Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Turning Seventy, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

The author's ruminations on the occasion of him reaching the age of 70 years old.

Radical Academia: Beyond The Audit Culture Treadmill, Rowan Cahill, Terry Irving

Rowan Cahill

The pathos of radical academia: notes on the impact of neo-liberalism on the universities, especially the audit culture, the production-model, casualization, academic scholarship, academic writing, peer reviewing, and open access. The authors suggest ways scholars can be radical within, and outside, of neoliberal academia. Part I, 'Missing in Action' appeared as an Academia.edu session in May 2015, where it attracted many comments. Part II, 'What Can Be Done?' is the authors' response to these comments. The whole piece was posted on the Cahill/Irving blog 'Radical Sydney/Radical History' on 22 October 2015.

Denis Kevans: Poet, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

A brief account of the poetry of Australian social movement poet Denis Kevans (1939-2005).

Review Of David Horner,'The Spy Catchers: The Official History Of Asio, 1949-1963', Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2014, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

Critical review of the officially commissioned history of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) published in 2014.

A Living Tradition, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

Discussion of the seminal work by R. W. Connell and T. H. Irving 'Class Structure in Australian History' (Longman Cheshire, 1980, 1992), and of the tradition of Marxist and class analysis in Australian intellectual life.

Words For Pam, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

Words spoken by Rowan Cahill at the funeral of his wife, Pam Cahill, 24 June 2015.

Groomed For War, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

An account of Australia's preparations for war before 1914, with the focus on the system of compulsory military training for boys and youths introduced in 1911.

Revisiting A Struggle: Port Kembla, 1938, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

A review and discussion of the 2015 documentary film 'Pig Iron Bob' (Producer/Director Sandra Pires). The focus of this film is the dramatic 2-month long boycott by Australian waterside workers in Port Kembla (NSW), 1938/39, of a cargo of Australian pig-iron bound for Japan. The workers took their action in protest against Japanese militarism and the Sino-Japanese War. The boycott enraged the conservative Australian government of the day which pulled out all stops to maintain its policy of appeasement towards Japan.

Radical History And Labour History, Terry Irving, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

This piece by Terry Irving and Rowan Cahill was published on their 'Radical Sydney/Radical History' blog (19 February 2015). It welcomes the Radical History Conference (London, 24 March 2015) and reflects on how the political heritage of labour, the original impulse for 'labour history', is energising a new generation of radical historians.

Mullen's Choices, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

Obituary/biographical note concerning Geoff Mullen (1947-2014), and his anti-conscription activities (1967-1972) in Australia during the Vietnam War.

A Long Shadow, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

An account of the author's grandfather's role in World War 1, its tragic peacetime aftermath, and the legacy of this during the 1960s.

Confronting Anzackery, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

Review of the historical novel 'Brothers. Part One: Gallipoli 1915' by John Tognolini, an account of the 1915 Gallipoli campaign based on the experiences of Tognolini's uncles. The reviewer reads and treats the novel as an anti-war text.

Home Front Ww2: Myths And Realties, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

This is a revised version of the author's 2014 Brisbane Labour History Association Alex McDonald lecture. In this paper the author takes apart the right-wing accounts, particularly by Hal Colebatch ('Australia's Secret War, 2013), that demonise the Australian trade union leadership and the Communist Party of Australia for 'treasonous' industrial disputation during World War II.

The Lost Ideal, Rowan Cahill, R Connell, Brian Freeman, Terry Irving, Bob Scribner

Terry Irving

Now a document of historical interest and significance, this is the foundation manifesto of the Free University, Sydney. Conducted in rented premises in Redfern and nearby inner-Sydney suburbs, this utopian education experiment ran from December 1967 until it closed in 1972. At its height, during the Summer of 1968-1969, some 300 people were involved.

The Lost Ideal, Rowan Cahill, R Connell, Brian Freeman, Terry Irving, Bob Scribner

Terence H Irving, Dr (Terry)

Now a document of historical interest and significance, this is the foundation manifesto of the Free University, Sydney. Conducted in rented premises in Redfern and nearby inner-Sydney suburbs, this utopian education experiment ran from December 1967 until it closed in 1972. At its height, during the Summer of 1968-1969, some 300 people were involved.

