Cirrus@Austlit

'Historian Graeme Davison explores powerful forces below history’s horizon'

'In Restless Dolly Maunder, Kate Grenville weaves a fictional narrative around her grandmother, a woman she remembers as ‘aloof, thin, frowning, cranky’, and knew through her mother’s stories as ‘uncaring, selfish, unloving. Even a bit mad.’' (Introduction)

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'A child of nine is taken to Sydney for the first time to visit her mother, a patient at the Coast Hospital lazaret. Upon arrival, she learns that she, like her mother, has leprosy. Her fate is fixed from that day; she will live the remainder of her life in the lazaret. She takes the new name of ‘Alice’ to hide her former self, and the world closes in upon her. There will be no more school, no playing with her younger brothers and sisters, no friends of her own age, no prospect of romance, no hope of freedom.'(Introduction)

'When the offer came to review this book, I accepted enthusiastically, and unthinkingly added, ‘That sounds fun!’. Upon reflection, I deleted that last sentence: what would it say about me, I wondered, that I should expect the account of a hangman and his work to be entertaining? I thought better of the sentence, but the anticipation remained.'(Introduction)

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'‍As momentum builds for constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, it is timely to reflect on the career of William Cooper. A Yorta Yorta elder and founding secretary of the Australian Aborigines’ League, Cooper gathered support for Indigenous representation in parliament and for voting and land rights during the interwar years. Historian Bain Attwood’s new book tells Cooper’s story but resists the biographical impulse that would separate the man from his social milieux. In today’s episode, Professor Emerita Penny Russell reads her review of Attwood’s portrait of this remarkable man, whose eloquence has left only a scant textual record. What survives reveals a figure ‘always driven by a profound vision of justice and moral uplift’.

'Penny Russell is a historian of families, intimacy, and social encounters in nineteenth-century Australia, with a longstanding interest in the intricacies of gender, class, race, and culture in colonial societies. Penny is a Professor Emerita at The University of Sydney.' (Production summary)

'The name of Yorta Yorta elder William Cooper shines bright in the history of Aboriginal activism in Australia between the two world wars. It is linked with the formation of the Australian Aborigines’ League, of which he was the founding secretary; the Day of Mourning on the anniversary of white settlement in 1938; and a petition intended for George V, signed by almost 2,000 Aboriginal people and demanding Aboriginal representation in parliament. This last was perhaps Cooper’s most cherished project. He spent years gathering signatures and waiting for the most opportune moment to present it; his disappointment at the indifferent response of the Australian government darkened his final years.' (Introduction)

'Little of Eliza Fraser’s life was spent in Australia, but her name has become part of its colonised landscape. So, too, has her story. Shipwrecked off the coast of Australia in 1836, she lived for several weeks with local Aboriginal people, the Butchulla, traditional custodians and owners of the island that now bears her name. Her husband perished but Eliza survived, enduring – by her own account – abuse and drudgery before being rescued and restored to civilised society. Sensational accounts of her ordeal ensured her story a lasting place in colonial mythology, reinforced and reinvented in the twentieth century when her ‘captivity’ was made the theme of paintings by Sidney Nolan, a novel by Patrick White, and a memorable 1970s film.'  (Introduction)

Australian lives are intricately enmeshed with the world, bound by ties of allegiance and affinity, intellect and imagination. In Transnational Ties: Australian Lives in the World, an eclectic mix of scholars—historians, literary critics, and museologists—trace the flow of people that helped shape Australia’s distinctive character and the flow of ideas that connected Australians to a global community of thought. It shows how biography, and the study of life stories, can contribute greatly to our understanding of such patterns of connection and explores how transnationalism can test biography’s limits as an intellectual, professional and commercial practice.' (Publisher's blurb)

'History Australia is the official journal of the Australian Historical Association ... [It] aims to reflect the concerns, to publish the research product, and to increase the professional self-awareness of all those historians currently making and applying history in the nation and the community. It publishes refereed articles, debates, reviews of historical works, and news items.'

(Source: History Australia, vol.2 no.2, June 2005)