https://hdl.handle.net/2123/22631 Sat, 13 Jun 2026 15:10:48 GMT 2026-06-13T15:10:48Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/35270 Queer Youth Articulating Wellbeing Through Reading and Writing Groups Gardiner, James In media, policy and research in Australia, queer youth have often been positioned as victims. This subject position has emerged in response to their very real disproportionate vulnerability, but tends to limit how these subjects are represented, by themselves and others. While alternative frameworks for understanding queer youth subjectivity, such as ‘queer thriving’, move beyond the victim, these can create new exclusions around what counts as an authentic, successful, or liveable queer life. This article explores the context for a mixed-methods research project with queer youth who participated in a reading and writing group. Using ethnography, semi-structured interviews and an action research approach, I investigate whether such groups offer practical possibilities for queer youth to make sense of and articulate their lives. Written while the field work is still underway, this article begins to reflect on how queer youth, through reading and writing together, might imagine, embody, and make visible under-explored modes of living ‘well’. Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/35270 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34864 Climate Migrants and the Origins of Swahili Society in Eastern Africa Dumitru, Ioana A.; Alders, Wolfgang; Kristiansen, Søren M.; Lupien, Rachel; Raja, Rubina; Sindbæk, Søren M.; Olsen, Jesper Climate extremes are often framed as triggers of societal crisis and collapse, yet human mobility frequently emerges as a resilient response. We show that climatic disruption destabilized inland farming systems in sixth-century CE eastern Africa, with compounding stress during the Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA). Using archaeological evidence, paleoclimate reconstructions, environmental models, and bioclimate simulations, we examine how these overlapping stressors reshaped settlement dynamics. Multi-proxy paleoclimate records document sixth-century CE hydroclimatic heterogeneity, with droughts and wetter intervals occurring asynchronously across the region. These conditions generated uneven ecological pressures, disproportionately affecting rainfed agricultural systems associated with inland Early Iron Age communities linked to the spread of Bantu-speaking farmers. By the late sixth to early seventh centuries CE, archaeological evidence indicates that some of these groups established the first sustained settlements along the eastern African coast, despite low suitability for rainfed cereal cultivation and exposure to climatic and environmental hazards unfamiliar to inland settings. This shift reflects the activation of long-standing mobility patterns within eastern African lifeways, expressed here as a more durable reconfiguration: permanent settlement in environmentally challenging coastal zones supported by subsistence diversification and access to marine resources. These developments laid the foundations for proto-Swahili communities and one of the Indian Ocean’s most enduring maritime traditions, demonstrating how climatic stress can catalyze social innovation. Wed, 18 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34864 2026-02-18T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34399 Cultural representation in Evolve 1: A Critical Multimodal Study. Asiri, Yahya This research investigates the cultural representation in Evolve 1, an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) textbook designed for learners in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. While a plethora of studies have explored culture in EFL textbooks, few have adopted both multimodal semiotic and mixed-method approaches. This study analyzes cultural representation both linguistically and visually, combining quantitative measures with qualitative semiotic analysis to provide a more comprehensive understanding of how culture is represented in Evolve 1. The analysis draws on corpus-based methods for linguistic data and applies van Leeuwen’s (2008) social actor representation frameworks (for both visual and linguistic representation) alongside Martin and Rose’s (2007, 2008) tools for analyzing tenor, field, and genre. The study seeks to answer two central questions: (1) Who is represented in the Evolve 1 textbook? and (2) How are they represented? Findings show that although visual representation appears balanced quantitatively, closer analysis reveals the dominance of certain subgroups within cultural categories. Key disparities emerge in gender roles, family structures, and visual strategies across cultures. Notably, representations of MENA cultures tend to be dynamic and internally diverse, challenging simplistic or monolithic portrayals. This study contributes to ongoing efforts to ensure equitable and culturally sensitive representations in global EFL materials. References: van Leeuwen, T. (2008). Discourse and Practice: New Tools for Critical Analysis (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195323306.001.0001 Martin, J. R., & Rose, D. (2008). Genre relations : mapping culture. Equinox Pub. Martin, J. R., & Rose, D. (2007). Working with discourse : meaning beyond the clause (2nd ed.). Continuum. Wed, 15 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34399 2025-10-15T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34382 The Wound and The Word: Tracing Trauma in Rutilius Namatianus' De Reditu Suo and Sidonius Apollinaris' Epistulae Vahl, Jules Peter This thesis adopts literary trauma theory as an interpretive framework for analysing textual responses to the decline and fall of Rome. It focuses on two late antique authors, Rutilius Namatianus and Sidonius Apollinaris, who respectively witnessed the Gothic sack of Rome (410 CE) and the fall of the empire (476 CE). Chapter One applies Cathy Caruth’s theory of ‘traumatic amnesia’ to Rutilius’ De Reditu Suo, reframing the epistemological, ideological and environmental eccentricities of the poem as symptoms of Rutilius’ inability to articulate the trauma of 410. Only through devices of literary representation can he communicate the trauma lurking beneath his gilded view of Roman supremacy. Chapter Two applies Joshua Pederson’s competing theory of ‘speaking trauma’ to a selection of Sidonius’ later Epistulae. Unlike Rutilius, Sidonius is ready and willing to grapple with traumatic experience in real time, mounting a stubborn defence against the erosion of his culture by the barbaric Visigoths. Chapter Three examines how both authors combat the trauma of their times by surrounding themselves with aristocratic literary communities which perpetuate and immortalise Romanitas. In this way, both Rutilius and Sidonius ‘work through’ their traumatic experiences. Wed, 08 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34382 2025-10-08T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33959 The Essence of Friendship: A Generous Interpretation of Aristotle Ritchie, Isabel This paper revisits Aristotle’s account of friendship in The Nicomachean Ethics. I argue that Aristotle’s broad, detailed framework offers us a cogent characterisation of friendship that contemporary philosophical accounts are often lacking. Aristotle provides a foundational understanding of what friendship is, how it is created, and why it can take different forms. Yet, the theory is often dismissed in light of its seemingly contradictory or confusing elements. By addressing key concerns about Aristotle’s argument, such as the ‘perfect’ nature of essential friendships, and the number of friends one should maintain, I show that a charitable reading of Aristotelian philosophy continues to offer relevant insights that are applicable to modern thought and discourse. Mon, 02 