new moral and environmental edge to it. This conference explored Australian relationships to land and the built environment in the post-war period. Speakers described wild places, cities and suburbs, the outback, and deserted or 'dead' places - and they analysed the people who lived in them or who had an emotional investment in them.
Dr Tom Griffiths organised this half day conference at the Menzies Centre on 4 October, and it drew an audience of about 30 people. The gathering was designed not only to address an important issue in modern Australian cultural life, but also to provide a forum for a number of distinguished speakers with overlapping academic interests who happened to be in London at the same time. Such is the necessary opportunism of the Menzies Centre!
Professor Geoffrey Bolton, the foundation Head of the Australian Studies Centre in London, introduced the conference theme and Professor David Lowenthal concluded proceedings with a reflection on some of the day's significant issues. Dr Libby Robin of La Trobe University spoke about her study of the notable 'Little Desert Dispute' of 1969, a Victorian conservation victory that revealed the growing ecological consciousness of distant city dwellers. Associate-Professor Tony Dingle and Dr Seamus O'Hanlon from Monash University revealed some of the findings of the very active post-war Melbourne history group, in particular the negotiations between home-owners and architects about the shape and use of suburban houses. Associate-Professor David Carment spoke about cultural heritage issues in the Northern Territory in the 1990s, bringing to it not only his academic eye but also the fruits of his work experience in the National Trust. Dr Peter Read evoked the memories and longings of people dispossessed - the inhabitants of drowned, burnt and destroyed towns.
The conference concluded with a launch of the Menzies Centre's latest publications by John Arnold, the Deputy Director of the National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash University. John, who also gave a paper at the EASA Conference in Copenhagen, was a visitor at the Menzies Centre for a brief period and held talks with staff about the future of the Monash Lectureship.
NOTE: See the Report of this conference.
In June 1992, the Australian High Court handed down a revolutionary judgment (known as the Mabo judgment) recognising Aboriginal Native Title, and in 1993, the Australian Government passed a Native Title Act. There have been previous, smaller Mabo seminars in London organised by lawyers as briefing sessions for one another and their clients. Our aim is to offer a more fully rounded treatment of the social, economic and political context of Mabo, and to draw attention to its potentially far-reaching consequences for Australian culture as well as for Australian law. There is great interest in Aboriginal history and culture in London, and puzzlement and excitement about what Mabo means for Aborigines and settler Australians - and, indeed, for British history, politics and investment.
Speakers include Aboriginal leaders, historians, anthropologists, lawyers, economists and representatives of business and mining industries.
For further information and expressions of interest, please contact Dr Tom Griffiths at the Menzies Centre - e-mail: [email protected]
Ecology and Empire is a major international conference which aims to set the Australian environmental experience in a global and comparative context by looking at the expansion of Europe and the historical experience of other settler societies. In recent years scholars have begun to explore the biological dimensions of European imperialism, and to reveal the extent to which ecology and empire were partners. The conference will focus these new perspectives and will draw particularly on the historical experiences of Africa, Australia, North and Latin America and the Pacific.
The organisers are Dr Tom Griffiths [email protected] and Dr Libby Robin [email protected]
With the issue of Australian republicanism still very much to the fore of the Australian political debate (and in international interest in matters Australian), the 1995 Sir Robert Menzies Memorial Lecture by the Australian High Commissioner, His Excellency the Hon Neal Blewett, entitled The Politics of the Republic was particularly timely.
Indeed, comments made about the likelihood of Australia becoming a republic in the context of this address were later to be the subject of Australian press coverage which homed in on one of Dr Blewett's arguments - namely, that the prospect of Australia undertaking such a major conversion would be enhanced if the policy was pursued by a Coalition rather than a Labor federal government.
This comment had to be understood in its proper context: as Dr Blewett, formerly a political scientist before embarking upon his parliamentary career, is quite aware, Australian constitutional reform via the referendum process has always required bipartisanship to succeed. Dr Blewett's argument was simply that it should in no way be assumed that anti-Republicanism within the Liberal party is total and absolute. For those in the audience who were wondering what a change of federal government might mean for Australian republicanism (talk about the likelihood of an early election was present at both the pre- and post-lecture social events held at the Menzies Centre), Dr Blewett's address provided one insight into how the issue would be relevant beyond any election outcome. As this sample of the matters raised during the oration indicates, Dr Blewett's address was particularly interesting, if not to say lively occassion.
On 27 September, diplomatic chairing by Tom Griffiths ensured a spirited yet polite debate at the very well-attended SRMCAS panel discussion on 'Australian Reactions to the French Nuclear Tests'. This was not the kind of seminar where academics end up talking only to one another. Quite the reverse. The panel of three included diplomatic representatives from two countries with opposing points of view on the issue of French nuclear tests in the Pacific - the Press Counsellor from the French Embassy, Charles Fries and the Minister, Political and Trade Policy, from the Australian High Commission, Ian Wilcock as well as an academic political scientist (the lively and latest addition to SRMCAS, Nick Economou). In the audience there were not only a large number of university students and staff but also a variety of people from outside the university, including active community campaigners for a better understanding of the scientific and ecological arguments against nuclear testing. Their forcefully expressed views ensured that the panelists' discussion of the political self-interest of individual governments was counterbalanced by a necessary emphasis on global environmental responsibility. Many hope that this panel discussion will be the model for a series of SRMCAS meetings on topical and controversial themes affecting Australia's relations with Britain and the rest of the world.
