https://hdl.handle.net/2123/1435 2026-06-04T23:21:27Z 2026-06-04T23:21:27Z Koh, Jin Guan https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27314 2026-04-22T05:23:25Z 2022-01-13T00:00:00Z

'The Proper Use of History': Statues, Colonialism and Nationalism in Modern Singapore Koh, Jin Guan In a time when statues of colonial figures are debated, vandalised or torn down, Singapore appears to be an anomaly in erecting new statues. This thesis interrogates Singapore’s postcolonial condition by analysing the Civic District as a living historical text and its role in the state’s public history efforts. It does this through investigating the district’s conservation and meaning behind the new statues. I argue that the dawn of Singapore’s national history is located in its moment of colonisation. In doing so, I demonstrate that postcolonial analyses cannot generalise but must instead investigate each former colony on its own merits.

2022-01-13T00:00:00Z van Gent, Celeste https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24948 2026-04-22T05:25:43Z 2021-04-20T00:00:00Z

Edmund Blacket, Medievalism and the Gothic in the Colony van Gent, Celeste Edmund Blacket (1817-83) was an English-born Gothic Revival architect. This thesis uses the critical framework of medievalism to identify the function of multiple timeframes, real and imagined, within the Gothic style. It traces Blacket’s youth sketching Gothic ruins in the Yorkshire countryside, his construction of quintessentially English churches in the Colony of New South Wales, and his grand designs for the University of Sydney’s first buildings. This journey shows how Blacket’s use of the Gothic style spoke at once to a romanticised medieval past and the fragmented colonial present, as well as anticipating the Colony’s future.

2021-04-20T00:00:00Z Mascarenhas, Kieryn https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24941 2026-04-22T05:25:45Z 2020-01-01T00:00:00Z

Passions of the Pope: Analysing emotional rhetoric in Pope Gregory VII’s letters Mascarenhas, Kieryn In recent years, emotions have become a popular lens for historical analysis. Building on existing scholarship, this thesis explores the emotions of Pope Gregory VII, an eleventh-century pope notable for his reform efforts and role in the Investiture Controversy. Focusing on Gregory’s papal letters, this study will analyse the displays of three key emotions: anger, love, and sorrow, to determine how and why Gregory used these displays to achieve his political and religious objectives. Gregory wielded emotional rhetoric in his papal letters to solidify his papal authority, construct and maintain key relationships, and garner support for his reform agenda.

2020-01-01T00:00:00Z Goldberg, Samuel https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24915 2026-04-22T05:25:46Z 2021-04-13T00:00:00Z

Gender, Insanity and Moral Obligation: Widows and the Action for Testamentary Incapacity in Late-Colonial New South Wales Goldberg, Samuel The enactment of a Testator’s Family Maintenance Act in 1916 is rightly remembered as a signature achievement of New South Wales’ early feminists, providing protection against the destitution that a cruel will could inflict upon a testator’s family. Yet in the decades before its passage, a challenge to a husband’s testamentary capacity offered an alternative mechanism by which a widow could challenge a will. This thesis explores the stories of the widows who braved the action for testamentary incapacity, in order to recover its social and cultural significance. It identifies the courtroom as a site of dense cultural discourse, in which dominant tropes of gender, insanity and moral obligation structured the court’s consideration of a widow’s claim. It shows that widows played upon these tropes, deploying them in narratives of virtue and transgression to win substantive relief. The action for testamentary capacity thus offered hope for disinherited widows seeking to break the financial shackles posthumously imposed by their husbands. However, in demanding the sublimation of their lived experience to fit dominant cultural narratives, the action excluded women who were unable to perform the necessary identity, perpetuating the same inequality that widows came to court to address.

2021-04-13T00:00:00Z Sng, Nathan https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24584 2026-04-22T05:23:25Z 2021-03-02T00:00:00Z

"Contact - Wait Out": The Search for a Unique Australian Counterinsurgency. Sng, Nathan Between 1962 and 1972 Australia was involved in a counterinsurgency war in Vietnam. Counterinsurgencies emerged as the definitive style of warfare during the Cold War. Many prominent nations employed their own unique counterinsurgency doctrines. This thesis examined whether a unique Australian counterinsurgency developed during the Vietnam War. Review of a variety of primary resources indicated that although Australia did not appear to develop a unique counterinsurgency doctrine in the Vietnam War, there is evidence to suggest that distinctive Australian qualities were present, some of which were drawn from British and French examples of counterinsurgency in Malaya and Indochina.

2021-03-02T00:00:00Z Eames, Robin https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18906 2026-04-22T05:23:25Z 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z

Harry Crawford v History: Problem Bodies, Queertrans Cosmogonies, and Historiographical Ethics in Cases of Gender Transgression in Late Nineteenth-Early Twentieth Century Australia Eames, Robin The predominant cultural metanarrative of transgender existence is that we sprang fully formed into being sometime in the 1960s, like Athena stepping out of Zeus’s skull. And yet in every corner of human history we find people who might fit modern definitions of ‘transgender’. This thesis does not seek to retrofit contemporary understandings of gender onto the past. Rather, it sheds light on queertrans antecedence, through the case of Harry Crawford in 1920s Sydney. Crawford was ostensibly on trial for murder, but his court case was more concerned with the social crime of gender transgression. He had been assigned female at birth but lived, worked, and married as a man. Much of the subsequent literary and academic work on Crawford has reproduced the assumptions, stigmas, curiosity, and censure of the 1920s, putting him on trial again and again. This thesis examines Crawford’s life and afterlives, his disallowed embodiment, and the cultural myths that were read onto him, by reading resistantly into and against court transcripts, papers and depositions, contemporaneous newspaper records, and secondary scholarship. Crawford’s case articulated a number of cultural anxieties around aberrant bodies, marginalisation, and the maintenance of social hierarchies. It continues to provide insights into undercurrents of paradox, power, self-definition, and historical futurity. This study also investigates possibilities for culturally respectful and harm-reductive approaches for future historiography. By mapping out the histories of people pushed to the margins, we may gain greater understandings of the ways in which cultural identity is defined both from within (i.e. from interior subjectivities) and from without (i.e. against the Other). The work of filling in historical gaps and silences also allows marginalised people to reconnect with a sense of cultural self, and perhaps to more fully realise our place in the universe.