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33959 2025-06-02T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33707 Technē without Archē: Foucault’s Last Decade Yin, Chenglong In this paper I use the concept of technē to argue that Foucault’s last decade is a unified program of research, offering a new interpretation of freedom in his later work. Whereas much of the existing scholarship treats Foucault’s political philosophy as distinct from his late ethical explorations of Ancient Greek philosophy, I argued that his critiques of modern political institutions and his studies of ancient ethical ‘technologies of the self’ represent a continuous interrogation of, and response to, the Platonic conception of political governance as both soulcraft (technē) and a form of ruling (archē). In contrast to interpretations that dismiss Foucault's late conception of freedom as mere lifestyle choices, I argue that it is best understood as a ‘technē without archē’—a critical practice of shaping one’s subjectivity that resists being constrained by the existing political reality. Tue, 18 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33707 2025-03-18T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33573 Archiving Greer/Greer Archiving: Germaine Greer’s curatorial labour, feminist celebrity studies and archival methodologies Taylor, Anthea This article draws upon my engagement with the archive of controversial Australian celebrity feminist Germaine Greer to think through the role of archival methodologies within the field of feminist celebrity studies, especially given that the archive itself is heavily implicated in processes of celebrification. Sold in 2013 for AU$3 million, Greer’s extensive archive – consisting of over 500 boxes filled with notes and drafts of various books, press clippings, research files, personal and professional letters, diaries, audio-visual material, and assorted ephemera – is now held by the University of Melbourne. Amongst other things, this acquisition enables a mapping of the wider cultural reverberations of Greer’s celebrity feminist persona, as well as Greer’s own pronounced role in its strategic cultivation – including in and through the archive. As I will argue, the Greer archive is part of the performative practice and renown-building labour in which all living celebrities engage – as well as itself being evidence of it. That is, the archive does not only provide insights into Greer’s fame or the affective investments of her fans, it is a form of renown maintenance and extension in and of itself, which can be figured as a feminist practice consistent with Greer’s own recuperative feminist scholarship. In light of the above, and drawing upon insights from critical archival studies, I will consider Greer’s own curatorial practices and how they seek to shape the way the archive is consumed, the uses to which it is being put, and the kind of ‘Greers’ it seeks (not necessarily with success) to render visible. Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33573 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33572 ‘The most revolting ideas I’ve read in a woman’s magazine’: The Female Eunuch, Affective (dis)investments, and McCall’s reader-writers’ Taylor, Anthea In March 1971, American women’s magazine McCall’s published an extract of Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch. Myriad unpublished letters to the editor contained in the Greer archive at the University of Melbourne reveal that the magazine’s readers were largely dismissive of Greer’s feminist vision. These reader-writers, best conceptualised as ‘anti-fans’, took both author and editor to task for criticising them as wives and mothers. Through an analysis of these letters, this article argues that their authors contested Greer’s burgeoning authority as a second-wave celebrity feminist largely by pathologising her; invoking essentialist assumptions about femininity; and mobilising discourses of ‘choice’ more commonly seen to be product of a ‘postfeminist’ representational environment. Through their anti-fan practices, they challenge Greer’s attempts to deprive housewives of agency, deploying rhetorical strategies that are at once reliant upon and highly critical of second-wave feminism. This article also problematises the notion that critically engaged audiences have emerged in any notable sense only recently due to digital media. Complicating dominant ways of framing the feminist past and the postfeminist present, this article demonstrates that celebrity feminists, including ‘blockbuster’ authors, have historically always elicited complex affective responses. Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33572 2020-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/32169 Disobedient Discourse: Mill, ContraPoints, and the Limits of Free Speech Norms Anderson, Lachlan In this paper, I explore contemporary disagreement regarding protests against speakers deemed regressive or bigoted by progressive activists. I do so by examining the rationale, scope, and operation of free speech norms (i.e. non-legal standards that require people to respond to speech with tolerance). I specifically focus on the free speech norms defended by John Stuart Mill in his essay ‘On Liberty’. I contend that Mill’s free speech norms are well-justified and extend to protect the speech of regressive bigots in almost all circumstances. However, I also draw upon two arguments from Natalie Wynn’s video essay ‘The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling’ to contend that Millian free speech norms present serious problems for marginalised people. I attempt to resolve this tension between Mill’s well-justified norms and their problematic implications for marginalised people by developing a concept of ‘disobedient discourse’ that is modelled after John Rawls’ account of civil disobedience and allows for free speech norms to be violated in circumstances of longstanding injustice. Fri, 02 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/32169 2024-02-02T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/32168 Locked Up & Locked Out: Incarceration & Children's Interests McGuire, Gabriel In this thesis I question the justifiability of the current practice of juvenile incarceration. I argue that children have rights borne out of both extrinsic and intrinsic interests. I suggest that the detained child's interests in development allow us to justify incarceration as a means of moral education. However, I conclude that the current practice of juvenile incarceration--as evidenced in Queensland--violates the detained child's rights to carefreeness, connection, and future autonomy. In doing so, the justifiability and permissibility of the practice is undermined. Thu, 01 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/32168 2024-02-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/32113 Does Sexual Objectification Make Erotic Love Impossible? Lewis, Hamish Theories about the nature of sexual objectification and its relationship to heterosexual erotic love have largely failed to express why objectification is philosophically important, the relationship between gender and objectification and what we can do to get rid of objectification. This is because these theories understand sexual objectification as a morally harmful attitude arising in perception. I use the framework of social ontology to propose that we should also think about objectification as the imposition of the function ‘sexual object’ on social categories like ‘women.’ This is ‘institutional objectification.’ This approach reveals that institutional objectification is philosophically important insofar as it undermines the possibility of ethical erotic love between men and women. It also reveals that we have a moral duty to reform social categories that are subject to institutional objectification. This duty is especially pressing on proponents of heterosexual erotic love. Unfortunately, many feminist strategies fall short of meeting this duty, partially because they involve no direct intervention in the content of our social categories. Thus, I argue that we need to meet the moral duty to social category reformation by allowing for the elaboration of sexual difference. This approach represents the beginnings of a sufficient strategy to make ethical heterosexual erotic love possible. Fri, 19 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/32113 2024-01-19T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/31585 The speech of Australian adolescents: research data and recordings collected by A.G. Mitchell and Arthur Delbridge in 1959 and 1960 Mitchell, A. G. (Alexander George); Delbridge, Arthur This dataset contains research data and recordings of Australian English as spoken by 7736 students at 330 schools across Australia, collected 1959-1960. The recordings were made on reel-to-reel tapes and were used to create the 1965 monograph 'The speech of Australian adolescents: a survey' and the revised 1965 publication 'The pronunciation of English in Australia' (originally published in 1946). The original reel-to-reel tapes were digitised by the National Film and Sound Archive, transferred to DAT recordings, and the digitised version was reissued as an online database 'The Mitchell and Delbridge tapes' by the University of Sydney in 1997-1998. The website included contextual documents and annotations to the online database, included in this dataset. Thu, 01 Jan 1998 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/31585 1998-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/31431 Ideophones and depictive constructions: Towards an explanation of functional overlap Tsolakis, Theodore This thesis attempts to account for the functional overlap that exists between ideophones and depictive secondary predicates. Discussions of depictives are largely absent from the functional and typological literature, and there is much still to elucidate with regard to the typology of ideophones. The thesis identifies the commonalities and differences between ideophones and depictives at each level of linguistic structure (phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics) with reference to a genetically and areally diverse sample of languages. I argue that this functional overlap is due to a similarity in pragmatics, whereby both depictives and ideophones occur relatively infrequently and thus are used to signal information that is in some way unexpected and thereby catch a listener’s attention. It is manifested through similarities in semantic domains and word classes: depictives and ideophones typically encode states, which are often evoked through an appeal to the senses and tend to be conveyed through the same word classes in different languages. The thesis provides an illustration of the interrelatedness of different levels of structure and most significantly how pragmatic considerations have consequences for semantics and syntax. Wed, 05 Jul 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/31431 2023-07-05T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/30230 After the Revolution: A Review of 3D Modelling as a Tool for Stone Artefact Analysis Wyatt-Spratt, Simon With over 200 peer-reviewed papers published over the last 20 years, 3D modelling is no longer a gimmick but an established and increasingly common analytical tool for stone artefact analysis. Laser and structured light scanning, photogrammetry, and CT scanning have all been used to model stone artefacts. These have been combined with a variety of different analytical approaches, from geometric morphometrics to custom reduction indices to digital elevation maps. 3D lithic analyses are increasingly global in scope and studies aim to address an ever-broadening breadth of research topics ranging from testing the functional efficiency of artefacts to assessing the cognitive capabilities of hominid populations. While the impact of the computational revolution on lithic analysis has been reviewed, the impact of 3D modelling on lithic analysis has yet to be comprehensively assessed. This paper presents a review of how 3D modelling in particular has impacted the field of stone artefact analysis. It combines a quantitative bibliometric analysis with a qualitative review to assess just how “revolutionary” 3D modelling has been for lithic analysis. It explores trends in the use of 3D modelling in stone artefact analysis, its impact on the wider lithic analysis field, and methodological, regional and theoretical gaps which future research projects could explore. Sat, 01 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/30230 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/29906 Climate change advocates and deniers? Triangulating methods to investigate the language of left- and right-leaning Twitter users McCarthy, Darcy This thesis examines left- and right- leaning users on Australian Twitter in an effort to understand the language use of the different parties to online climate change discourse. The data are taken from Australian Twitter users between 2020 and 2022, and split up via a political affiliation metric in order to create two distinct politically-opposed user groups. Three main techniques are used to identify linguistic differences between the two groups: sentiment analysis, multiple correspondence analysis, and keyword analysis. The findings of this thesis are threefold. Firstly, text data collected on left- and right-leaning metrics are found to be an apt proxy for examining the language of climate change activism and denial. Secondly, climate change activists and deniers on Australian social media speak similarly in terms of grammatical style, but significantly differently in terms of lexical content. Thirdly and finally, triangulating between the three aforementioned methods provides a much clearer picture of language use. In this way, this thesis offers methodological innovations in examining online discourses, as well as important findings on the language use of the various parties to climate discourses on Australian Twitter. Thu, 19 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/29906 2023-01-19T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/29007 COVID-19 and Well-Being of Non-local Students: Implications for International Higher Education Governance Amoah, Padmore Adusei; Mok, Esther Wing Chit Non-local students have been one of the worst affected groups during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of them live in foreign countries/regions with limited social and economic support. This study examines the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and its control measures on the well-being of non-local students globally. It also examines the effectiveness of university support for the well-being of non-local students. Data were derived from a global survey on non-local students’ knowledge, experiences, and well-being amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic, which was conducted in April 2020 (n = 583). A significant proportion (42.6%) of the students had low well-being. We found that being worried about COVID-19 (B = − 0.206, p = 0.048), perceived disruption of academic activities (B = − 0.155, p = 0.024), perceived disruption of social activities (B = − 0.153, p = 0.044), and feeling lonely (B = − 0.340, p = 0.000) were negatively associated with the students’ well-being. However, informational support from universities was positively associated with their well-being (B = 0.225, p = 0.004). These findings are discussed in the context of higher education governance and practical changes necessary to promote non-local students’ well-being during and after the pandemic. Sat, 01 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/29007 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/28886 ‘Trump at the Gates of Democracy’: A corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis of news reporting on the January 6th Event in the Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald Lo Schiavo-Rega, Raphael A corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis of news reporting on the January 6th Event (also known as the '2021 United States Capitol attack') in the two Australian broadsheet newspapers The Australian and The Sydney Morning Herald Wed, 22 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/28886 2022-06-22T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/28425 Emotional labor in webcare and beyond: A linguistic framework and case study Fuoli, Matteo; Bednarek, Monika This article presents a novel framework for examining how emotional labor is performed linguistically. Bringing together Arlie Hochschild's pioneering sociological work and insights from the linguistic literature on emotion, the framework aims to capture the discursive mechanisms through which workers express, background and manage emotions in fulfilling their professional roles. We demonstrate the framework through a case study of a corpus of Twitter interactions involving passengers and airline customer service agents during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. Following recent calls for triangulation in corpus linguistics, we explore the corpus using three complementary methods: lexical, move and dialogic analysis. From a theoretical perspective, this study contributes to improving our understanding of the pervasive phenomenon of emotional labor. From an applied perspective, it offers a new approach for assessing communication practices in various professional contexts. Sat, 01 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/28425 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/28423 Instagram as a tool for archaeological science communication Caspari, Gino With the accelerated growth the social media platform Instagram has seen over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic its potential as a tool for communicating archaeological science is becoming ever more apparent. The platforms' focus on images and video makes it specifically suited for visually rich fields like archaeology. Here we present the results of a three-year effort in archaeological science communication on the platform, analyzing audiences, impacts, and issues arising. The amount of archaeological content on the platform is growing rapidly, but reaching a broad audience effectively needs to be tied to well-defined communication strategies. We argue that Instagram can be turned into a powerful educational tool for public archaeology, including providing guidance for new students, mitigating pervasive conspiracy theories, elucidating the issues with collecting and trading artifacts, and adding nuance to the public image of archaeology. Sat, 01 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/28423 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27314 '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. Thu, 13 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27314 2022-01-13T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/26575 Palaeogenomic analysis of black rat (Rattus rattus) reveals multiple European introductions associated with human economic history Yu, He; Jamieson, Alexandra; Hulme-Beaman, Ardern; Conroy, Chris J.; Knight, Becky; Speller, Camilla; Al-Jarah, Hiba; Eager, Heidi; Trinks, Alexandra; Adikari, Gamini; Baron, Henriette; Böhlendorf-Arslan, Beate; Bohingamuwa, Wijerathne; Crowther, Alison; Cucchi, Thomas; Esser, Kinie; Fleisher, Jeffrey; Gidney, Louisa; Gladilina, Elena; Gol’din, Pavel; Goodman, Steven M.; Hamilton-Dyer, Sheila; Helm, Richard; Hillman, Chris; Kallala, Nabil; Kivikero, Hanna; Kovács, Zsófia E.; Kunst, Günther Karl; Kyselý, René; Linderholm, Anna; Maraoui-Telmini, Bouthéina; Morales-Muñiz, Arturo; Nabais, Mariana; O'Connor, Terry; Oueslati, Tarek; Morales, Eréndira M. Quintana; Pasda, Kerstin; Perera, Jude; Perera, Nimal; Radbauer, Silvia; Ramon, Joan; Rannamäe, Eve; Grego, Joan Sanmartí; Treasure, Edward; Valenzuela-Lamas, Silvia; van der Jagt, Inge; Van Neer, Wim; Vigne, Jean-Denis; Walker, Thomas; Wynne-Jones, Stephanie; Zeiler, Jørn; Dobney, Keith; Boivin, Nicole; Searle, Jeremy B.; Krause-Kyora, Ben; Krause, Johannes; Larson, Greger; Orton, David Abstract The distribution of the black rat ( Rattus rattus ) has been heavily influenced by its association with humans. The dispersal history of this non-native commensal rodent across Europe, however, remains poorly understood, and different introductions may have occurred during the Roman and medieval periods. Here, in order to reconstruct the population history of European black rats, we generated a de novo genome assembly of the black rat, 67 ancient black rat mitogenomes and 36 ancient nuclear genomes from sites spanning the 1 st -17 th centuries CE in Europe and North Africa. Analyses of mitochondrial DNA confirm that black rats were introduced into the Mediterranean and Europe from Southwest Asia. Genomic analyses of the ancient rats reveal a population turnover in temperate Europe between the 6 th and 10 th centuries CE, coincident with an archaeologically attested decline in the black rat population. The near disappearance and re-emergence of black rats in Europe may have been the result of the breakdown of the Roman Empire, the First Plague Pandemic, and/or post-Roman climatic cooling. Fri, 01 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/26575 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/25889 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people(s) in Australian print news: A corpus-based critical discourse analysis Bray, Carly This thesis investigates the representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people(s) in mainstream Australian newspapers. It combines approaches from corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis to examine factors such as terms of reference, prominent themes and salient discourses employed in this coverage. The data consists of a purpose-built corpus of articles containing mention of Aboriginal people(s) or issues published in the 12 major metropolitan dailies within a 3-month period in mid 2019. The analysis confirmed a number of previous findings, as well as identifying two previously unidentified discourses—those of economic success and non-agential cooperation—and the linguistic resources used to construct them. One particularly valuable contribution is the finding that the agency of Aboriginal participants in cooperative events is often undermined using prepositions, a part of speech regularly overlooked in both corpus linguistic and critical discourse analytic studies. Mon, 23 Aug 2021 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/25889 2021-08-23T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/25578 Sundanese TRANSITIVITY: a first step into the description Bangga, Lungguh Ariang This is a dissertation submitted as partial fulfilment for the degree of Master of Applied Linguistics from the Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, The University of Sydney. It focuses on the initial description of TRANSITIVITY system in Sundanese from the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics. Mon, 05 Jul 2021 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/25578 2021-07-05T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/25496 The reactivated bike: Self-reported cycling activity during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic in Australia Fuller, G.; McGuinness, K.; Waitt, G.; Buchanan, I.; Lea, T. Highlights • 63% of respondents say they increased cycling during COVID-19 restrictions. • Recreational cycling has increased significantly, while there has been a significant decrease in commuter riding. • Women were more likely to