Of course, the discussion could have been even more controversial if the panel had included a representative of the British government to answer questions about why Britain had so far refrained from supporting the broad coalition of Commonwealth members which Australia and New Zealand had mobilised to express opposition to French nuclear testing in the Pacific at the November Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Auckland.
[Katharine West was visiting SRMCAS between March and October of this year while researching and writing her new publication Economic Opportunities for Britain and the Commonwealth published in October in London by The Royal Institute of International Affairs. Her book includes a case study of the booming economic relations between Australia and Britain. It also discusses Australia's fluid and flexible, but carefully targeted, middle-power 'niche' diplomacy with its emphasis on informal networking and on building coalitions issue by issue. In the book this Australian style of diplomacy is depicted as the developing style of the Commonwealth, one in tune with the workings of the modern global economy. Other chapters illustrate with compelling new statistics the dramatic shift in the balance of global economic and political power towards the Asia Pacific region. Copies can be ordered from the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House, 10 St James's Square, London SW1Y 4LE]
The Centre is pleased to annouce a new research associate. Dr Ruth Brown gained a D.Phil through the University of Sussex in 1990, and has continued with research and publication in the fields of Australian literature, history and cultural politics. Her work has been published in Meanjin, Australian Literary Studies, Australian and New Zealand Studies in Canada, Kunapipi (Denmark), Australian Studies (Britain), Modern Language Review (Britain) as well as in various journals in New Zealand. She is secretary of the British Australian Studies Association and external examiner for the University of London M.A. in Australian Studies: she has run day conferences on New Zealand at the Centre, and is planning a New Zealand seminar series starting in January 1996. Other current research concerns Australian 'land' as a meeting point for several discourses including law, Aboriginality, romanticism, nationalism, tourism and farming, and in relation to other nations particularly New Zealand.
Sara Joynes continued to represent the National Library in London and further manuscript and pictorial items were purchased from dealers and at auction sales as a result of monitoring of catalogues. She continued to finalise filming Projects for the Australian Joint Copying Project and further reels of microfilm were received from the National Maritime Museum, the Public Record Office and Strathclyde Regional Archives. She also undertook a project for the Library's emphemera collections to acquire programmes for performances given at Sadler's Wells and the English National Opera by Australian singers.
The Queensland Heritage Retrieval Project was re-publicised by the visit to London of Dr J. Harrison and Ms M Rutherford in September. Further material was acquired and three consignments sent to the State Library of Queensland. She also continued to provide an auction awareness serviced for other State Libraries and aquired several items for the Alexander Turnball Library Wellington.
She continued to act as Reviews Editor for Australian Studies and a list of books for review was distributed to potential reviewers in November.
Ros Poignant is conducting research at the National Library in Canberra until later this year.
Libby Robin spent much of August and September working with Tom Griffiths on the forthcoming conference (September 1996) on 'Ecology and Empire: the Environmental History of Settler Societies', finalising speakers and themes. She presented a paper 'Urban Politics, Wild Places: the Story of the Little Desert National Park' at the conference 'People and Place: Australian Heritage Stories' held at the Menzies Centre on 4 October. On 12 October she presented 'Conservation, Ecology and Antiscience Politics: Reflections on environmental activism in 1950s Australia' at her home department of Politics, La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia.
An archival trip to Canberra in late October to work at the Australian Science Archives Project, Australian Academy of Science. on the records of AJ (Jock) Marshall was very profitable. The research resulted in a paper 'Blowing the Whistle: "The Great Extermination" and political nature writing' which Libby presented at a one-day Seminar on 'The Literature of Australian Natural History', at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra on 8 December.
is the title of the conference, which is to be held at University College, Dublin 3-6 July 1996. Proposals of papers should be sent to Professor David Day, Department of Modern History, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland Ph +353 1 706 8376; Fax +353 1 283 7022 email [email protected]
British Australian Studies Association Biennal Conference, 30 August- 1 September 1996, University of Stirling, Scotland.
at the University of Exeter on Aboriginal arts and identities, 25-28 April 1996
This conferenceCimony to the vigour of Australian Studies in Europe. The organisers deserve our thanks for creating such a positive environment of learning and exchange: congratulations to Bruce Clunies Ross, Martin Leer, Merete Borch, Eva Rask Knudsen, Annette Waller, and the Department of English at Copenhagen University.
The four keynote speakers - David Walker, Henry Reynolds, George Seddon and Brian Matthews - all performed very impressively. They provided quite different slices through Australian Studies, four contrasting visions which really did give meaning to the conference theme of `Inhabiting Australia: The Australian Habitat and Australian Settlement'. Three parallel sessions then ran throughout the conference, offering anything from architecture to Mabo. Such was the variety of papers and workshops that everyone made a different journey through the conference programme.
The next European Association for Studies on Australia conference will be held in Klagenfurt, Austria.
The Sir Robert Menzies Centre and the Institute of Commonwealth Studies acknowledge the financial assistance given by the Department of Employment, Education and Training, and the Commonwealth of Australia, to assist the Activities of the Centre.
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