2018-01-01T00:00:00Z Yuan, Frank https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18258 2026-04-22T05:23:23Z 2018-05-29T00:00:00Z

Heir to the Empire: Robert Menzies and The United States of America Yuan, Frank

2018-05-29T00:00:00Z Donaghy, Erica https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18263 2026-04-22T05:25:44Z 2018-05-29T00:00:00Z

Reconsidering the Troubles: An examination of paramilitary and state violence in Northern Ireland Donaghy, Erica In the bitter sectarian conflict of the Northern Ireland Troubles, which spanned the years 1966- 1998, culpability has usually been firmly placed in the actions of the Irish Republican Army, a group seeking reunification with the Republic of Ireland. This thesis argues that the roles of Protestant loyalist paramilitaries and state forces such as the British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary were equally as important. That this importance is not demonstrated in dominant literature remains to be to the detriment of efforts towards reconciliation and the acceptance of shared responsibility, and perpetuates the sectarian divide between Protestant and Catholic communities.

2018-05-29T00:00:00Z Myers, Elizabeth https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18252 2026-04-22T05:25:49Z 2018-05-29T00:00:00Z

Suez: A Crisis of British Identity Interrogating the narrative of British strength in the press coverage during the 1956 Suez Crisis Myers, Elizabeth The Suez Crisis in 1956 has been identified as a critical turning point for Britain as the global spheres of powers shifted after the war. Although the crisis marks a deterioration of Britain’s geopolitical reputation during the 20th Century, it is not clear that the British population was aware of the severity of the crisis as it unfolded. An interrogation of the newspaper coverage of this event shows that the British were clinging on to a lingering sense of power that was rooted in their declining empire. This collective sense of identity obscured the serious implications of Britain’s military failure in the Suez Crisis.

2018-05-29T00:00:00Z Chin, Aliza https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18253 2026-04-22T05:23:24Z 2018-05-29T00:00:00Z

The Legacy of the June 4 Incident on the Sydney Chinese Community: A study of the short-term and long-term impacts of the June 4 Incident on the Chinese community of Sydney Chin, Aliza This thesis examines the legacy of the June 4 Incident on the Sydney Chinese community in the immediate aftermath of the event, and in the years that followed. By making the focus of the thesis primary accounts from members of the Sydney Chinese Community themselves, in addition to primary sources from the period, this thesis can be said to be an examination of the impact of the June 4 Incident on the community, and how the variations that exist in regards to the impact demonstrate the variation of existing opinions within the community. Based on the findings, in addition to comparisons and examinations with other studies conducted about the impact of the June 4 Incident on other Chinese communities, this thesis concluded that whilst there was a strong legacy in the immediate aftermath, one of unification and strengthening of pre-existing relationships within the community, this legacy failed to sustain itself in the years following the incident. Furthermore, an examination of the pre-existing relationships and bonds proved that they played a large role in helping to sustain legacies and the values and traditions within them, and that it was no different in the case of the June 4 Incident, at least in the short-term. In a way, this thesis is an attempt to establish a legacy of sorts in itself, whilst contributing to the research surrounding the history of migrant communities in Australia, by conducting the first study on the impact of the June 4 Incident on the Sydney Chinese community.

2018-05-29T00:00:00Z Edgren, Oskar https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18261 2026-04-22T05:25:42Z 2018-05-29T00:00:00Z

Public Execution and the Symbolism of Urban Space in Florence’s Crisis Edgren, Oskar This thesis examines the Florentine Grand Council’s use of public execution to demonstrate political power in the crisis of 1494-1512. Using the example of Antonio Rinaldeschi’s execution for blasphemy in 1501, it explores how the Council appropriated humanist and republican symbolism and urban space to tighten their grip on the increasingly unstable and fractured republic.

2018-05-29T00:00:00Z Jackman, Alexander https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18251 2026-04-22T05:25:47Z 2018-05-29T00:00:00Z

Virtue, Honour and Mischief: The Role of Youthful Disobedience in Civic Humanism and Masculinity in the Florentine Renaissance Jackman, Alexander This thesis explores the subversive world of male youths in Florence between the mid-fourteenth century and 1530. Whereas historians have emphasised the conservative foundations of Renaissance ‘virtue’ and ‘honour’ – values such as piety, thrift, self-restraint and political participation – this thesis evokes the ways in which unorthodox means of civic engagement were tolerated, and indeed celebrated, when perpetrated by young males for the benefit of the city. Through public ridicule, unauthorised violence and extra-marital sexuality, young males asserted themselves within the Florentine Republic, and this thesis highlights how that culture’s laudation of such dissident behaviour reflected its interpretation of civic humanism.

