2007 Events Archive
Also available:
2008 events
2006 events
Brownbag seminars 2007
Thursdays @ 1pm, in the Jessie Webb Library
See program and abstracts
Free public lecture: Current and future directions in British History
Dr David Starkey, Cambridge UniversityDr David Starkey is a prominent historian, and a familiar face to many through his television series on Elizabeth I and the Wives of Henry VIII. He taught history at the London School of Economics from 1972 to 1998, embarking during this time on a career as a broadcaster on BBC Radio 4 and Talk Radio UK.
Date: Monday 27 August 2007
Time: 6:30pm - 7:30pm
Location: Lecture Theatre D, Old Arts Building, University of Melbourne
Further information: School of Historical Studies Events Calendar
Book launch: Against the Grain: Brian Fitzpatrick and Manning Clark in Australian History and Politics
Edited by Sheila Fitzpatrick and Stuart MacintyreWhile Brian Fitzpatrick has today fallen into relative obscurity, efforts persist in discrediting Manning Clark's name. Against the Grain examines the dual careers of Fitzpatrick and Clark as activists and historians during the Cold War, and shows the political and personal difficulties that beset both men throughout their careers.
To be launched by Don Watson
Date: Wednesday 22nd August 2007
Time: 6:15pm for 6:30pm
Location: Fifth Floor Function Room, John Medley Building
RSVP
Caroline Hamilton
School of Historical Studies
8344 7235
hamc@unimelb.edu.au
Book launch: They are but women - the road to female suffrage in Victoria
Date: Thursday 26th July 2007
Time: 5:00pm
Location: Leigh Scott Room, Level One, Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne
To celebrate the upcoming centenary of women's suffrage in Victoria, the former Premier of Victoria, Joan Kirner, will launch They are but Women: The Road to Female Suffrage in Victoria, a Melbourne University postgraduate history student essay collection.
Ms Kirner said "2008 will mark the centenary of women's suffrage in Victoria. It is important never to take voting rights for granted and to remember how hard women struggled to gain the vote against enormous prejudice".
The book explores the road to women's suffrage from a number of different angles. Early pioneering feminists, working class women in North Carlton, welfare workers, religious figures, women opposed to suffrage, and the last minute support of staunch anti suffragist Victorian Premier Sir Thomas Bent, for the suffragist cause.
The book is not for profit and entirely self published.
Ms Kirner congratulated the students for publishing the work on such an important, but often overlooked, part of Victorian history.
RSVP: Loretta Dynan
dynans@bigpond.net.au
Kathleen Fitzpatrick Lecture
Notes from the Underground: Writing the Biography of Manning Clark
Associate Professor Mark McKenna
University of Sydney
The strongest image of the biographer - cultivated largely by novelists - is that of the furtive thief or the voyeur. Henry James described the biographer as 'the post-mortem exploiter'. The explicit message is that there is something inherently intrusive, even unethical in the very idea of biography. Stories of writers burning or destroying their personal documents are celebrated as a triumph of the writer's right to privacy over the sinister motives of the biographer. For Manning Clark, there were no bonfires. He kept everything, from theatre tickets, to newspaper clippings, reviews, lecture notes, address books, pocket calendar diaries, mountains of correspondence, and 53 years of notebooks and personal diaries. In the National Library alone, there are 200 boxes of documents. Clark constructed his archive with one playful eye on posterity. He courts the biographer at every turn. And for the biographer, this raises fascinating questions. Most important of all, how does one write the biography of a subject who has consciously set out to archive his life? By looking closely at Clark's archive, Mark McKenna explains the challenges involved in writing the biography of Australia's most renowned historian.
Date: Thursday 31 May 2007
Refreshments: 6:00pm Jim Potter Room, Old Physics
Lecture: 7:00pm Public Lecture Theatre, Old Arts
Enquiries: Gabrielle Murphy
Tel: (+61 3) 8344 5961
Email: g.murphy@ unimelb.edu.au
The Kathleen Fitzpatrick Lecture is a free public lecture presented as part of the Dean's Lecture Series, Faculty of Arts
What an Historian Knows
Professor Ron Ridley
What is the purpose of history? What are sources: how do they survive, can they be manufactured, how are they used? What habits of mind are useful to historians? What part is played by place? How far do historians have to take account of the contribution of their predecessors? What makes a classic work of history? Can an historian be objective? Why are historians such slaves to fashion? How does an historian sort fact from fiction? What is the record of historians faced with tyrannous political regimes? These are some of the questions an historian must know about.
Date: Thursday 17 May 2007
Time: 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Location: Theatre A, Elisabeth Murdoch Building, The University of Melbourne
Speaker: Professor Ron Ridley
Enquiries: Gabrielle Murphy
Tel: (+61 3) 8344 5961
Email: g.murphy@ unimelb.edu.au
Islam with Chinese Characteristics
Professor Jonathan Lipman
Professor Jonathan Lipman, the author of Familiar Strangers: A History of Muslims in Northwest China (1998), is a highly regarded authority on Islam in China. A professor of history at Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts, he is currently working on a number of research projects including Islam in Xinjiang, and Neo-Confucian Muslim texts of the early Qing.
Date: Wendesday 9 May 2007
Time: 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Location: Theatre A, Elisabeth Murdoch Building, The University of Melbourne
Speaker: Professor Jonathan Lipman
Enquiries: Antonia Finnane
Tel: (+61 3) 8344 5957
Email: a.finnane@ unimelb.edu.au
Public forum:
Forum on the war in Iraq
This Forum presents a series of discussions of what has happened in Iraq since President Bush announced that the United States' initial mission had been accomplished after the invasion of 2003.
Terrorist Aftermath
Associate Professor David Wright-Neville, Global Terrorism Research Centre, Monash University
The Effects on Iraq
Dr Riadh Al-Mahaidi, Civil Engineering, Monash University
Counting the Casualties in Iraq
Associate Professor Mike Toole, Centre for International Health, Burnet Institute, Melbourne
The Aftermath
Associate Professor Richard Pennell, School of Historical Studies, University of Melbourne
The panel will be chaired by Professor Joy Damousi, Head of School of Historical Studies, University of Melbourne
Date: Wednesday 2nd May 2007
Time: 6.30pm
Location: Elizabeth Murdoch Theatre A
Enquiries
Richard Pennell
School of Historical Studies
T: (+61 3) 8344 5952
E: rpennell@ unimelb.edu.au