Newsletter - 19th August 2024 - Centre for Contemporary History (CCH)

If you have any information to share in the Newsletter please send it through to Anna, the newsletter will be published every fortnight. You can read all our news here, but don’t forget we regularly put out information by our social media channels including Facebook. We also now have a presence on LinkedIn.

Congratulations

Huge congratulations to our Co-Director, Cassandra Atherton, who was recently made Distinguished Professor, the most prestigious honour that Deakin bestows on it staff. In Cassandra’s case, rightly so! We acknowledge the significance of her achievement and look forward to many distinguished times ahead.

News from Members and Associates

Deborah Lee-Talbot adapted work from her PhD thesis and published with Archival Science, Recognising a kaleidoscopic archive: working with London Missionary Society records in the geekosphere’ (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-024-09448-8. This is an open access article.
Jacqui Baker has reviewed Liu Hong’s The Good Women of Fudi (historical fiction set in China during the aftermath of the opium wars) for The Big Issue no. 715 July 2024 edition. She also wrote a ‘Picture the Past’ column for the Geelong Advertiser which is a short piece about family history and highlights images from the collection of Walton Cole Family photographs held by Kim barne thaliyu / Geelong Heritage Centre. The column is titled ‘Delving into Family Stories’ and it was published on Monday 29 July 2024.

Seminar Series

This week our seminar is with Dr Fiona Gatt – The forgotten class? Shopkeepers of nineteenth-century Melbourne, and our seminar next week (28/8) will be with Dr Brad Underhill and Assoc. Prof. Helen – Competing visions for Papua New Guinea and Australia.

APH News

On the APH site this fortnight Nicholas Hoare has reviewed Anna Kent’s Mandates and Missteps: Australian Government Scholarships to the Pacific−1948 to 2018.

Events

HCV Book+Author: The Floating University by Dr Tamson Pietsch
29 August, 6pm – 7pm
The Wheeler Centre

Dr Tamson Pietsch will be in conversation with the HCV’s Dr Yves Rees about her impressive work The Floating University: Experience, Empire and the Politics of Knowledge on Thursday, 29 August at The Wheeler Centre, at the historic State Library of Victoria.

In 1926, New York University professor James E Lough — an educational reformer with big dreams — embarked on a bold experiment he called the Floating University. Lough believed that taking five hundred American college students around the globe by ship would not only make them better citizens of the world but would demonstrate a model for responsible and productive education amid the unprecedented dangers, new technologies, and social upheavals of the post–World War I world. But the Floating University’s maiden voyage was also its last: when the ship and its passengers returned home, the project was branded a failure — the antics of students in hotel bars and port city back alleys that received worldwide press coverage were judged incompatible with educational attainment, and Lough was fired and even put under investigation by the State Department.

In the new book, Tamson Pietsch excavates a rich and meaningful picture of Lough’s grand ambition, its origins, and how it reveals an early-twentieth-century America increasingly defined both by its imperialism and the professionalisation of its higher education system. Join us at the Wheeler Centre for a fascinating discussion and an opportunity to ask questions after the talk. You can book tickets to the event here.

IEAA Emerging Researchers Webinar – Communicating your research
30 August, 2.30pm – 3.30pm

Are you a current research student working on a topic related to international education or an emerging international education researcher-practitioner? Do you seek more information about communicating your research to audiences in Australia and globally through traditional and non-traditional channels?

This panel features the perspectives of established and emerging international education researchers and researcher-practitioners, including Anna Kent, who are experienced in communicating their research. This webinar will focus on providing advice and tips regarding both traditional (journals, books, conferences) and non-traditional (e-books, webinars, social media, podcasts) communication channels. The event is free and you can register here.

Research and Archive Use (Emerging Writers Festival)
7 September, 2.15pm
The Wheeler Centre

Deborah Lee-Talbot will be joining a panel to discuss research and archive use at the Emerging Writer’s Festival.
Whether you’re stitching together a work of fiction or non-fiction, digging through the archives, and undertaking research are inevitable parts of the process. But how does one find and access the archives you need? And how do you become a dutiful, efficient researcher? Hear how these research virtuosos go about archive fossicking. Learn tips on how to keep track and organise your research, and questions to ask yourself throughout your investigations. You can register for the event here.

CCH Research Grants

Don’t forget that CCH Research Grants are still available. If you have plans for research at the end of T2, get your application in now! Funds are limited.

You can still apply for CCH Research Grants in 2024. We have changed the grant guidelines, so it is important that you read the new guidelines before you apply for a grant. Check out the guidelines and the application forms in our hub site.

The University’s Research Development Academy is also running grant writing and grant managing workshops. You can find details and registration details here.

CCH Shut Up and Write

every Monday, 9am-1.30pm, via Zoom.

