War Myths

Australians only have a very limited range of images within which to imagine the ANZAC experience, as is demonstrated by this staggering introductory paragraph to an article about an unknown soldier in today's Age:

'EVEN though it was just a skeleton, there was still something that said Australian larrikin about the soldier's remains that lay as he fell on a shell-blasted Belgian battlefield 91 years ago.'

I'm not sure how a skeleton suggests that deeply Australian quality, larrikinism - and neither is the writer, who is of course completely unable to substantiate this claim in the following paragraphs.

Aboriginal writing

A deluge of unexpected jobs last week got in the way of my plans to write about The Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature. Happily, though, there's a thoughtful review of the Anthology - particularly the first section, which contains the writing of historical figures such as Bennelong and William Barak - in this week's Eureka Street. Check it out!

Another Book

At the risk of boring those of you who've already heard about it - this edited collection is one of the things I've been working on for the last six months. It came out of a really stimulating conference that a colleague and I organised last year, at which historians from quite different backgrounds - some postcolonialists, some religious historians - came together to try and talk about the relationship between missionaries and colonialism. Often missions history is done either from a confessional or religious perspective or within a hardcore postcolonial framework. Both of these have their dangers and we wanted to try to get people from these groups to talk to each other and learn from each other. The conference was fantastic - we felt as though it gave evidence of a real change for the better in the way missions history was being written - and we decided we should try to publish some of the papers. If you are near the University of Melbourne on Tuesday 8 July, you can come along and see the result being launched! Or, if you are really keen, pre-order one here for the special price of $35!
(Btw, for those of you who read Faith and Place, Meredith has contributed a wonderful chapter about Richard Johnson - the chaplain of the first fleet, whose picture graces our cover.)

Essential Reading

I am currently working my way through the wonderful Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature. I can't recommend it highly enough: it should be essential reading for all Australians, particularly Christians. The title is a bit misleading in its use of the word 'literature' - it is in fact a selection of Aboriginal writing. The first section includes letters, petitions and articles written by Aboriginal people from the beginning of white settlement. So it's as much a historical anthology as a literary one.
I haven't had much time for blogging lately, but over the next few weeks I plan to post my thoughts on the works in the Anthology. Let me encourage you to go out and buy a copy - it is a very slim and readable volume, and the selections are mainly short pieces - perfect for reading on the train, while waiting to see the doctor, in ad breaks. And it will change the way you see this country.
* The photo is a detail from the 'missionary window' at St John's Anglican Church, Toorak. The window depicts men of different ethnic groups coming to Jesus. Interestingly, only the Aboriginal and African man are kneeling.

No, no, no, no, no

There has been much tut-tutting, apoplexy and inter-state phone calling among the Cruickshank clan after the disappointment that was last night's showing of Persuasion on the ABC. If you haven't seen it, imagine what Reader's Digest would do with the story. I can understand the need to cut down the dialogue and plot for reasons of time, but removing almost all of the extended dialogue and replacing it with pointless and unlikely 'action' scenes.... no, no! All those wonderful, character-revealing conversations gone! As a consequence, we lose most of the satisfying subtlety of Austen's characters - from Anne Elliot herself to a minor but fascinating character like Lady Russell or Captain Benwick.

And replacing all this dialogue with action is equally unhelpful. The whole strength of Austen's world is the depiction of characters - particularly women - within incredibly frustrating limitations. Anne Elliot is meant to be profoundly constrained - by her society, by her family, by her personality. She is not meant to be sobbing hysterically all the time and running around Bath. She does not pash her husband in public.

I fear this bodes ill for the rest of the movies in the ABC Austen series. And I was really looking forward to Northanger Abbey!

Insane Holy

Andrew and I have been reflecting (again!) on jobs, careers, security and similar, in the light of Deuteronomy 8: 3 ('Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.') So this was both timely and amusing.

Meme

My sister-in-law has tagged me on this movie meme that Ben started, so I am thinking hard...

1. One movie that made you laugh
Zoolander.

2. One movie that made you cry
I cry in almost anything. But particularly Wit. Andrew and I both cried just hearing the story of it. Then we cried when we watched it. Then we cried telling someone else about it.

3. One movie you loved when you were a child
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

4. One movie you’ve seen more than once
Galaxy Quest

5. One movie you loved, but were embarrassed to admit it
The Bodyguard

6. One movie you hated
True Lies. Don't get me started.

7. One movie that scared you
No Country for Old Men.

8. One movie that bored you
Idiocracy

9. One movie that made you happy
Babette's Feast

10. One movie that made you miserable
Nobody Knows. Which is a really, really sad Japanese film.

11. One movie you weren’t brave enough to see
I constantly chicken out of movies. Pan's Labyrinth is a recent example.

12. One movie character you’ve fallen in love with
Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell in Top Gun. (Hey! I was 13!)