2018-05-29T00:00:00Z Favaloro, Joshua https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18250 2026-04-22T05:25:47Z 2018-05-29T00:00:00Z

The Mastery of Space in Early Modern Political Thought Giovanni Botero, the Gallery of Maps in the Vatican and the fusion of the civitas and urbs in sixteenth-century Italy Favaloro, Joshua Before the sixteenth century there was a strong emphasis in Renaissance political thought on the difference between the political city (the civitas) and the physical city (the urbs). The body politic ‘floated’ above the landscape—it was not rooted in a specific territory as we understand states to be today. In 1588 the philosopher-priest Giovanni Botero argued that wealth underpinned political power; challenging humanist narratives about the corrupting forces of wealth for the civitas. These narratives were rooted in a classical ‘politics’, which saw the civitas as a morally oriented body. Botero conceived his arguments in the context of ‘reason of state’, where politics became the art of maintaining one’s ‘stato’. While arguing that wealth was the source of civitas’ power he grounded it in the economic capacity of the urbs. Physical space became an object of political power. I argue in this thesis that the Gallery of Maps in the Vatican was a potent visual exposition of these ideas—ideas which had important implications for the rise of the territorial mercantilist ‘state’.

2018-05-29T00:00:00Z Smith, Darren https://hdl.handle.net/2123/16257 2026-04-22T05:23:24Z 2017-01-25T00:00:00Z

Fifteenth-Century Burgundy and the Islamic East Smith, Darren In 1433, Burgundian traveller Bertrandon de la Broquière returned from a journey to the Orient, dressed as a Turk and presenting duke Philip the Good with a copy of the Qur’an. Using this encounter as a starting point, this thesis investigates Burgundy’s engagement with the Islamic East during the fifteenth century, bringing together sources that include travel accounts, interfaith polemic, visual arts, and the Roman de Gillion de Trazegnies. The Burgundian perspective has been neglected by scholarship, which this study attempts to address by repositioning these sources in the academic field of Christian views of Islam in the Middle Ages.

2017-01-25T00:00:00Z Gardner, Thomas Patrick https://hdl.handle.net/2123/16144 2026-04-22T05:25:47Z 2017-01-12T00:00:00Z

A Pacifist’s Point: William Warder Cadbury, His Mission in Canton, and Public Health Initiatives 1909–1937 Gardner, Thomas Patrick This paper examines the mission of William Warder Cadbury (1877–1959) to Canton from 1909 to 1937. As a Quaker medical missionary, Cadbury had the freedom to move around Canton and engage himself in the projects that interested him. He used this to engage in a number of public health projects. He had more power to do this inside of Lingnan University than out of it, mapping the limits of private individuals to bring about public health and the way in which Cadbury himself inserted into a debate about the future of Chinese modernity.

2017-01-12T00:00:00Z Sutherland, Nicole https://hdl.handle.net/2123/15527 2026-04-22T05:25:43Z 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z

Making Trauma Visible: Representations of Shell Shock and War Trauma in Films about the First World War Sutherland, Nicole Mental illness has historically been stigmatised as something associated with a weakness of character and ‘femininity.’ During the First World War, doctors began to encounter large numbers of soldiers exhibiting hitherto unseen physical and psychological disorders resulting from combat activity. These disorders came to be known under the umbrella term of ‘shell shock,’ and were often considered to be the product of weakness, cowardice, and a lack of masculine fortitude. The social outlook for a man returning from the Great War with shell shock was bleak. The attitudes of the military toward mental illness only served to exacerbate the stigma attached to those suffering from the psychological effects of shell shock. Popular culture, however, took a more sympathetic approach. Cinema played an important role in unpacking social and political issues surrounding shell shock and the returned soldier. My thesis examines films about the Great War from the past one hundred years to highlight the enduring consequences of the war for soldiers, their families, and societies. In three case studies I assess the way the cinema of the twentieth century used the shell-shocked soldier as a powerful anti-war symbol in its attempt to remove some of the condition’s social stigma. I also examine the way representations of shell shock have changed over time, particularly in recent years, as advances in the fields of psychiatry and psychology have deepened our understanding of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

2010-01-01T00:00:00Z Jacobs, Ryan Keith https://hdl.handle.net/2123/14024 2026-04-22T05:23:23Z 2015-01-01T00:00:00Z

A Wish for More Archers: Archers at the Battle of Agincourt, 1415 Jacobs, Ryan Keith A knight expressed the desire to his king that he would add to their small army ten thousand of the best archers in England. This thesis utilizes archaeology evidence, financial records, iconographic depictions, literary and chronicle sources to understand the men who fought at the battle of Agincourt within the larger context and traditions of archery in England, the interconnections between archers and men-at-arms and the particular actions of those men in the battle itself.

2015-01-01T00:00:00Z Mackay, Anna Georgia https://hdl.handle.net/2123/14028 2026-04-22T05:25:40Z 2015-01-01T00:00:00Z

The idea of ‘genocide’ in the Australian context 1959-1978 Mackay, Anna Georgia This study attempts to trace the meaning of the word ‘genocide’ in its use in the Australian context. Adopting an historical contextualist approach. the study finds that ‘genocide’ emerged in 1959, in the assimilation critique of Stanley F. Davey, where it was used to condemn the perceived psychological effects of assimilation policy upon Aborigines as an emergent social collectivity. This idea of ‘genocide’ was predominant in Australian discourse throughout the 1960s and 1970s, gaining recognition as ‘the Aboriginal perspective’. As such, it encountered the obstacle of European Australians who maintained an objective understanding of Aboriginal identity, contained in visions of both ‘assimilation’ and ‘integration’. I examine the case of Tasmanian discourse history, where these two perspectives on Aboriginality and ‘genocide’ came into direct conflict over the claim of Tasmanians’ extinction. The study concludes by raising the question of how scholars may approach the identification and discussion of this Aboriginal concept of identity genocide in a scholarly context, given that its meaning is predicated on subjective historical experiences and feelings.

