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Assorted Bastards of Australian History Public History Review Pub Date : 2021-06-23 Paul Daley
Cook looms as large in Australian statuary as he does in nomenclature and, perhaps especially, psyche. To those who still deify him as the explorer at the vanguard of white-hatted colonial Enlightenment he remains the Neil Armstrong of his day – he who sailed where dragons be to bring English light and civility to the oldest continuous civilisation on the planet. To others of this continent, he is
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'Who controls the past... controls the future': Public History Review Pub Date : 2021-06-23 Mariko Smith
Ultimately, dialogical memorialisation is a way to promote critical thinking and engagement with these old statues, moving away from viewing them as nineteenth-century memory culture relics and transforming them into more dynamic parts of society which more accurately reflect the many different people now residing in it.
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Should They Stay or Should They Go?: Public History Review Pub Date : 2021-06-22 Christine Yeats
This contribution considers the current debates about the place of monuments, such as the statue of Captain Cook in Hyde Park, which reached a recent high point during the Black Lives Matter protests across Australia in mid 2020. While removing contentious statues from public view may address concerns about their unwanted presence, we must ensure that the contested history they embody is not also erased
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Dark Pasts in the Landscape: Public History Review Pub Date : 2021-06-22 Jenny Gregory
In an era of reconciliation and truth-telling, many have questioned the symbolic power of statues. A storm of controversy across the globe galvanised an electric energy in which many statues were damaged or toppled. Statues became lightning rods for social conflict. This article explores earlier clashes over statues in Perth in the late 1970s and 1980s, revealing that while the statue of a colonial
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Chilean History and the Sine Wave Public History Review Pub Date : 2020-10-17 Marivic Wyndham,Peter Read
Continuing their studies of post-Pinochet memorials in Chile, the authors analyse a recent trend in the interpretation of trauma sites in Santiago which regards the need to resolve the tensions raised by the Pinochet years as more important than dwelling in detail on what was visited upon the victims. We argue that this significant shift from previous interpretations is carried by the younger generation
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Rebecca S. Wingo, Jason Heppler and Paul Schadewald (eds), Digital Community Engagement: Partnering Communities with the Academy Public History Review Pub Date : 2020-09-15 Ann-Marie Foster
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Docudrama as ‘Histotainment’: Repackaging Family History in the Digital Age Public History Review Pub Date : 2020-08-27 Debra J. Donnelly, Emma L. Shaw
Ways of accessing and understanding history have shifted in contemporary society with history being repackaged for public consumption in a vast array of digital technologies. These technologies present historical narratives which aim to simultaneously entertain and educate. This research project introduces the term ‘histotainment’ for this fusing of history and entertainment. Docudramas are a strong
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Alison Atkinson-Phillips, Survivor Memorials: Remembering Trauma and Loss in Contemporary Australia Public History Review Pub Date : 2020-07-30 Shurlee Lesley Swain
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Public History and Contested Heritage Public History Review Pub Date : 2020-04-05 Heather Hughes, Greta Fedele, Zeno Gaiaschi, Alessandro Pesaro
This article presents a case study of a collaborative public history project between participants in two countries, the United Kingdom and Italy. Its subject matter is the bombing war in Europe, 1939-1945, which is remembered and commemorated in very different ways in these two countries: the sensitivities involved thus constitute not only a case of public history conducted at the national level but
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'in defence of liberty'? Public History Review Pub Date : 2019-12-19 Minna Muhlen-Schulte
After the outbreak of the Second World War in Europe in September 1939, emergency internment legislation passed by the Australian Federal Parliament created a network of camp sites across Australia. What do these historic landscapes mean in Australia today and how can we interpret them? Some feature government-installed interpretation signs; others remain silent concrete ruins concealed within private
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Signifier of Kiwi Identity Public History Review Pub Date : 2019-12-04 Lindsay Neill, Marilyn Waring
Contested myths of origin surround one of New Zealand’s best-loved cultural icons, or ‘kiwiana’: a pull-along children’s toy called the Buzzy Bee. This paper clarifies those domains by presenting new information gleaned from Betty Schlesinger, widow of the bee’s inventor. Clarification is important because the Buzzy Bee is, as kiwiana, a material item strongly associated with Kiwi identity. As a Māori
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'I was not aware of the hardship' Public History Review Pub Date : 2019-12-04 Alison Atkinson-Philllips, Jack Hepworth, Graham Smith, Silvie Fisch
This article reports on Foodbank Histories, a multi-organisational project connecting oral histories and social justice at Newcastle West End Foodbank (NWEF). Foodbank Histories recorded interviews with clients, volunteers, and supporters of NWEF, aiming to raise awareness of food poverty and generate income for the foodbank. We outline the proliferation of foodbanks in contemporary Britain, and situate
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One Small World Public History Review Pub Date : 2018-12-31 Sue Castrique
One Small World: the history of the Addison Road Community Centre was independently written and funded through a series of grants. While conceived as a history of place, it is also a history of the organisation that presently occupies the site, the Addison Road Community Centre (ARCCO). The Centre has had an ambivalent relationship to its past. After 60 years as an army depot, in 1976 it became a community
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Embodied Simulations of Pasts Public History Review Pub Date : 2018-12-31 Anne Brædder
