Following Joan Beaumont’s retirement from the Australian National University, we are delighted to advise that there will be a symposium to celebrate her distinguished career as a scholar and academic leader on 14 February 2025 in Melbourne, at Deakin Downtown.

You can register to attend the event via Eventbrite here.

This event is being organised by the CCH (Deakin) and the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre (ANU).

Agenda

9.30.-9.45 a.m. Welcome and Introduction

9.45-10.45 a.m.            Why is this so? Joan Beaumont’s approach to writing history

Carolyn Holbrook        Joan Beaumont and the psychologisation of war historiography

Tristan Moss                Defining a military historian: military history in Australia

Bart Ziino                     Whatever happened? The art of the provocative question

10.45-11.00 a.m.          Morning Tea   

11.00 -12.00 p.m.         Interwar Australia

Margaret Hutchinson  Australia, the First World War and Memory

Frank Bongiorno         Joan Beaumont and the Depression: An Appreciation

James Cotton              Australia’s External Affairs Department 1935-42: Recruiting an Administrative Elite

12-1.00 p.m.                Commanders, Comrades and Compromises: Understanding military service and its challenges

Kate Ariotti                  From Death to Disposal: Mortuary Practices in Changi POW Camp

Christina Twomey        To neither condemn, nor glorify: Joan Beaumont’s ‘attempt to understand’ complicated military histories

Garth Pratten               ‘Perilous terrain for military historians’:  Humanising military command.

1.00-2.00 p.m.              Lunch

2.00-3.30  p.m.             Diplomacy and Statecraft

Peter Romijn                Dutch Diplomacy and new Humanitarian Law: Nuremberg, Tokyo and Geneva against the background of colonial warfare in Indonesia

David Lowe                  Postwar Australian Diplomacy and Diplomatica

Peter Stanley                From defending the Memorial to Defending Country: reflections on a decade of historical activism

Hugh White                  Lessons from Ukraine: Power Politics and Nuclear Weapons.

3.30-4.00 p.m.               Afternoon Tea

4.00-4.30 p.m.               Joan Beaumont as an Academic Leader: Roundtable

Discussants: Frank Bongiorno, Garth Pratten, David Lowe & Christina Twomey

4.30-4.45 p.m.               Reflections

Joan Beaumont

4.45 pm –                      Celebratory drinks at a nearby venue