Start the week strong with a Shut Up and Write! We will run 4 x 50 minute blocks of writing/focus, with breaks in between to chat, grab coffees, etc. All CCH colleagues welcome, especially ECRs, HDRs, and those who work remotely. Feel free to join at any time – it doesn’t matter if you can’t make it to every session, or every block in a session, just come when you can.

The zoom link is here. (Meeting ID: 822 0730 8335, Password: 65182364)
If you would like a recurring invite in your calendar, or you have any trouble joining, email Mia at mia.martinhobbs@deakin.edu.au

Opportunities

The Future of Archives
21 October 2024
Deakin Downtown

The one-day symposium addresses ‘the future of archives’, widely understood. We encourage proposals in the form of individual papers and/or panels. We’re very much hoping for practitioner and theoretical dialogues as well. Our keynote speaker, Dr. Benjamin Lee (University of Washington), will be speaking about his work creating search and discovery with the vast archival holdings of the Library of Congress, as well as new developments in machine learning and artificial intelligence. You can find a more extensive CFP in this link. Abstracts are due 28 August, to Andrew Dean (andrew.dean@deakin.edu.au) or Gilbert Caluya (gilbert.caluya@deakin.edu.au).

Still Lucky? 60 years since Donald Horne’s scathing critique – The Fifth Annual Australia & the World Symposium
13 November 2024
ANU

For the Fifth Annual Australia & the World Symposium, submissions are invited from all academic disciplines exploring an aspect of the Australian experience over the decades since Donald Horne’s 1964 work The Lucky Country. Submissions are invited on but not limited to the following topics:

Economics
Law and human rights
Political economy
Foreign and strategic policy
History
Gender and power
Visual and performing arts
Science, technology and the environment
First Nations experience

The purpose of the annual symposia is to spark interdisciplinary conversations between scholars on the major issues confronting Australia and engender future research and publications. The symposium is also a potential pathway into the ANU Press Australia and the World Series. Contributions from early career researchers and from scholars from any discipline, nationally or internationally, are welcomed. To participate, please submit a title, abstract (250-500 words) and bio (100 words) by midnight (AEST) Friday 30 August 2024 by emailing admin.ausi@anu.edu.au.

International Australian Studies Association (InASA) 2025 Biennial Conference
5-7 February 2025

This InASA conference will revolve around the theme ‘Australian Studies in the 21st Century: Human and More-Than-Human Worlds’. It aims to foster interdisciplinary and cross-cultural dialogues on Critical Indigenous Studies, history, literature, culture, creative arts, politics, media, sociology, anthropology, geography, ecology, and other disciplines that engage with human experiences and/or more-than-human worlds.
The organisers welcome proposals for individual papers, 3 member panels, or 4-5 member roundtables for plenary sessions, that engage with the conference theme from diverse disciplines, perspectives, and methodologies. We particularly encourage submissions that prioritise Indigenous voices.
More details on submission guidelines and topics of interest can be found on the website. The submission deadline is Monday 30 September 2024.  

Media Training

Deakin’s in-house media training program is running through July, August and September, with plenty of great opportunities to build your media engagement skills. This includes broadcast interview workshops and a Writing for The Conversation workshop on 12th September, that you can register for via this link.

The Melbourne Colonial and Post-colonial Histories Symposium
20 March 2025
ACU Melbourne Campus

Postgraduate students researching any aspect of colonialism and post-colonial pasts are invited to apply to participate in this one-day symposium hosted by the Australian Catholic University and Victoria University. The workshop aims to provide collegial feedback on doctoral research and build scholarly networks. Student participants will pre-circulate an article manuscript or a thesis chapter. In addition to receiving feedback from the group, each student will be paired with an experienced academic who will provide detailed comments on their work in progress.

We particularly welcome research focused on Asia, the Pacific, and the Americas after 1600. Possible themes include but are not limited to:

Colonial and other archives
Mobilities and connected colonial histories
The invention of race and colonial difference
Feminist theories and methods
Colonial law and (in)justice
Violence in colonial projects
Anti-colonial rebellions and the limits of colonial power
Colonial relics: objects and material culture
More-than-human actors
Colonialism and popular memory

To apply, please send an expression of interest to Dianne.hall@vu.edu.au and kristie.flannery@acu.edu.au by 1 November 2024. Your expression of interest should include your name, contact information, an abstract of the chapter or article you wish to present (200 words), up to 5 key words, and a short note on your thesis progress to date (100 words). Successful applicants will be notified by 1 December 2025.

CCH Hub Site

We now have a Sharepoint site (for Deakin staff and students only). This is where you can find CCH templates and logos, and importantly – new grant application forms. CCH members should have access, but you will need to use your Deakin login.