2015-01-01T00:00:00Z Perkins, Yvonne Joan https://hdl.handle.net/2123/10596 2026-04-22T05:25:47Z 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z

Queensland's Bible in State Schools Referendum 1910: A Case Study of Democracy Perkins, Yvonne Joan In 1910 Queenslanders voted in a state referendum for the reintroduction of religious instruction by clergy in state schools and the reading of passages from the Bible by classroom teachers. These activities had not been allowed in Queensland schools since 1875. Similar public debates about religious education in schools were also taking place in South Australia and Victoria. This thesis closely examines the campaign conducted at the grass roots from 1906 by the Protestant organisation, the Bible in State Schools League. It was another campaign which demonstrated the political skills of Anglican clergyman, David Garland. This thesis reveals a democracy where people outside parliament played an important role in political decision-making. It shows that women were significant political actors in the campaign and demonstrates that religious belief informed the political actions of many Queenslanders at the time. Premier for much of this period, William Kidston, led a fractious group of labour politicians. The religiously diverse Labour Party attempted in vain to remain neutral on religious matters while the public debate raged. The vociferous parliamentary debates revealed the tension when one plank of the party platform, secular education, was pitted against the Labour’s stated commitment to referendums as a tool of democracy. Significant policy areas such as education and health remained under the control of the states after Federation. Examination of the conduct of the ‘Bible in State Schools’ campaign demonstrates that a close examination of state politics in the period after Federation is essential in order to understand Australia’s political culture and concerns in the early twentieth century.

2010-01-01T00:00:00Z Woodpower, Zeb Joseph https://hdl.handle.net/2123/10246 2026-04-22T05:23:23Z 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z

The Australian National History Curriculum: Politics at Play Woodpower, Zeb Joseph In 2006, Prime Minister John Howard’s call for the root and renewal of Australian history initiated an ideologically driven process of developing an Australian national history curriculum which was completed by the Labor Government in 2012. Rather than being focussed on pedagogy, the process was characterised by the use of the curriculum as an ideological tool. This thesis provides accounts of the some of the key events during this period and engages with the conceptual debates that underlie the history curriculum being invested with such potent cultural authority.

2013-01-01T00:00:00Z Wright, Timothy Robert https://hdl.handle.net/2123/10257 2026-04-22T05:23:23Z 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z

The Megalomania of the National Deal: Edvard Beneš and the origins of the postwar expulsion of the Sudeten Germans, 1918-1945. Wright, Timothy Robert The expulsion of the German populations of Central and Eastern Europe after the Second World War was among the largest and most brutal forced migrations in human history. It is also one of the least understood. By focusing on the exile of one group, the Sudeten Germans of Czechoslovakia, this thesis seeks to discover why the postwar eviction took place. It traces the origins of the purge from the foundation of Czechoslovakia in 1918, and argues that the Republic’s long-serving president, Edvard Beneš, played a crucial role in the development and implementation of the plan. Through a detailed analysis of interwar minority rights, population transfers and the notion of German collective guilt, this thesis takes the position that the motivations behind postwar expulsions were shaped by the bitter experiences of the interwar period and that they were not, therefore, carried out as an impulsive act of retribution in the hour of victory.

2013-01-01T00:00:00Z McCoy, Henry James https://hdl.handle.net/2123/10251 2026-04-22T05:23:23Z 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z

The International Criminal Court: Mapping the Politics of Myth Construction on the "Road to Rome" McCoy, Henry James This thesis investigates the reasons why it took seventy-four years for the International Criminal Court to be officially established in Rome in 1998 after the idea for the Court was first mooted in 1924. It is argued that the processes of myth-construction were pivotal in contributing to the Court’s enduring identity crisis throughout this period. Based on evidence pertinent to this inquiry, the thesis challenges the conventional histories that frame the Court’s evolution within a teleological development of international criminal law. The jurists, Dr Hugh H.L. Bellot (1860–1928) and Sir Hersch Lauterpacht (1897–1960) are key sources in supporting the ultimate hypothesis proposed here – that is, the recent perceptions of the Court’s genesis within the late nineteenth century Red Cross movement originated from the 1998 Rome Conference. This strategic myth was orchestrated with the chief purpose of unifying the interests of national delegates and international Civil Society by suppressing any future political doubt of the Court’s humanitarian function.

2013-01-01T00:00:00Z Chambers, Ronald Bruce https://hdl.handle.net/2123/10239 2026-04-22T05:23:25Z 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z

The Anchor of Life: Triumphs and crises in the Australian wheat- growing, flour milling and bread industries from 1880- 1939. Chambers, Ronald Bruce The scope of this thesis is Australia from the late nineteenth century to 1939, viewed through the lens of three interrelated industries – wheat-growing, flour-milling and bread-baking. Authoritative literature on wheat-growing is abundant, but literature on bread-baking and flour-milling is scant, so this thesis aims to add to the literature by explicating the interconnectedness of these three kindred industries. In the period covered, Australia achieved its sought-after wheat surplus, but as the title suggests, these industries lurched through cycles of triumph and crisis as breakthroughs were achieved only to suffer unforeseen setbacks, culminating in some of the industry coming to near collapse. This thesis argues that Australia's shift from chronic under-production of wheat as an insular socio-economic outpost of Britain, to a sovereign nation-state operating in a global grain and flour market profoundly altered the production, supply, price and quality of flour-based staples to Australian and international customers and consumers. Starting in the last decades of the nineteenth century, this thesis examines three major historical turning points in the process.