rate improved cycling skills and confidence as important factors to post-COVID cycling. • Public transport restrictions and new bicycle lanes were not considered important factors in increased cycling activity. Fri, 01 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/25496 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/25477 Injecting as a sexual practice: Cultural formations of ‘slamsex’. Race, Kane; Murphy, Dean; Pienaar, Kiran; Lea, Toby ‘Slamsex’ has emerged in gay vernacular in recent years to denote a particular way of taking drugs and a particular kind of sex. Slamming refers in this context to the practice of injecting drugs – typically crystal methamphetamine – intravenously. To pair ‘slamming’ with ‘sex’ is to propose that a particular mode of drug administration is constitutive of a particular kind of sex – a relatively novel idea that deserves some unpacking. What does it mean to make a route of drug administration definitional in the delineation of a sexual practice? What does this move reveal about contemporary practices of sex and drug consumption? In this article, we explore these questions with reference to theories of drug effects and practitioners’ accounts of slamsex. We conclude by considering the implications of our analysis for slamsex relations and associated harm reduction measures. Fri, 01 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/25477 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/25472 Sexualities and Intoxication: “To Be Intoxicated Is to Still Be Me, Just a Little Blurry”—Drugs, Enhancement and Transformation in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Cultures Pienaar, Kiran; Murphy, Dean; Race, Kane; Lea, Toby Despite evidence that drug use is higher among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) populations, research that explores the gendered and sexual dynamics of LGBTQ substance use is limited. Responding to this opening in the literature, and drawing on 32 qualitative interviews from an Australian study, we consider how LGBTQ consumers pursue particular drug effects to change their experience of gender and/or sexuality. Our analysis suggests that for many consumers, drug use and the experience of intoxication enhances sexual pleasure. In the context of gender variance, intoxication can facilitate free gender expression and, in some cases, palliate bodily discomfort. Acknowledging the generative effects of drug use for gender and sexual transformation, we conclude by commenting on the implications of our analysis for LGBTQ health policy and practice. Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/25472 2020-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/25471 Problematising LGBTIQ drug use, governing sexuality and gender: A critical analysis of LGBTIQ health policy in Australia Pienaar, Kiran; Murphy, Dean; Race, Kane; Lea, Toby It is well-established that a high prevalence of substance use is found in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) populations; a finding that researchers attribute to the stigmatised status of non-normative sexual and gender expression, and the role of illicit drug use in the collective production of socio-sexual pleasures, expressivity and disclosure in LGBTIQ communities. Despite the connections between sexual experimentation and substance use, LGBTIQ consumption practices have rarely received the attention they deserve within the alcohol and other drug (AOD) field. In this paper, we draw on concepts from post-structuralist policy analysis to analyse how AOD consumption among sexual and gender minorities is constituted in the policies of three Australian LGBTIQ health organisations. Following Carol Bacchi’s (2009, p. xi) observation that we are “governed through problematisations rather than policies”, we consider how substance use in LGBTIQ populations has been formulated as a policy problem requiring intervention. Doing so allows us to identify the normative assumptions about minority sexual and gender identities that underpin dominant problematisations of LGBTIQ substance use. These include: a) high rates of AOD use in LGBTIQ populations constitute problems in and of themselves, regardless of individual patterns of use; b) LGBTIQ people are a vulnerable population with specialised needs; and c) sexualised drug use is associated with “disinhibition” and a range of risks (including HIV transmission, drug dependence and mental health issues). Addressing the implications of these assumptions for how LGBTIQ communities are governed, we suggest that problematisation is an embodied, situated process, and that there is much to be gained by reframing dominant problematisations of AOD consumption so that this process is better informed by the inventive practices of LGBTIQ consumers themselves. Mon, 01 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/25471 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/25470 Drugs as technologies of the self: Enhancement and transformation in LGBTQ cultures Pienaar, Kiran; Race, Kane; Murphy, Dean; Lea, Toby The consumption of drugs has long been a mainstay of urban queer cultures and it is well-recognised that complex connections exist between sexual minoritisation and desires to chemically alter bodily experience. Yet despite evidence that rates of consumption are higher among LGBTQ populations, research exploring the gendered and sexual dynamics of these forms of consumption is limited and tends to frame such consumption as a response to stigma, marginalisation and discrimination. Against this dominant explanatory frame, this article explores the diverse experiences of LGBTQ consumers, and in so doing highlights both the pleasures and benefits of consumption, as well as potential risks and harms. Contributing to the growing body of ontopolitically oriented research that treats the materiality of drugs as emergent and contingent, we trace the ontologies of drugs, sexuality and gender that LGBTQ subjects generate through specific practices of consumption. Our analysis draws on qualitative interviews with 42 self-identified LGBTQ people from an Australian study designed to explore how sexual and gender-diverse minorities pursue particular drug effects to enhance or transform their experience of gender and/or sexuality. Our participants’ accounts illuminate how drug consumption materialises in relation to sex, desire and play where it enhances pleasure, facilitates transgression and increases endurance. In the context of gender variance, our findings suggest that drug use can transform gendered experience and enable the expression of non-normative gender identities, in the process challenging gender binarism. By considering the productive role of drugs in enacting queer identities, this article treats drugs as ‘technologies of the self’ (Foucault 1988) and explores how drug consumption, sex and gender shape each other across a range of settings. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of our findings for research and service provision, and suggest ways of engaging LGBTQ consumers in terms that address their diverse priorities and experiences. Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/25470 2020-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24948 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. Tue, 20 Apr 2021 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24948 2021-04-20T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24941 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. Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24941 2020-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24915 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. Tue, 13 Apr 2021 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24915 2021-04-13T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24679 The Sociolinguistic State of Alemannic Dialects Bodnaruk, Carl The various dialects of Alemannic, a set of German dialects spoken in South-Western Germany, North-Eastern France, and Switzerland, are spoken by, in general, a decreasing number of people in these regions. However, the amount by which this has decreased varies drastically from region to region. This thesis consists of a study looking at the current usage of the dialects in Germany, a comparison of these statistics with those from France and Switzerland, and an analysis of the possible historical causes for the established disparity. It finds that major events non-linguistic events, primarily political, have caused continuing and self-perpetuating shifts towards standardised languages in France and Germany, and a lack of such events in Switzerland has precluded it from such shifts. Thu, 18 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24679 2021-03-18T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24675 Vagueness, Identity, and Quantum Objects Alafaci, Christian While classical accounts of identity (‘classical’ here pertaining to both logics and physics) are generally well understood, the advent of quantum theory, specifically quantum statistics, has cast shadow over these conceptions. Dealing with the consequently surfacing problems is a philosophically rich and interesting enterprise. I begin this thesis by providing an exegesis of the roles played by, and features of, identity in logics, classical physics, and quantum physics. Therein I consider how under a quantal description of reality, classical notions of identity and individuality break down. In the second chapter, I address how this problem has launched an arc of thought in analytic metaphysics and formal philosophy motivating the development of non-standard formal frameworks with which philosophical sense can be made of quantal objects. Among these, I explore and critically evaluate quaset theory, quasi-set theory, and non-reflexive Schr¨odinger logics, identifying some significant problems with quaset theory that arise in defining cardinality and later, pointing out a problem with Schr¨odinger logics in their modelling of the continuity between quantal and classical treatments of the world. The queer character of identity in the quantal regime motivates a turn to vagueness which I introduce in the third chapter, providing a brief outline of vagueness and the sorites paradox. Further, I reflect on the fundamental nature of vagueness, outlining and evaluating the semantic and ontic conceptions thereof. In the final chapter, I proceed to explicate and assess notions that identity and quantal objects can be vague. I shall discuss accounts according to which the vagueness of identity and quantum objects is posited as a feature of nature emerging in quantum systems — the ontic vagueness of identity — finding that these ideas are flawed and/or rely on misinterpretations of vagueness. Finally, I present an argument which suggests how the vagueness of identity can arise as an artifact of the differing treatments of identity in the quantal and classical regimes in which the vagueness involved can be semantic rather than ontic. Thu, 18 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24675 2021-03-18T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24584 "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. Tue, 02 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24584 2021-03-02T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24126 Getting others to do things: A pragmatic typology of recruitments Floyd, Simeon; Rossi, Giovanni; Enfield, N. J. Getting others to do things is a central part of social interaction in any human society. Language is our main tool for this purpose. In this book, we show that sequences of interaction in which one person’s behaviour solicits or occasions another’s assistance or collaboration share common structural properties that provide a basis for the systematic comparison of this domain across languages. The goal of this comparison is to uncover similarities and differences in how language and other conduct are used in carrying out social action around the world, including different kinds of requests, orders, suggestions, and other actions brought together under the rubric of recruitment. Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24126 2020-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24068 New evidence for the transcontinental spread of early faience Wang, Yingzhu; Rehren, Thilo; Tan, Yuchen; Cong, Dexin; Jia, Peter Weiming; Henderson, Julian; Ma, Hongjiao; Betts, Alison; Chen, Kunlong This paper presents compositional results for six faience beads from Adunqiaolu, an Early Bronze Age site in western Xinjiang, China. It is shown that all analysed samples were made of mixed-alkali flux with sodium oxide 8–10% and potassium oxide 5–9%. The microstructure of samples indicates that cementation glazing was used. The analytical results, together with the typology of the faience beads were then compared with data of Bronze Age faience beads found in Europe and East Asia. There are clear similarities in both typological and technological features. As the earliest faience objects discovered in China so far, the Adunqiaolu beads set an essential starting point for the further discussion on the early exchange network evidenced by faience products and long distance transmission of technologies and knowledge. This observation is of significance for deepening our understanding of prehistoric exchange between West and East across the Eurasian continent by providing another element in addition to metallurgy, cereal crops and herding animals. Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24068 2020-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/23287 Colour and Identity in Ancient Greece Kowalski, Charlotte Jade This thesis explores the possible conventional use of colour for the representation of identity in ancient Greece from the sixth to the fourth centuries BC. The question is considered for broad identities based on gender, age, and mortal or mythological status, as well as more specific identities comprising figure types and representations of individuals. Colour is recorded for the physical characteristics and dress of the human form as it is represented in stone sculpture, terracotta figurines, and white-ground lekythoi. While previous studies have focused on analysing traces of colour through visual observation, studying ancient literature, or conducting programmes of scientific analysis, there has been less focus on the significance of colour in ancient Greece. One aspect that has received little attention is the role colour played in the representation and expression of identity. Therefore a need to perform a comparative systematic analysis across different categories of material evidence was identified. Data was collected from both publications and online sources and resulted in a corpus of material comprising 407 objects. The presence of patterns in the data was established through criteria based searches. The proportions of colours present for both physical characteristics and dress were analysed separately before the impact of identity was considered. These emerging patterns of colour selection are then examined with reference to comparative archaeological material and textual evidence for a greater understanding of the historical and social context in which these colours were employed in ancient Greece. No universal conventions for the application of colour based on the identities of the figures being represented were identified, but some trends suggest that colour choice was at least sometimes driven by considerations related to the projection of a specific identity. For instance, non-naturalistic colours were sometimes used for the physical characteristics of adult male mythological figures. It was also generally observed that the use of colour does not reinforce the