Colonialism and its aftermath



		2005 SEMINARS Thursday, November 24th Work in Progress Seminar CAIA's end-of-year seminar was held on Thursday, November 24th 2005 at the historic township of Ross. All CAIA members were invited to attend and participate. We had two special guests: archaeologist Dr Eleanor Casella from the University of Manchester and feminist anthropologist Professor Diane Bell who has just retired as the director of Womens Studies at George Washington University in USA. There was also be a tour of the Ross Female Factory site. Centre for Colonialism and its Aftermath Work-in-Progress Day Ross Supper Room (old Town Hall, across from Wool Centre) Thursday 24 November 2005 9.45 - 10.30 Eleanor Casella: "Inmate Graffiti" Eleanor Casella teaches Colonial Archaeology at the University of Manchester. Her presentation will be based on a book chapter for a forthcoming American volume on the Archaeology of Institutional Life . Eleanor's chapter drew upon a broad international group of sites, ranging from Alcatraz Island and Fremantle Prison to the Doge's Palace Dungeons in Venice and Kilmainham Jail in Ireland. The paper considers a set of themes that characterize inmate graffiti as a personal expression of everyday life under confinement. 10.45 -11.45 First panel - researchers from Riawunna, the Centre for Aboriginal Studies, chaired by Henry Reynolds: Mitchell Rolls (Riawunna) "Geckos, goats and grain: Walkabout and travelling the popular imagination home" Terry Moore (Riawunna) "Telling stories: the politics of Aboriginality in Tasmania" Carol Pybus (Riawunna) " We grew up this place': Ernabella Mission, 1937-1974" 12.00 - 1.00 Second Panel, chaired by Anna Johnston Miranda Morris (Gender Studies) "The Scream at the Bookbinder's Stall: negotiating embodiment in colonial Tasmania" Toni Sherwood (English) "Annie Baxter in Van Diemen's Land" Lucy Frost (English) "Ladies, Surgeons Superintendent, and the Female Convict Transports" 1.00-1.30 Lunch 1.30-2.00 Visit the Female Factory Site with Eleanor Casella, who excavated the site as the research project for her PhD in archaeology (University of California at Berkeley) 2.15-3.15 Third panel, chaired by Hamish Maxwell-Stewart Deborah Malor (School of Visual & Performing Arts), "Tasmania, art and the public's eye: a simultaneity of nature and colonialism" Damien Quilliam (School of Visual & Performing Arts), "Art and Artefact? The portrait collection of the Launceston Mechanics' Institute 1842 - 1914" Martin Gibbs (Historical Archaeology, University of Sydney ) 3.15-3.45 Diane Bell, "Recolonising Anthropology: Of feminism, fiction and an Evil plot" (Chair: Cassandra Pybus) Diane Bell, who has recently retired as Professor of Anthropology and Women's Studies at the George Washington University, Washington DC, will be talking about the transition from anthropologist to fiction writer. Her new novel is entitled Evil. 3:45 - 4:15 CAIA meeting: Report on Cultural Environment and Heritage Project Work-in-progress seminar in February 2006 Winter Symposium, 'Writing Lives', July 2006 Public Seminar 2006 in conjunction with the joint re-publication (Quintus/Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery) of The Friendly Mission, revised by Plomley Proposed conference (early 2007) hosted jointly in Hyderabad with the University of Hyderabad, India CAIA conference June 2007 Monday, September 12th Colonial Lives Across the British Empire: William Shrewsbury and the Captive Audience in the Caribbean and the Cape Colony featuring Alan Lester Professor of Historical Geography and Director, Research Centre for Southern African Studies, University of Sussex and respondent Nigel Penn Associate Professor, Department of Historical Studies, University of Cape Town This paper stems from a chapter in a book that Alan is currently co-editing with David Lambert, called Colonial Lives Across the British Empire: Imperial Careering in the Long Nineteenth Century (Cambridge University Press). The book consists of a series of critical biographies of individuals - some famous, others obscure - who 'careered' across the British empire and beyond. Rather than transient visitors from the metropole or impressionistic travellers, about whom much has been written in a postcolonial vein, these are men and women who settled, were posted or otherwise dwelt in the empire. Focusing on the controversies and difficulties that they faced, and contextualising these individuals in relation to broader colonial networks and projects, the book is intended to provide a powerful means of discussing the 'tensions of empire' and their spatialities. Each life narrative reveals the changes in personhood that came from dwelling in different places - including engagements in local politics, the construction of friendship and familial networks, and the transition from primary impressions to more considered articulations of new colonial spaces. In this paper, Alan will tell the story of a figure whose life highlights many of these themes - the Methodist missionary, William James Shrewsbury. Known as an accomplice of the anti-slavery movement in Barbados at the beginning of his career, after serving in the Cape Colony he came to be despised by humanitarians as the 'Kafir-hating Methodist missionary' by the end of it. This paper attempts to explain how Shrewsbury changed, and how he himself changed each colonial place in which he dwelt, through his tumultuous career. Wednesday, 20 July 2005 Robert Phiddian How much can you get away with? The constraints on political cartoons Editorial cartoonists working for Australian newspapers agree that they enjoy remarkable freedom to express their views. Given that most of them (at least in recent decades) are left of centre, while their papers’ editorial lines generally lie to the right of the spectrum, it is fair to say that they do have a recognised licence to mock that is not conditional on their parroting the views of their editors or proprietors. So, how has this freedom developed and what are the effective constraints – industrial, ethical, legal – on it? CAIA is pleased to welcome Robert Phiddian of Flinders University, who will be in Tasmania for the Winter Symposium. The seminar will be sponsored by CAIA, the School of Government, and the School of English, Journalism & European Languages. *Helen MacDonald and Human Remains* - May 2nd 2005 Helen MacDonald** is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Australian Centre, University of Melbourne. Helen will be in Hobart at the beginning of May for the launch of her new book, Human Remains. CAIA, in conjunction with the Female Factory Research Group, is pleased to invite members to a seminar where Helen will discuss her new book with us. Human Remains tells many stories, most of them scandalous, of how medical men obtained corpses on which to work before anatomy was regulated in Australia and Britain. The book also has a Tasmanian slant, with a whole chapter devoted to the story of a convict woman who was hanged and dissected after murdering her baby at the Female Factory in Hobart. Human Remains shows that this double sentence of death and dissection was not uncommon. It also reveals that bodies of the poor who died in hospital were often turned over to the surgeons for further study. Human remains were also a bartering and trading tool. Ralph Shlomowitz and Janet McCalman - April 22nd 2005 Presented in conjunction with the School of History and Classics, Associate Professor Ralph Shlomowitz of Flinders University will be evaluating Keith Windschuttle's two latest books, The Fabrication of Aboriginal History and The White Australia Policy from the point of view of an economic historian-statistician. He has recently written a review of Windschuttle for the Australian Economic Review. There will also be comment from Professor Janet McCalman of Melbourne University. TMAG Work in Progress Seminar Held on February 16, 2005 CAIA held a Work-In-Progress Seminar at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery on February 16, 2005. As a follow-up to the "behind the scenes" tour that many of our members attended last year, the seminar introduced us to the collections and the curators and provided important insights into the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery as a cultural institution. The seminar offered an opportunity for serious and sustained dialogue between the curators and academics and postgraduate students and we explored various possibilties for future collaborations on projects, both for Honours and postgraduate students.