Building on theories from body phenomenology, new materialism and a theoretical concept of historical consciousness, this article argues that embodied simulations of pasts used in reenactment and living history in open-air museums make reenactors and living historians experience pasts as present and make the actors reflect on pasts. This is an argument for saying that historical consciousness has an
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Popular Imagination Versus Historical Reality Public History Review Pub Date : 2018-12-27 Mirela Cufurovic
Historical films have been subject to controversy and criticism within the discipline of history upon the rise of popular interest in new and innovative forms of historical representation. The five to seven years between the release of Gladiator (2000) and Rome (2005-2007) saw an upsurge of historical films focusing on the ‘epic’: the spectacular, monumental and immersive periods of history that exude
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‘deep wounds… left… in hearts and minds’: South African Public History Public History Review Pub Date : 2018-01-04 Julia C. Wells
Public history practise in South Africa holds out much promise of further things to come. It can close the gulf between history and heritage. This chapter argues that the role of the public historian should not be conflated with the dynamics of the heritage sector, but suggests how trained academics can indeed put their skills to work in a society that is passionately interested in understanding itself
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Causing a Ruckus: Complicity and Performance in Stories of Port Moody Public History Review Pub Date : 2018-01-04 Matthew Hayes
This article is about the suicide of the chief of police of a small Canadian town, which - according to some - did not actually happen. While employed as a researcher and writer with a museum in Port Moody, British Columbia, the author heard this story as one of many told by the ‘old-timers’ who assisted with the writing of a history book. The controversy over the potential suicide provided the means
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East of the West: Repossessing the Past In India Public History Review Pub Date : 2018-01-04 Indira Chowdhury, Srijan Mandal
Public history, as it is practised in India, defies easy attempts at classification. This is partially because hardly anything that would be recognised as public history is identified as such by its author(s). For the term, despite its ever-increasing acceptance outside India as a discipline and a practice distinct from history, has yet to gain any currency within India. Any attempt to identify works
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One Monument, One Town, Two Ideologies: The Monument to the Victory of Bolzano-Bozen Public History Review Pub Date : 2018-01-04 Malcolm Angelucci, Stefano Kerschbamer
This article offers a critical reading of the first major attempt to publicly come to terms with the presence of an invasive and ideologically charged fascist monument in the border town of Bolzano-Bozen, in South Tyrol, Italy. The ‘Monument to Victory’, commissioned by Mussolini and inaugurated in 1928 to celebrate the annexation of the province after WWI, is the symbolic centre of a discourse that
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Remembering Tomorrow: Wagon Roads, Identity and the Decolonization of a First Nations Landscape Public History Review Pub Date : 2016-12-30 Erin L.S. Gibson
Roads embody the experiences of those who construct, use and maintain them through time. Using a biographical approach I explore how memory and identity are entangled in the material remains of a wagon road in southwestern British Columbia, Canada. First constructed by the Royal Engineers in 1859 to enable miners to reach the Fraser River goldfields, the importance of this road transcends its colonial
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Up Close and Personal: Feeling the Past at Urban Archaeological Sites Public History Review Pub Date : 2016-12-30 Tracy Ireland
In this article I focus on the emotional, sensory and aesthetic affordances of urban archaeological remains conserved in situ and explore what these ruins ‘do’ in the context of the layered urban fabric of the city. I am concerned with a particular category of archaeological remains: those that illustrate the colonial history of settler nations, exploring examples in Sydney and Montreal. Using Sara
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Everyday Magic: Some Mysteries of the Mantlepiece Public History Review Pub Date : 2016-12-30 Ralph Mills
Small mass-produced objects, such as ceramic figurines, that may have been displayed on mantelpieces, are found in working-class nineteenth and early twentieth century archaeological contexts. Above the hearth, at the heart of the home, objects located on the mantelpiece could be said to be central in reflecting a number of aspects of the lives of those who placed them there. These could include identity
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‘Real Photos’: Transforming Tindale and the Postcolonial Archive Public History Review Pub Date : 2016-12-30 Jane Lydon
When the Transforming Tindale exhibition opened at the State Library of Queensland in September 2012, there was much excitement and goodwill. This landmark exhibition was curated by Michael Aird and featured Ah Kee’s drawings and enlarged prints of anthropologist Norman Tindale’s photographs of 1938-1940, as well as extensive archival information and stories from the subjects themselves and their relatives
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Rethinking Materiality, Memory and Identity Public History Review Pub Date : 2016-12-30 Tracy Ireland, Jane Lydon
This introductory article considers and questions exactly how materials and people constitute social worlds and relationships which sustain identity and memory and, in turn, the social and political structures or norms that these attachments invest in, stabilise and maintain.
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Experiencing Place: An Auto-Ethnography on Digging and Belonging Public History Review Pub Date : 2016-12-30 Steve Brown
This article is concerned with personal heritage and the role of material things in the construction of place-attachment. My interest lies in interrogating my own sense of place-attachment (or belonging) to my home. I argue that personal experience can provide comparative information for investigating other peoples’ experiences of their ‘special places’. That is, by critically reflecting on my own