History Commons^™

For The Love Of: Book Review Of Radiophilia By Carolyn Birdsall, Lucia Vodanovic

RadioDoc Review

Radiophilia, the new book in The Study of Sound Series, discusses radio in the context of recent literature about affects and emotions. Informed by various traditions within media and cultural studies, and guided by the work of Lauren Berlant and Arjun Appudarai, it approaches ‘radiophilia’ -love for, or strong attachment to, radio—as a wide-reaching concept that includes groups practices and social moods and that can be practised in public spaces and communities, beyond interior and domestic set-ups.

Audio Activism: A Discussion Of Mother Country Radicals, Zayd Dohrn

RadioDoc Review

This article is a transcript of a speaking event at Northwestern University, USA, in which producer Sarah Geis interviewed writer Zayd Dohrn and podcast producer Misha Euceph about their recent podcast Mother Country Radicals, which concerns the history of the Weather Underground, as well as Black Liberation more broadly, from the perspective of Dohrn, who grew up as a child of radicals from that period. Dohrn and Euceph explain the process and thinking they brought to the project and explore a few key moments that shaped the podcast, reflecting on the complicated relationship between family and activism.

Economies Of Extinction: Animals, Labour, And Inheritance In The Longleaf Pine Forests Of The Us South, Nathaniel Otjen

Animal Studies Journal

Despite mounting critiques, extinction continues to be framed as a unidirectional problem where humans, through acts of negligence and intent, lead nonhuman species to their demise. In addition to universalizing the actors and processes involved, unidirectional approaches overlook the ways nonhuman beings participate in the extinction of others and the ways extinction continues to impact multispecies communities long after the violent event or the death of an endling. With its focus on how nonhuman animals experience and navigate violence, the field of critical animal studies can illustrate how nonhuman animals contribute to extinction events and how extinction unfolds across distinct …

Breed(Ing) Narratives: Visualizing Values In Industrial Farming, Camille Bellet, Emily Morgan

Animal Studies Journal

In this study, we consider how farmed animals, specifically pigs and chickens, are visualised in literature designed for circulation within animal production industries. The way breeding companies create and circulate images of industrial animals tells us a lot about their visions of what industrial animals are and how they believe animals should be treated. Drawing upon a wide range of material designed for circulation within animal production industries, from the 1880s to the 2010s, this paper examines how representations of pigs and chickens contribute to stories of perfection and advance ideals of power, race, gender, and progress. We demonstrate that …

A Nude Horse Is A Rude Horse: The Society For Indecency To Naked Animals, Thomas Aiello

Animal Studies Journal

In 1959, Alan Abel began sending out a series of press releases to American media outlets credited to a new organization, The Society for Indecency to Naked Animals. Using the language of conservative moralists opposed to the changes in postwar society, he argued that ‘naked’ animals were scandalous and needed to be clothed. Pets, farm animals, and wildlife were all included, as the organization hued to slogans like ‘a nude horse is a rude horse’ and ‘decency today means morality tomorrow’. Abel employed comedian Buck Henry to play the organization’s president, G. Clifford Prout, who gave interviews and speeches covered …

Tools Of Rescue: A Review Of Silencio Para Rescatar: Documental Sonoro, Sonia Robles

RadioDoc Review

In this audio documentary, Mexican cultural promoter and sound artist Abraham Chavelas recounts rescue activities in which he took part after a 7.1 magnitude earthquake rattled Mexico on 19 September 2017. Answering a call for help, Chavelas was assigned to a collapsed factory where an unknown number of undocumented Asian and Central American women working as seamstresses were trapped under the rubble. For two days, he aided rescue efforts by using a high-tech microphone to help determine whether or not there was life under piles of concrete, glass and debris. Chavelas used the audio he gathered before the Mexican Marines …

Turning Seventy, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

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

Not Quite Cricket By Jon Rose: A Review, Jane Ulman

RadioDoc Review

In Not Quite Cricket, Jon Rose reaches into the well-known story of the first Australian cricket team to play at Lords and draws out a tragedy dressed up as music hall comedy, in what he calls a 'historical intervention'.

Rose is an Australian-based polymath creator: a musician, inventor, composer, improviser, educator and entertainer. Radio production is just one strand of his prolific body of work. Over decades he has forged an innovative style, a distinctive radio form. His work has always been a fusion of genres, a hybrid of fact and invention with composed and improvised music carrying its …

Denis Kevans: Poet, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

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

Little War On The Prairie: An Auto-Critique, John Biewen

RadioDoc Review

Using RadioDoc Review’s suggested criteria for evaluating a radio documentary, John Biewen delivers an auto-critique of his own program, Little War on the Prairie. It tells the story of the U.S.-Dakota War, a bloody Plains Indian war that broke out in the summer of 1862 in southern Minnesota. That six-week conflict took the lives of hundreds of people, perhaps a thousand, a larger death toll than in the better-known bloodlettings at Little Big Horn or Wounded Knee. Most of the dead were white settlers, though the U.S. government’s reprisals in the aftermath of the war killed up to several …

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.

Radical Ruminations, Rowan Cahill, Terry Irving

Rowan Cahill

Beginning in 2010, historians Rowan Cahill and Terry Irving made wide ranging and reflective diary style contributions to their blog 'Radical Sydney/Radical History' about the nature of 'radical history', the process of being 'radical historians', politics, and political activism. This is that body of work.

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.