Deterring The ‘Boat People’: Explaining The Australian Government's People Swap Response To Asylum Seekers, Jaffa Mckenzie, Reza Hasmath

Reza Hasmath

"Never Neutral": On Labour History / Radical History, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

Eric Fry, one of the founders of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History (ASSLH), wrote about radical history in the ‘Introduction’ to his neglected Rebels & Radicals (1983). The book is not listed in Greg Patmore’s comprehensive listing of labour history publications (1991), rates no mention in the 1992 tribute to Fry’s work edited by Jim Hagan and Andrew Wells, and receives only brief mentions in the Labour History tribute issue to Eric Fry and fellow ASSLH pioneer Bob Gollan (2008). Arguably with good reason, since the book was exploring a different way of writing dissident history, …

Review - Michael Tubbs, Asio: The Enemy Within, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

ASIO: The Enemy Within is a combative book. Based on his research and experience, Michael Tubbs argues that the Australian Intelligence Security Organisation (ASIO) has no place in Australia’s democracy. According to Tubbs ASIO has, since its formation in 1949, acted as a partisan political secret police force, ridden roughshod over civil liberties, engaged in illegal activities, all with the aim of creating and managing a docile, tranquil public.

Review: People And Politics In Regional New South Wales, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

Histories of Australian towns and local areas abound, usually the work of enthusiastic local residents distributed through community based museum and historical society networks. Aimed at local audiences, these histories tend to be triumphalist, cataloguing ‘progress’ in terms of population changes and infrastructure growth. There is little in the way of explanation or analysis; local identities appear as a ‘cast of characters’ rather than as flesh and blood historical agents; politics is noticeably absent. For one state, the two volume People & Politics in Regional New South Wales, 1856 to 2006, addresses this political absence. Given the huge size of …

Review - Pete Thomas, And Greg Mallory (Editor), The Coalminers Of Queensland: A Narrative History Of The Queensland Colliery Employees Union, Volume 2: The Pete Thomas Essays, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

In 1986 journalist Pete Thomas published the first volume of his proposed two-volume narrative history of the Queensland Colliery Employees Union, The Coalminers of Queensland. But he died before completing the task. With the support of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), Mining and Energy Division (Queensland District Branch), labour historian Greg Mallory has edited Volume 2 from Pete’s unpublished manuscripts.

On Winning The 40 Hour Week, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

The 40-hour week was approved by the Commonwealth Arbitration Court on 8 September 1947, to take effect from 1 January 1948. The 40-hour campaign, the 35-hour campaign that followed in the late 1950s, the 44-hour campaign that preceded these, and union attempts between all three to fix the working week at either 30 or 33 hours, were parts of a long movement for the codification and reduction of Australian working hours that began in the mid 1850s with struggles by workers to establish the principle of the 8-hour day. Stonemasons in Sydney and Melbourne gained the first successes during 1855 …

Immigrant Tales, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

Review of two autobiographical accounts of migrant encounters with, and experiences in, Australia: Ken Buckley, 'Buckley's! Ken Buckley: historian, author and civil libertarian' (2008) and Mamdouh Habib, 'My Story: the tale of a terrorist who wasn't' (2009).

'On The Technique Of Working-Class Journalism', Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

This article examines some of the views of prominent Australian left journalist Rupert Lockwood (1908-1997) on the role and nature of working class journalism.

A Time For War: Correspondence, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

A critical discussion of aspects of the Australian martial spirit in response to an essay on the subject by John Birmingham.

Len Fox, 1905-2004, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

Obituary on the life of Australian author, journalist, historian, and Left activist Len Fox.

Nest Of Traitors, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

Review of Drew Cottle, 'The Brisbane Line - A Reappraisal' (Upfront Publishing, Leicestershire, 2003), a scholarly study of elements of the Australian ruling class during the 1930s and their close relationships with Japan, and the proposition that in the event of Australia being invaded by Japan during the Second World War, these elements would have collaborated.

The Battle Of Sydney, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

Account of the wartime strike by Australian troops in Sydney, 1916, in defence of their working conditions. This action involved thousands of soldiers, mutiny, and a march through the streets of Sydney culminating in violence and bloodshed. The strike tends to be either absent from, or misrepresented in, Australian martial histories.

Behind The Rhetoric, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

A contemporary critical account of changes taking place in the NSW state education system in the late 1990s-2001 under the leadership of Dr. Ken Boston, Director-General of Education and Training in NSW. The author argues that Boston's 'devolution' rhetoric masks a determined conservative and Rightist push to politically and ideologically centralise the education system and in the process emasculate teacher initiative, imagination, and enterprise.

Vietnam Reading, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

During Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War, the author was prominent in the anti-war movement, and a conscientious objector to the system of compulsory military service in place at the time. In this article he accounts for the intellectual development which shaped his politics. The focus of the article is the reading he did during the 1960s.

Military Madness, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

A brief historical overview of the use of military, and ex-military, personnel, against Australian trade unionists, 1890-1997.