2013-01-01T00:00:00Z Boukouvalas, Alexandra https://hdl.handle.net/2123/10244 2026-04-22T05:25:44Z 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z

A 'metamorphosis of perspectives on the past': A Study of the Hyde Park Barracks, 1975-2012. Boukouvalas, Alexandra This thesis is an investigation of the site history of the Hyde Park Barracks since 1975 when the decision was made to restore the historical fabric of the building for use as a museum. Paramount to this enquiry is the understanding that historic buildings are always in a process of change, both physically and conceptually. This study will argue that a ‘metamorphosis of perspectives on the past’ at this site has been shaped by cultural, political and economic development over time and a quest of modern identity.

2013-01-01T00:00:00Z Green, Jeremy https://hdl.handle.net/2123/10252 2026-04-22T05:25:49Z 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z

Crafting Fame: Praise and Exclusion in Fifteenth Century Florence Green, Jeremy This thesis examines the way that celebrated craftsmen from renaissance Florence were remembered selectively by fifteenth and sixteenth century chroniclers and biographers. With an emphasis on Filippo Brunelleschi, this study briefly explores Florence’s world of workshops, artisan contests, and patrons, before analysing comparative accounts of Brunelleschi’s social life and architectural accomplishments. The enquiry engages with historiographical scholarship concerning selfhood and individualism, and is developed through the related genres of biography, comedy, and apocryphal tale. It closes by arguing that when some men were praised others were excluded, and that fame and eminence were reinforced through humour and ridicule.

2013-01-01T00:00:00Z Thompson, Zachary Benjamin https://hdl.handle.net/2123/10240 2026-04-22T05:23:24Z 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z

Destroying Sodom in the South Pacific: How the terror of sodomy was invoked to end convict transportation to New South Wales c.1837. Thompson, Zachary Benjamin While the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788 is a mainstream theme in Australian history, less is known about the end of convict transportation. Even less is known about the slander of endemic sodomy that was contained in the 1837 Select Committee on Transportation that recommended an end to sending convicts to the colonies. This thesis argues that leading anti-transportationist, Sir William Molesworth, focussed on the social disorder caused by sodomy to lobby against the policy of convict transportation to New South Wales. It establishes the idea of sodomy as a tool for slander, illustrates how it was applied to the colony and demonstrates how this shattered the fragile boundaries of colonial respectability.

2013-01-01T00:00:00Z Radojev, Kitty Anya Rosemary https://hdl.handle.net/2123/10258 2026-04-22T05:23:24Z 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z

Achieving Justice and Seeking Truth: The Evolution of International Criminal Tribunals Radojev, Kitty Anya Rosemary This thesis examines the way in which international criminal tribunals have changed and evolved over time, using the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia as specific examples. By examining two central societal responses to collective violence – justice and truth – this thesis engages with ideas regarding post-conflict resolution in the hope of creating a positive peace. The following chapters will analyse the IMT and ICTY to determine the manner in which developing ideas regarding state sovereignty and international intervention have impacted the way in which societies deal with mass atrocity. Furthermore, this thesis seeks to expound the correlation between law and history in the joint pursuit of retribution and historicization.

2013-01-01T00:00:00Z McLaren, Annemarie https://hdl.handle.net/2123/10243 2026-04-22T05:23:24Z 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z

Convict Geographies of Early Colonial Sydney McLaren, Annemarie The convict’s environmental, spatial and administrative knowledge of early colonial Sydney was far richer than is generally acknowledged. Not only were the convicts thinking and feeling individuals transported to a foreign land against their will, but the natural world was, in a very real way, all around them. Through their work, their use of their ‘own time’, leisure, and in their pursuit of prohibited activities, the convicts were actively perceiving and reacting to the environment and developed their own understanding of landscapes of the colony and its hinterland. The colony became a place of places that were intimately known and understood, threaded through with action, imagination and cultural designs. The convicts had an internalized consciousness of the spaces and places of the early colony and its hinterland.

2013-01-01T00:00:00Z Stormont, Nathan Alexander https://hdl.handle.net/2123/10250 2026-04-22T05:25:43Z 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z

A New Faith? Rights Agitation, National Aspirations and Self-Determination in the Soviet Periphery, 1965-1985 Stormont, Nathan Alexander This thesis investigates the intersection of human rights-talk, national aspirations and their respective origins on the peripheries of the Soviet Empire, 1965-1985. In particular, it challenges the so-called ‘Helsinki Effect’, that a Western discourse of liberalism and human rights was responsible for the demise of the Soviet Empire. Instead, I argue that distinct and organic conceptualisations of human rights existed under developed socialism. These alternative discourses were conceptually divorced from international human rights norms, instead grounded in socialist legality, historical experience, or in regional ideology. With specific reference to the national concerns and political demands of Ukrainians, Poles and Soviet Jews, I trace the ideological and historical lineages of home-grown understandings of the right of self-determination, contextualising dissident thought in these nationalities’ own experiences of identity, independence and subjugation.

2013-01-01T00:00:00Z Farrugia, Jessica https://hdl.handle.net/2123/10253 2026-04-22T05:25:46Z 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z

Maintaining the 'Australian Way of Life': President Johnson's 1966 visit and its implications for national culture. Farrugia, Jessica President Lyndon Johnson’s visit to Australia in October 1966 was the apogee of the Australian-American political alliance and coincided with the peak of Australian public support for the American war in Vietnam. It was also during this period that Americanisation in Australia intensified. This thesis utilises the Johnson visit as a lens onto Australia’s Cold War political relationships and cultural loyalties. I argue that Australians’ enthusiastic embrace of the president did not reflect either political or cultural subservience, and that Australian political and civic culture at this time remained essentially ‘British’.