Norman Corwin's The Lonesome Train (Live Broadcast) Cbs 1944: A Critical Reflection, Tim Crook

RadioDoc Review

The Lonesome Train was a commercial half-hour ‘ballad opera’ or folk cantata, transmitted in 1944, about the funeral train bearing President Abraham Lincoln’s body home after his assassination in the Ford Theatre of Washington D.C. in 1865. This became culturally resonant in 1945 on the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, when the Decca recording of the show became a sort of ‘media requiem’, played over and over again on US radio stations. The live production, directed by Norman Corwin, is a hybrid between drama and documentary, but goes further with its use of music and poetry… perhaps a musical …

Tales Of Cruelty And Belonging: In Search Of An Ethic For Urban Human-Wildlife Relations, Erin Luther

Animal Studies Journal

In the summer of 2011, a Toronto resident was charged with animal cruelty for beating a litter of ‘nuisance’ raccoons in his backyard with a shovel. The subsequent media furore, and the organisation of a local anti-raccoon rally, revealed deep tensions in narratives of urban belonging. This paper looks at how the rhetoric of animal cruelty is grounded in notions of civility that police the moral boundaries of the city. I discuss possibilities for an ethic to guide urban human-wildlife that can challenge the limiting framework of civility and move toward a deeper recognition of our non-human neighbours.

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).

Marrying Out - Catholic-Protestant Unions In Australia, 1920s-70s, S. A. Mchugh

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

For over 150 years, until post-war migration diluted the mix, Australia was polarised between the majority Anglo Protestant Establishment and a minority Irish Catholic underclass. Religious differences reflected social and political tensions derived from colonial days. Religious and family protocols strongly discouraged inter-faith marriages - yet until the late 1960s, a quarter of Australian Catholics continued to 'marry out'. ( Mol 1970). Such mixed marriages often caused deep family divisions, from social exclusion to disinheritance. Children brought up in such marriages often suffered a confused identity, not fully accepted by either 'side'. Such sectarian attitudes no longer apply to Catholics …

'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.

Introduction, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

This collection of poems by Ernest Antony (1894-1960) was first published in 1930, and since then has been largely forgotten, except for the title poem, 'The Hungry Mile', which has become iconic, but generally attributed to 'Anonymous'. This edition was published by the Maritime Union of Australia, and Cahill's 'Introduction' is the first detailed account of the poet's work and life.

Minefields And Miniskirts: The Perils And Pleasures Of Adapting Oral History For The Stage, S. A. Mchugh

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

A case study of the adaptation of the author's non-fiction book, Minefields and Miniskirts, for the stage. The book, about Australian women's role in the Vietnam war, is based on oral history interviews with over 30 women. Their actual words make up 90% of the script for the dramatised version, also called Minefields and Miniskirts, but their interviews have been blended to make 5 composite fictionalised characters. The show, created by director Terence O'Connell based on McHugh's book, toured Australia to acclaim in 2004/5, playing to over 50,000 people. The author attended the Sydney opening night with 8 of the …

Flags Of Convenience: Shipping Industry Patriotism, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

An account of the growth of 'flag of convenience' shipping during the twentieth century, with critical attention to the dynamics that drive the industry.

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.

Summerhill Showdown, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

Discussion of the attempt by the British government in 2000 to close down Summerhill school, the long established progressive school founded by A.S. Neill (1883-1973). The article discusses the ideas and legacy of Neill, and why his approach to education is still radical.

Maritime Internationalism, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

An account of the long records of internationalism of the Seamen's Union of Australia (SUA) and the Waterside Workers' Federation (WWF), and the way these records contributed to vital international support for the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) during the bitter Australian 'War on the Waterfront' (1998). The MUA was formed in 1993 following the amalgamation of the SUA and the WWF.

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.

75th Anniversary Of The Foundation Of The Communist Party Of Australia, 1995, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

The 75th Anniversay of the foundation of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) was commemorated in Sydney in 1995. Although the Party voluntarily wound up in 1991, its impact and legacy on the nation was, and is, an ongoing subject of scholarly interest and debate. This article is Cahill's report of the commemoration event, and his ruminations on the significance of the Party on Australia's history and culture.

Inscribing The Workers: An Experiment In Factory Discipline Or The Inculcation Of Manners?, R. Williams

Faculty of Business - Accounting & Finance Working Papers

The establishment of the factory system during the beginning of the Industrial Revolution created a demand for labour. Labour that was unused to the confines and rigours of factory life. In an attempt to encourage punctuality and conscientiousness the industrialists of the late eighteenth century resorted to a number of practices designed to encourage their employees to give up their old habits and take on a new rhythm of life tied to the demands of the factory. At the same time, the guiding principle of improvement of product and factors of production led many industrialists to devote considerable energy to …

Preserving History In Accounting: Seeking Common Ground Between ‘New’ And ‘Old’ History, W. N. Funnell

Faculty of Business - Accounting & Finance Working Papers

Traditional conceptions of accounting history and its achievements are being challenged by new accounting historians who are informed by radical philosophies and approaches to history. This is a belated reflection of movements within the wider discipline of history which can be traced to the Annalists in the 1930's and more recently to the influence of postmodernism. At issue between the traditional and new history are the importance of facts and the pursuit of truth by traditional historians. New accounting historians have decried the reactionary effects of traditional history, which they propose to overcome by substituting accounting as an interested discourse …

The Cold War And Beyond, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

Review article centred on Ann Curthoys and John Merritt, editors, 'Australia's First Cold War, 1945-1953, Volume 1: Society, Communism and Culture' (Allen and Unwin, 1984) in which Cahill discusses Australian Cold War historiography, and reflects autobiographically about growing up as a 'Cold War' youth.

The Seamen’S Union Of Australia, 1872-1972: A History, Rowan Cahill, Brian Fitzpatrick

Rowan Cahill

The first detailed history of the Seamen's Union of Australia, charting the growth and development of this small but powerful and influential trade union, from its beginnings in 1872, and through its first century of political and industrial life. At the time this book was written and published, Australian historians tended not to give much consideration to the contribution of maritime workers to the development of the nation. In many ways, this study was a pioneering initiative.