projection of identity through dress type but instead cuts across dress boundaries. Comparative evidence from textual sources also suggests that colour may have functioned semiotically in ancient Greece. Fri, 01 Jan 2016 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/23287 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/22888 Are onshore pathway students prepared for effective university participation? A case study of an international postgraduate cohort Dyson, Bronwen Patricia As English language (EL) proficiency becomes a key issue for Australian universities, EL entry levels and the pathways preparing international students for university are also rising in importance. Crucially, according to recent Australian government policy, universities are responsible for ensuring that students entering university have sufficient EL competence to participate effectively in their courses. This policy has its origins in concerns as to whether the large number of entrants from onshore (Australian) pathways have possessed adequate English skills. Despite these concerns, there has been little examination of this issue. The present study aimed to examine whether one cohort of onshore international postgraduate students was prepared for effective university participation. Three measures of participation were employed: student perceptions of preparation, English written proficiency and university grades. The study comprised two phases. In the first phase, the students (N = 173) completed a questionnaire on pathway preparation and wrote an essay. The results for the essay were further divided into those who entered and did not enter university. In the second phase, focus interviews were conducted (N = 8) and academic grades were collected from those who completed first semester subjects (N = 106) and their peers. The study revealed that the students perceived their academic skills as better than their language skills, did not receive significantly different grades to their peers but exhibited high levels of “at risk” writing, especially in their use of source material and grammar. The paper concludes that increased university monitoring of pathways on a range of key, language-related measures, particularly writing, is vital. Wed, 01 Jan 2014 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/22888 2014-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21585 Persians in Attic Ceramic Catalogue Miller, Margaret The Catalogue, of 128 items, was prepared as part of my book project entitled Representing Persians in Attic Arts. Many of the items have been known and studied for their historical interest since the early 19th century. This Catalogue includes an accurate full bibliography including a number of obscure publications; the catalogue for my monograph lists the bare minimum of publications. I propose to make my Catalogue with full bibliography available on line in the expectation that it will assist researchers. Thu, 19 Dec 2019 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21585 2019-12-19T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21407 A dictionary of Ngardi Cataldi, Lee This dictionary was compiled by Lee Cataldi 2004. This version of the dictionary was completed in 2011. Copyright is held by the Ngardi elders - Mungkirna Napaljarri as of printing. Requests for any further use of contents can be made through: Balgo School C/- PO HALLS CREEK WA 6770 The front cover painting is by Tjama Napanangka, and is for the Two Man Dreaming (Watikujarra) and shows the two brothers by one fire and their old mother by the other smaller one. Painted in 2000 in Balgo. The back cover painting is also by Tjama Napanangka and is titled Purlka Purlka. This is a site where two soak waters (the black circles) are located along the Watikujarra (two men) dreaming track. Work on this dictionary was supported by ARC Grant A10009036, Chief Investigators Christopher Manning and Jane Simpson and it was also supported by The School of Letters, Arts and Media, University of Sydney, 2010 The dictionary is encoded in XML and is available in other formats. Contact Lee (leecataldi@bigpond.com), or Tom Honeyman (t.honeyman@gmail.com) for more information. This document has been generated with RenderX XEP. Visit http://www.renderx.com/ to learn more about RenderX family of software solutions for digital typography. Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21407 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21205 “Holding the (wo)man”: a corpus analysis of patriarchal discourses and appraisal of AFLW players in the Herald Sun newspaper Kemble, Melissa Tue, 01 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21205 2019-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/19760 The Jarash City Walls Project: Excavations 2001 – 2003: Final Report Kehrberg-Ostrasz, Ina; Manley, John This final report is a straight forward account of the excavation findings per season and the summation of the research results directly related to the finds. This report, therefore, does not provide updated scholarly discussions on Gerasa’s and the later Jerash city walls and urbanisation which were not the aim of the project. Discussions subsequent to our published findings can be found in related current publications by authors cited in this bibliography. Tue, 01 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/19760 2019-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/19006 The Philosophy of Human Rights: Its Role in Global Justice. What can we learn from a clash between a philosopher and an historian? Tighe, Alexander What is the role of philosophy in the human rights project?4 And what is the role of human rights in creating a better world? These are the questions at the core of a dispute between the philosopher John Tasioulas and the historian Samuel Moyn, although it takes considerable work to see past the cross-talk and arrive at this core. In this paper I will show that disentangling the arguments of Moyn and Tasioulas is a fruitful task that lights a path towards advancing both human rights and global justice. Specifically, I will show that while human rights play a crucial role in bettering the world, it is in the interests of global justice for that role to be strictly delimited. Philosophers of human rights are necessary for this process of delimitation. The irony is that Moyn, instead of discrediting philosophers of human rights, actually helps us to better understand the urgency of their work. Mon, 01 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/19006 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18908 Rocky shores, mud, and mangroves: An assessment of economic intensification at the Yindayin rockshelter, Stanley Island Wright, Martin Economic intensification is a prominent concept in hunter-gatherer literature, being used to explain increasing hunter-gatherer complexity and the transition to domestication and permanent settlement. This study used invertebrate material from the Yindayin rockshelter to evaluate whether population driven economic intensification was present during the Holocene. Environmental and climate data was also assessed to evaluate its impact on the observed subsistence patterns. An explanatory model describing the occupation at Yindayin was produced that incorporated the results of the economic intensification assessment, the environmental and climatic data, and data from Beaton’s original analysis of Princess Charlotte Bay.This study did not find a unidirectional increase in occupation during the Holocene. Instead, the results demonstrated that subsistence and occupation patterns at the site were complex and non-linear with periods of increased intensity interspersed with periods of stability and abandonment. Environmental and climate change had the most visible effect on subsistence behaviours while the potential for population induced economic intensification