2013-01-01T00:00:00Z Vine, Benjamin https://hdl.handle.net/2123/10242 2026-04-22T05:25:47Z 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z

Selfish, Timid, Tories: Boston in the American Revolutionary War, 1776- 1777. Vine, Benjamin Historians of the American Revolution have celebrated Boston’s role in early resistance to Britain, while neglecting its post-1776 history. After the British evacuation, pre-existing social and economic problems re-emerged in 1776-77. Trying circumstances caused patriot unity to collapse. The issues of army enlistment and price regulation revealed different ideas among the elite and the laboring classes about the people’s obligations to the American cause. The result was elite patriots moving the public discourse around patriotism in a direction that suited their interests and ensured their positions of power. They accused those who disagreed of a lack of virtue and remaining loyal to Britain. This thesis shows how, for Boston, the Revolution was not a solution.

2013-01-01T00:00:00Z Bretag, Hilary https://hdl.handle.net/2123/10259 2026-04-22T05:25:47Z 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z

Corruption in Evidence: Policing Starting- Price Betting in 1930s NSW Bretag, Hilary This thesis analyses two Royal Commissions into the policing of SP bookmaking that the NSW government issued in 1936 and 1937. These Commissions provide a window into the social history of betting and policing, as well as the relationship between two groups whose activities placed them so directly in each other’s paths. The Royal Commissions also reflect the politics of betting and policing contemporaneous to them. The inquiries are symptomatic of deeper-rooted public concerns about off-course betting, and represent a poorly articulated, but publically supported disapproval of police tactics. I find that these Commissions are suggestive of lower-level police complicity in off-course betting and that senior police were at least tacitly complicit in their activities. Moreover, I explore why it was that in face of such overwhelming evidence the Inquiry’s Commissioner was reluctant to find conclusively that the evidence demonstrated police corruption.

2013-01-01T00:00:00Z Gribble, Samuel James https://hdl.handle.net/2123/9260 2026-04-22T05:23:25Z 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z

'Harry the Ninth (The Uncrowned King of Scotland) Henry Dundas and the Politics of Self-Interest, 1790-1802 Gribble, Samuel James The career of Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville underscores the importance of individual self-interest in British public life during the 1790-1802 Revolutionary Wars with France. Examining the political intrigue surrounding Dundas’ 1806 impeachment, the manner in which he established his political power, and contemporary critiques of self-interest, this thesis both complicates and adds nuance to understandings of the political culture of ‘Old Corruption’ in the late-Georgian era. As this thesis demonstrates, despite the wealth of opportunities for personal enrichment, individual self-interest was not always focused on obtaining sinecures and financial windfalls. Instead, men like Henry Dundas were primarily focused upon amassing their own political power. In the inherently chaotic politics of the period, the self-seeking concerns of individuals like Henry Dundas, very quickly could, and indeed did, become the thread upon which the whole British political system turned.

2012-01-01T00:00:00Z Yu, Teresa https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8903 2026-04-22T05:25:42Z 2012-12-01T00:00:00Z

Australia and the Palestine Question, 1947–1949: A New Interpretation Yu, Teresa By 1947, the conflicting national aspirations of the Arab majority and Jewish minority within Palestine had developed into an intractable problem. The responsibility for the political future of Palestine fell upon the fledgling United Nations and thereby weighed upon the shoulders of all its constituent states. This was a time, however, when the nations of the globe were emerging from the shadow of a world war, and were re-evaluating their construction of foreign policy. In this thesis I utilise the Palestine Question as a prism through which to explore the nuances in the Australian conception of postwar diplomacy.

2012-12-01T00:00:00Z Fitzgerald, Zoe https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8865 2026-04-22T05:25:47Z 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z

'A Tale of Two Haitis: Representations of an Island Republic in the American Press Fitzgerald, Zoe This thesis examines the representations of Haiti in the black and white American press throughout the United States Occupation, 1915-1934, and in the wake of the 2010 earthquake. It analyses how Haiti's revolutionary and colonial history has been variously celebrated and ignored, and as well as the context in which such representations took place.

2012-01-01T00:00:00Z Donohoo, Jillian https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8824 2026-04-22T05:23:23Z 2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

Terre Vraiment Étrange: French Travel Writing in Australia between the Gold Rush and Federation Donohoo, Jillian Despite the rich heritage of the French in Australia, its corresponding field of scholarship is limited. This thesis will explore the travel writings of ten French men and women who visited Australia between the Gold Rush and Federation. Their writings constructed Australia through the lens of exoticism, as a land truly other to their experiences in Europe. Three key themes emerge across the writings: the bizarre animals and plants, the ‘savage’ Indigenous Australians, and the surprise of developed cities. Overall, this thesis will synthesise the French perspective on Australia from a corpus of essentially untapped yet highly revealing travel writings.

2012-11-01T00:00:00Z Bowes, Dominic https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8825 2026-04-22T05:23:23Z 2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

Exposing Indecency: Censorship and Sydney's Alternative Press 1963-1973 Bowes, Dominic The ‘alternative press’ arose in the Sixties as a medium of protest that gave voice to the concerns of the emergent youth revolt. This thesis uses these magazines as a lens through which to analyse how censorship was challenged. The thesis begins by examining how the act of producing the alternative press reflected a form of direct action. An anti-authoritarian gesture borne particularly out of the politics of Sydney Libertarianism they challenged the style and focus of the mainstream media. Their most dramatic realignment focussed on the politics of sexuality. I demonstrate for the first time how the sexual revolution was theorised by its self-assigned agents. By publishing otherwise taboo material the editors predictably became entangled with the state’s censorship apparatus. The final portion of this thesis analyses these often- neglected clashes over ‘obscenity.’ It demonstrates the centrality of these contests to the demise of censorship regimes at both the state and federal level.