13. The last movie you saw
Iron Man (see previous post)

14. The next movie you hope to see
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day or The Painted Veil - on Thursday!

15. Now tag five people: I tag Stephen and Meredith - and anyone else who would like to participate!

Iron Man

I'm a sucker for super-hero stories, so last night we went along and watched the latest Marvel Comics adaptation, Iron Man. For a light-weight movie, it had a certain style - Robert Downey Jr is a talented fellow, and more power to him for coming back from addiction.
Ultimately, though, the movie left a rather nasty taste in my mouth. Much of the action is set in Afghanistan, and you get a very small glimpse of how brutal and terrifying that conflict has become. While there is a certain subversive undercurrent to the storyline, the suggestion that what is really needed to sort things out is more violence (provided by more effective technology) rings sickeningly hollow.
It made me think again of an idea I've had for a TV series starring a (fictional) crack team of pacifists. Yes, pacificists! Each week they would be confronted with a challenging new conflict situation, to which they have to find a non-violent solution. What I love about this idea is that I think it would showcase the creativity of non-violence. If you rule out the possibility of violence, you have to really use your brain.
Some might consider this show unrealistic - but surely no less realistic than the fantastical fictions with which we are regularly presented, in which shooting people solves problems. Oh yeah, that's how things work in the real world.

Out of Ideas

At the moment I am juggling more ideas/projects than seems sensible. My paid work (basically full-time) is an Australian history project, which currently involves co-writing a book chapter, editing a conference series and working on a conference paper - each involving different sources, periods and topics. In my own research area of British history, I am trying to work on a book manuscript (due in June!! due in June!!) based on my thesis WHILE writing articles and conference papers based on the quite different project I began researching earlier this year in the UK. I also have quite a few other things going on outside work. So, as the boy in the Far Side cartoon said, my brain is full!
I am sorry to find that, as a result, I am all out of new ideas. I need a really good idea, on which to base a major research proposal, for a three-year post-doc. It has to be a Goldilocks kind of idea - not too big, not too small, sexy enough to catch the eye of the proposal-drunk readers, but not too sexy (in case I get pilloried in the columns of The Australian for wasting the taxpayer's money), relevant to my existing track record but not simply repeating my previous work. Faced with this daunting criteria, asking myself 'What would I really like to work on for three years?', my brain draws a blank. I just have no idea!

Hazardous Reading

I may have blogged about this before, but I will say it again: reading should not be attempted while walking. I have a very bad habit of combining the two activities, which on various occasions has resulted in:
- crying in the middle of the footpath because I had just read a particularly moving poem;
- walking straight past a large sign into a patch of very wet cement (the workmen standing next to the sign just looked at me incredulously as I lifted my head from the page)
- standing on an escalator for five minutes or so without noticing that the escalator was not moving. People were pushing past me to get up the escalator for the entire time. It was only when one of them laughed out loud that I noticed I was stationary.
It still hasn't entirely cured me. I just find the written word so deeply alluring, I find it very difficult to hold an unread book or a newspaper or even a bill in my hand, and not start perusing it - even if I'm running for the train. I would like to think that is evidence of some profundity on my part, but the sad reality is it doesn't have to be quality literature - when I walked into the cement I was reading the phone bill.

Getting Together

On Tuesday night, a friend and I went along to a Reconciliation Get-Together organised by GetUp. Fifteen people - most of us strangers to each other - got together in a local cafe to talk about what reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians might look like in our nation and in our local community - and how we could be part of that. It was a diverse group with lots of different backgrounds and experiences but a common passion for justice and reconciliation. I was honoured to hear peoples' stories and be part of the conversation. Across the country around 350 other groups were doing the same thing. You can read about Byron's experience here.
On 26th May GetUp is encouraging people to meet again to continue the conversation and to mark Reconciliation Week. If you are in Australia, I'd urge you to get along to a get-together - or even host one!

delightful distractions

It goes without saying that I do not need any more distractions on the web. Nonetheless, in the last couple of months I have become quite taken with a couple of webcomics. In particular, I enjoy a week-daily fix of Scarygoround While I was in the States briefly earlier this year, I had terrible jet-lag and ended up spending rather a lot of early morning hours reading chapters of this light-heartedly spooky and beautifully-drawn comic courtesy of the hotel's wireless internet. 'Whimsy' is the middle name of its creator, John Allison.
I also love Kate Beaton's work - particularly her historical series. Sadly, she posts a lot less often! Not that I can talk...

Slashie

I met someone this weekend who introduced themselves (with good reason!) as a 'writer'. It got me thinking about what it is that I actually do in my working life. I usually say I'm a historian, because I spend most of my days reading, researching, talking and writing history. And I work more than I get paid, so it's more than just employment. (I still find it amazing that I get paid at all to read and write - luxury!)
But recently I have been consciously trying to expand my writing horizons - writing some reviews of popular fiction, resurrecting an old fiction project of my own - and it has struck me that I would probably write better if I understood this as an important part of my historical craft. I could describe myself in 'slashie' terms as a writer/historian! Switching my focus to the writing itself - not just the reading, thinking, researching that precedes it - would probably encourage me to write more imaginatively, creatively, clearly. Something that is perhaps not valued or modelled enough in much historical writing!