was only identified within the last 200 years of occupation. The results emphasised that interactions between population, environment, and climate are complex, and that to presume there are singular explanations for variation in coastal occupation and subsistence is to deny this complexity. The study demonstrate how economic intensification can be deduced from archaeological correlates and how population driven effects may be separated from environmental effects under certain circumstances. Finally, this study demonstrated how valuable invertebrate assemblages can be for understanding the responses of coastal foragers to environmental and population driven resource pressure. Mon, 01 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18908 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18906 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. Mon, 01 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18906 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18904 Sojourner intimacies: Chinese international students negotiating dating in Sydney Chen, Xi Despite being a large community of sojourners making up 30% of the total international student population in Australia (End of Year Summary of International Student Enrolment Data, 2017), Chinese international students’ everyday social experience is severely under-studied. This thesis is a mini ethnographic archive informed by nineteen qualitative interviews and autoethnographic analysis about the marginalities and injustices Chinese international students face in their everyday negotiation of dating and intimacies. Findings discuss a range of issues including clashing intergenerational expectations, peer marginalisation, navigating multicultural Australia, racial depersonalisation in the dating scene, "yellow fever" as a form of hermeneutical injustice, ambiguous sexual consent, domestic violence in de facto relationships (queer and straight), and the impacts/implications of legal status within abusive relationships and the dating pool. This thesis stands as the first qualitative study to inform the vacuum of knowledge about Chinese international students' intimate social activities in Australia. Meanwhile, it documents an authentic fragment of reality about the Chinese sojourners community that is often opaque to the public eye and mystified in mainstream Australian media discourses. Despite structural disempowerment, this thesis demonstrates why Chinese sojourners are not trapped in a passive victimhood, they are individual life planners developing the best survival strategies they can manage with the limited resources they have. Mon, 01 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18904 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18837 HILARY PUTNAM AND CONCEPTUAL RELATIVITY McKenna Travis First lines of the Introduction (as abstract not provided): In The Many Faces of Realism, Hilary Putnam suggests that although the phenomenon of conceptual relativity has become pervasive in contemporary scientific practice, “contemporary logicians and meaning theorists generally philosophize as if it did not exist.”2 Putnam suggests that since the end of the nineteenth century, modern scientists have begun to take note of a variety of ‘non-classical’ phenomena, in particular the idea that “there are ways of describing what are (in some way) the ‘same facts’ which are (in some way) ‘equivalent’ but also (in some way) ‘incompatible’.”3 Rather than concluding that we are presented in such situations with a factual contradiction between two competing descriptions that must be decided one way or the other, Putnam urges us instead to recognise the way in which the employment of different concepts at a fundamental level can generate incompatible descriptions of the same phenomena that are, in some sense, equivalent. Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18837 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18835 The Moral Status of Whole Brain Emulations GIDNEY, PADRAIC XAVIER First lines of the Introduction (as abstract not provided): Artificial Intelligence is going to radically change our world; the only real question is by how much. A number of prominent figures believe that current AI research might initiate a so-called technological singularity - a period where intelligent machines design even more intelligent machines, setting off an exponentially accelerating cascade of advancement whose end result, a superintelligence, would be “the last invention that man need ever make” (Good 1965). However, even for those who dismiss such singularity talk as hyperbolic sci-fi nonsense, the fact that we’re on the cusp of an AI revolution - and that society is going to look very different once it’s over - seems undeniable. Already AI systems are changing how we eat , how 1 we transport people and goods2, how we diagnose and treat illnesses3, and how we wage war4. They are replacing and outperforming humans in a plethora of tasks, many of which were once thought to require a uniquely human “instinct”5, and their scope of application only looks to be increasing. Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18835 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18836 Can we Build a Superintelligence Without Being Superintelligent? Sternhell, Robert If we create an entity of greater intelligence to us, a superintelligence, it has the possibility to explode in intelligence, creating more and more intelligent entities. If the intelligence explosion argument holds, then the most important step to developing a powerful superintelligence is the development of the first superintelligence. This paper presents objections to the possibility of humans developing this first superintelligence. I argue that this is because we lack required knowledge about them, due to our epistemic position of not being superintelligent. I engage primarily with arguments from David Chalmers and Nick Bostrom about what superintelligences are and the nature of the intelligence explosion. I add my own detail to these areas and explore how to increase intelligence. I argue that my objections stem from flawed expectations of superintelligence such that we ought to change them. I then present my own alternative expectations for superintelligence. Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18836 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18834 Adaptive Preference Formation & Autonomy: Moving towards Respect Karavolas, Kryssa First lines of the Introduction (as abstract not provided): This thesis seeks to primarily answer the following question: are adapted preferences autonomous? In pursuing the answer of this question, I am unsurprisingly faced with two importantly related queries: firstly, what actually is adaptive preference formation? And secondly, what kind of theory of autonomy is correct and why? In the spirit of question answering, the first chapter of this thesis seeks to provide a more robust account of adaptive preference formation (herein APF), a theory which states that the preferences held by an agent can be subconsciously causally produced by the restriction of options. Through an examination of Jon Elster’s original account of the concept, and a consideration of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum’s contemporary interpretations of Elster’s account, I intend to flesh out the mechanics of APF, considering the necessary and sufficient conditions for APF. This section aims to solidify the descriptive literature of APF, with a focus on differentiating the process from other similar concepts such as character planning and internalised oppression (herein IO). Ultimately, I conclude with a variation of Elster’s account and produce my own examples of agents who hold adapted preferences (herein AP). Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18834 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z