2012-11-01T00:00:00Z Murray, Zoe https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8830 2026-04-22T05:23:24Z 2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

To maintain order amongst a disreputable people: The case of Captain Armstrong, colonial governance and scandal at the antipodes, 1878-1887 Murray, Zoe On 4 April 1882, the New South Wales government steamer Thetis arrived at Lord Howe Island bearing J. Bowie Wilson, recently appointed commissioner of an inquiry into the conduct of the Island’s resident magistrate, Captain Richard Armstrong. Following a hastily convened investigation, Wilson recommended that the government confirm Armstrong’s suspension from office. Armstrong claimed he had done nothing to deserve the dismissal and that Wilson’s inquiry made a mockery of justice. So, while the colonial press initially expressed indignation against Armstrong’s alleged wrongdoings, over time the focus of moral outrage shifted to Wilson. This thesis explores the case of Captain Armstrong, a prominent scandal in 1880s New South Wales. It traces Armstrong’s connection with Lord Howe Island from its beginning in 1878 to its end in 1887, when he finally received tangible recognition of injustice, £1500 compensation. By untangling the many threads of the Armstrong case, it is possible to paint a vivid and detailed picture of colonial governance in late nineteenth-century New South Wales. It is not merely that the case highlights the experience of a minor official in a remote outpost – a much neglected area of Australian and imperial history – but that subsequent press and parliamentary debates reveal some of the most vexing issues in colonial society. It sheds light on the contemporary temperance movement, competing ideals of masculine character and pervasive anxieties surrounding the issue of the colony’s reputation. The Armstrong case provides compelling evidence that colonial governance, whether in a remote outpost or an established colony, was a fragile enterprise, fraught with contradictions and anxieties.

2012-11-01T00:00:00Z Nolan, Rosa https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8833 2026-04-22T05:23:24Z 2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

‘We want to do what they did’: History at St Clair Nolan, Rosa In 1999 the Wonnarua Nation Aboriginal Corporation acquired the site of the former St Clair Mission where their forebears lived. They will recreate to turn it into a cultural centre that will sustain and strengthen their community and they are pursuing reclamation and recreation of language, material culture, art, family and public history projects. They do so in the context of Native Title legislation and debates about Aboriginality and identity shape their relationship to their past. The historiographical significance of their relationship to the past is that it challenges the modes of engaging with history that have justified and structured colonial history making.

2012-11-01T00:00:00Z Murchie, Clare https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8829 2026-04-22T05:23:23Z 2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

REHABILITATING “A FEW DISAFFECTED CHARACTERS”: IRELAND’S MEN OF ’98 FROM A TRANSNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE Murchie, Clare The Irish Rebellion of 1798 has generated a fraught legacy. Its history has been variously skewed by elitist and partisan accounts which overshadow more balanced scholarship. These works have proved crucial in the proliferation of a mythologised Ireland in which the Catholic is pitted against the Protestant; the Gaelic against the Anglo-Irish; the tyrant against the slave. This thesis unpacks such problematic binaries by tracing Ireland’s political prisoners of 1798 to colonial New South Wales. Much of the historiography is dated and sharply divided, portraying these rebels as perennially recalcitrant, or alternatively, as national heroes. This thesis presents an alternative reading by arguing that these transportees often fell short of their revolutionary reputations in exile, instead making significant contributions to the colony in its formative years. By examining Irish political prisoners in both Ireland and New South Wales, this thesis demonstrates the value of reassessing 1798 from a transnational perspective. History, like individual lives, crossed (and re-crossed) oceans – and was shaped by the journey.

2012-11-01T00:00:00Z Gorman, Zachary https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8820 2026-04-22T05:23:25Z 2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

Debating a Tiger Cub: The Anti-Socialist Campaign Gorman, Zachary The anti-socialist campaign was a key moment in Australian history that established the ideological discourse of Australian politics. This thesis will provide the first stand-alone narrative and analytical account of the campaign. It will examine the role the campaign played in the evolution of Australian politics from policy based groupings to permanent ideological parties. It will also analyse the ideological legacy of the campaign for Australian liberalism, as well as looking at the way that the campaign contributed to the development of an Australian national media.

2012-11-01T00:00:00Z Condie, Michael https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8819 2026-04-22T05:23:23Z 2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

‘It’s Mabo, It’s the Constitution, It’s the Vibe’: Debates over the ‘active citizen’ and Aboriginal history in the NSW History Syllabus in the 1980s and 1990s Condie, Michael

2012-11-01T00:00:00Z Light, Rowan https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8827 2026-04-22T05:23:23Z 2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

From ‘Irish Exile’ to ‘Australian pagan’: the Christian Brothers, Irish handball, and identity in early twentieth-century Australia Light, Rowan Migrant histories necessarily consider human journeys to new social and cultural realities, marked by discourse around integration and identity. The historiography of the Irish in Australia, dominated by historian Patrick O'Farrell, has lost its fundamental engagement with ordinary migrant experience and fixated on a narrative of nationalism, hierarchy, and elitist politics. This thesis examines the experience of the Irish Christian Brothers in early twentieth-century Australia and the playing of Irish handball in their colleges across the country. In doing so, it seeks a new understanding of Irish-Australian identity through the complex relationship of Catholicism, education, and sport; questioning the extent to which Gaelic games assuaged the transformative and dislocational processes of migration beyond O'Farrell's notion of Irish integration as an imperative of ‘Australianise or perish’.

2012-11-01T00:00:00Z Gorman, Jospeh https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8817 2026-04-22T05:23:25Z 2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

Off the Ball: Ethnicity, Commercialism and Australian Football, 1974-2004 Gorman, Jospeh Despite its seemingly marginal role in Australian sport, football (soccer) contributed significantly to public debates regarding multiculturalism and imagined Australian national identity. This thesis explores the relationship between the ongoing de-ethnicisation of Australian football and the game’s rapid commercialisation. I contend that the introduction of a new professional competition in 2004 rounded out decades of attempts by football administrators to downplay the ethnic image of the game in order to sell the game to a ‘mainstream’ audience.