Excuses, excuses...

The thing about not blogging is that it becomes addictive... the longer you don't blog, the more embarrassing and ridiculous it seems to actually post something. However, of all the excuses I could make for why I haven't blogged for months, one no longer applies. See that little yella fella in the front of the photo? Mobile broadband, baby.

Facebook killed the Blogging Star

The discovery of a legion of old friends on Facebook has taken up much of my 'free' internet time over the past few months. And a status update is so much easier than an entire post. [insert lengthy rant on the concentration span of Gen X here]. On the plus side, I just got thoroughly trounced in a game of Scrabulous by three school friends who live in Sweden, Dubai and the USA, and who I havent seen for 15 years!

hmmm...

Well, a very quick post to say that I am still alive! It's been a busy semester of lecturing and researching, as well as a couple of trips back to Brisbane after my grandfather died unexpectedly a month ago. It has been good to have time with my family and reminded me of the value of taking time off... something I hope to do a bit more in the next month or so!
This weekend I am speaking about nineteenth-century evangelical women activists, to a meeting of Christians for Biblical Equality. I'm enjoying adding to my rather basic knowledge about a generation or two of women whom I admire enormously but who also left us with a rather problematic heritage.
Then I am off to England in a fortnight for a Charles Wesley extravaganza... it's a small conference celebrating the tercentenary of his birth, but the organisers have attracted some scholarly 'big hitters' as keynote speakers, including Mark Noll and Phyllis Mack. I am speaking about Wesley's hymns 'For Condemned Malefactors', which he wrote for those he visited in prison. I suspect mine will be one of the odder papers!
When I get back I am helping to run a day conference on 'Missions and Colonialism', which should be fantastic (if I say so myself!) - lots of new research and conversation about how missionaries furthered or resisted the British imperial project. To my mind, a very important question.
In the meantime, I have a couple of posts in mind. If I can steer clear of facebook for long enough, I will try to get them written!

The Historian

On the long flight back from Perth recently, I got stuck into Elizabeth Kostova's book The Historian. With a title like that, it had to be worth reading! I had heard good things, and it was indeed an engrossing read. It's basically a re-telling of the story of Dracula, recounted through a family quest across centuries and continents. Along the way, there are plenty of gothic chills, romantic sub-plots and sweeping historical narratives (for people who like that kind of thing). It's a kind of like The Da Vinci Code would have been if it was well-written, historically informed, and not blindingly predictable. My only quibble is that at times I thought it took itself a bit too seriously... perhaps it's just my disturbing sense of humour, but I see obvious comic potential in the subject of the search for Dracula! Overall, though, I recommend it.
Perhaps not as late-night reading for beautiful young maidens, though!

busy, busy

I've been out of town for a while, and am now back working through all the tasks that were neglected while I was away. I start lecturing (for the first time) in a week or so and I am starting to wonder whether I'm up to it. Nothing like a new job to cause an existential crisis. Do I actually know anything, I ask myself?

This Book is Not Good

Eugene McCarreher really, really doesn't like Christopher Hitchens' new book. While I found this enjoyable reading, it was kind of a guilty pleasure: it felt a bit like being in the audience of an arena watching a very cross lion have Christopher for lunch.
H/T Byron.

Making a Difference

The news is full of the tragic state of Aboriginal communities - and the radical initiatives proposed by our PM to improve the situation. I've been discussing this online and in person over the past few days, but I don't have a clear opinion on whether these initiatives are good or bad - or a bit of both. I don't feel informed enough to make sweeping judgements. (Many of you would be amazed to hear that I think I need information in order to make sweeping judgements, I know!)
What does concern me, though, is the way in which this situation is being used to portray Aboriginal communities in a very familiar way. The message seems to be: Aborigines can't help themselves, so 'we' (Federal Government, non-Aboriginal people, experts) need to step in and fix things. I have nothing against intervention per se. But I think that firstly, to blame Aboriginal people without taking seriously our responsibility as a nation for this situation is both historically and morally wrong. And secondly, I think there should be recognition of the many examples of positive changes that have come from within Aboriginal communities.
As just one example, let me mention Woolaning Homeland Christian School. Check out a fascinating paper on the birth and (literal) vision of this initiative. In the midst of our urgency to fix things, to bring about change, we need to not forget the many Aboriginal people who have long laboured to bring about change in their communities - and achieved amazing things - without much support at all. Surely we should be listening to their voices as we seek solutions? Surely they should be given the opportunity to lead the way?