2012-11-01T00:00:00Z Ishii, Noriyuki https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8826 2026-04-22T05:25:44Z 2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

Japan be Number One Internationalism and History of Japanese Diplomacy, 1853-2006 Ishii, Noriyuki This thesis engages with two bodies of scholarship: Japanese diplomacy and internationalism. Japan’s interaction with the international community and how it started and developed in the course of history is analysed. It is argued that Japanese leaders had strived to grant Japan a just place in the world. Their path, however, was not a straightforward one. The problems caused by identity issues, a West-centric world order, and the concept of ‘honour’ muddled the Japanese attempt. The words and practices of key figures were examined to illustrate the comprehensive development of Japanese diplomacy and internationalism between 1853 and 2006.

2012-11-01T00:00:00Z Warran, Michael https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8840 2026-04-22T05:25:44Z 2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

Exclusive Inclusion: Aboriginality, The 'Juggernaut' of Modernity and Australian National Identity. Warran, Michael Recent studies of the problems inherent to Australian nationalism throughout the twentieth century have highlighted the consequences of Britain's efforts to dissociate itself from its imperial ties following the Second World War. The issue of defining the key elements of Australian nationhood has thus become oriented around how Australians have reacted to the increasing absence of Britishness as a source of cultural and civic identification. While not questioning the historical circumstances leading to this crisis in the Australian national imaginary, this thesis draws attention more towards the narrative of Australian nationalism which deals with the issue of securing a deeper connection to the Australian landscape in terms of a national homeland. The presence of this narrative within the twentieth century is intimately caught up in the romantic representation of Aboriginal people and their culture through European discourse, specifically how Aboriginality could be appropriated as a means of consolidating a more distinctive national culture and secure sense of place for white Australians. As will be shown in light of rhetoric emerging out of anthropological and literary discourse from the 1930s, the central problem with this intercultural dialectic involving Aboriginality and Europeanality is the way in which it has tended to include Aboriginal people only by way of their exclusion, and, moreover, functioned to undermine Aboriginal political agency.

2012-11-01T00:00:00Z Crealy, Isobel https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8823 2026-04-22T05:25:49Z 2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

“Sendyth to hym Concyens”: Contested Orthodoxies in Fifteenth Century East Anglia Crealy, Isobel This is a study of the changes in the expression of conscience within East Anglia in the fifteenth century. The ritualistic dimensions of performance are considered as to the way they demonstrate authority within a variety of performative settings. The Everyman as individual was increasingly empowered to express conscience, independent of the hegemonic voices of established institutions. A growing number of East Anglians exercised individual free will by contesting the primacy and legitimacy of prevailing power groups. The Macro morality plays are explored as representations of orthodoxy that provided the opportunity for the individual to respond and shape their conscience.

2012-11-01T00:00:00Z Butterfield, Amy https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8818 2026-04-22T05:25:48Z 2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

“SEND ME A BONNET”: Colonial Connections, Class Consciousness and Sartorial Display in Colonial Australia, 1788-1850 Butterfield, Amy From the outset of British settler until the onset of the Gold Rush, many wealthy settler women in New South Wales sought to acquire clothing, not from local suppliers, but through family and friends residing in Britain who purchased items on their behalf. Yet this pattern was not repeated either among emancipists or by free settlers Van Diemen’s Land. This thesis, through an analysis of the letters left by settler women, posits that this practice of privately importing clothing was in fact a strategy by which they could reinforce their superior social status in the colony. For this practice not only allowed settler women to acquire clothing in manner denied to emancipists, but also to distinguish themselves from a society and culture defined by emancipists and instead identify with but a transnational network of colonial elites, who regards Britain as their true ‘home’.

2012-11-01T00:00:00Z Roberts, Natasha https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8835 2026-04-22T05:25:48Z 2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

The Australian Post-War Utopia: Reconsidering Herbert Evatt’s human rights contribution in the 1940’s Roberts, Natasha This thesis contests the assumption that Herbert Evatt’s 1940’s career was devoted to the promotion of a universal post-war human rights regime. As Australian Minister for External Affairs, Evatt developed an independent small state strategy that pursued a system of international democracy and social justice to facilitate the expansion of Australian influence in the Pacific and curb American hegemony. Evatt’s subscription to the White Australia Policy undermined the realization of human rights by strengthening domestic sovereignty against international intervention. Human rights became the vehicle through which Evatt sought to shape the post-war order for the benefit of Australian national interests.

2012-11-01T00:00:00Z Rose, Sophie https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8836 2026-04-22T05:25:50Z 2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

PASSING BY: THE LEGACY OF ROBERT MENZIES IN THE LIBERAL PARTY OF AUSTRALIA A study of John Gorton, Malcolm Fraser and John Howard Rose, Sophie This thesis considers the legacy of Robert Menzies in the Liberal Party of Australia, as articulated by Liberal party prime ministers, John Gorton, Malcolm Fraser and John Howard. It challenges the prevailing assumption in Australian historiography that Liberals have suffered from collective amnesia and have therefore not been successful in writing their own history, particularly in regards to their founder, Robert Menzies. It demonstrates that circumstances were key in shaping the way in which each prime minister thought and spoke about Menzies. It discusses how new nationalism hindered Gorton’s efforts; how liberalism inspired Fraser’s efforts; and how Howard’s belief in the importance of history drove his articulation of Menzies’ legacy.

2012-11-01T00:00:00Z