Mount Typo, Victoria Superthread

[liamcool]

Australian historiography. :boo:

 

[Axver]

Australian historiography. :boo:

Do go on.

 

[liamcool]

Do go on.

So I'm doing four subjects; Research Frontiers, Historiography, Australian Historiography and Feminist History.

They're all okay (hardly my choices!) but the Australian Historiography stuff I've just done to death (I have NO interest in reading Windschuttle or Reynolds again) and am just sort of over it; while we're doing the issues with more sophistication it still feels very rehashy.

Two factors account for this indifference though;
1) it's external only; no face to face class time
2) I do sit in a sort of weird methodological standpoint in terms of actually being a historian, but the one conventional thing I can say is that I'm not at all interested in Australian history (Europeanist!) and so this is not just terribly relevant to further research, but everyone has to do an Australian subject at some point, so I figure I'd do the one with more impact and training for general historical ability.

 

[the tourist]

Today was the absolute worst birthday I've had in my life. Ends with me sleeping in the couch voluntarily and getting drunk alone. Fuck this birthday fucking bullshit.

 

[liamcool]

 

[the tourist]

 

[cobl04]

Sorry man. My bday was crummy too.

Anyhoo question, if I get a tumblr, and follow all the hilarious blogs I look at now and then, then whenever I go on tumblr or use the app, will the posts come up in like a news feed, like fb, twitter, insta etc?

 

[Vlad n U 2]

No, but you have an option to connect Tumblr with Facebook. I don't.

 

[cobl04]

So if I just want to look at some of my fav tumblrs from time to time there's no point getting one myself?

 

[Vlad n U 2]

Not really.

Another way would be to make an account and 'follow' your favourites so that they'll appear on your dashboard/feed, without posting anything yourself.

 

[Axver]

Anyhoo question, if I get a tumblr, and follow all the hilarious blogs I look at now and then, then whenever I go on tumblr or use the app, will the posts come up in like a news feed

I think Vlad misinterpreted you. This is exactly what happens, yes.

Liam, will get back to your post tomorrow.

 

[cobl04]

yeah I was gonna say, his last post is exactly what I wanted to know. I'm gettin' a tumblr.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

Silly me.

Link us and we'll follow ya.

 

[bono_man2002]

So, I'm probably going to BDO next year. Pearl Jam aren't doing any side shows...so this will be the most expensive concert ticket I've ever purchased (legally)

God I wish I saw them in '09 now. (Although I was flying off to see Tori at the time)

 

[liamcool]

*ducks and covers from the bollocking*

 

[The Sad Punk]

Telstra decided that it was a pretty shitty thing for me to be in the 21st century, so I haven't had internet for the past week-ish, which was something of an inconvenience (and school wi-fi is just the worst). Anyway how are you are you well??

s all around for you, Andrew. Birthdays are just another day, don't fret it. We put way too much importance on that shit.

yeah I was gonna say, his last post is exactly what I wanted to know. I'm gettin' a tumblr.

kool

Sorry I never use twitter, also. I'm just afraid of getting hacked and annoying the shit out of all 0.82 of my followers again.

 

[Axver]

So I'm doing four subjects; Research Frontiers, Historiography, Australian Historiography and Feminist History.

They're all okay (hardly my choices!) but the Australian Historiography stuff I've just done to death (I have NO interest in reading Windschuttle or Reynolds again) and am just sort of over it; while we're doing the issues with more sophistication it still feels very rehashy.

Two factors account for this indifference though;
1) it's external only; no face to face class time
2) I do sit in a sort of weird methodological standpoint in terms of actually being a historian, but the one conventional thing I can say is that I'm not at all interested in Australian history (Europeanist!) and so this is not just terribly relevant to further research, but everyone has to do an Australian subject at some point, so I figure I'd do the one with more impact and training for general historical ability.

I'd rather climb a barbed wire fence than read Windschuttle's blithering nonsense ever again, so I hear you there. No such issues with Reynolds though.

The thing I've always found about Australian history is when you actually dig into it properly, it's tremendously interesting. The problem is that all the most boring and/or cliched bits are the only bits that ever get taught. It drives me up the wall. So no wonder people end up being so disinterested in Australian history; it's largely the same boring narrative, and on the rare occasion you get a debate going, it's so obscenely polarised that it doesn't seem worthwhile and generally still fails to ask the most probing and difficult questions for how Australian history should be understood and narrated.

That said, as somebody whose interest in European history died in Honours year when I realised I was never going to learn fluently an Eastern European language (or French or German in the case of Reformation stuff I enjoy), I will always be far more of an Australianist than a Europeanist, and if a career will let me, a New Zealandist above all. (I got mocked today for daring to apply "-ist" to New Zealand, as if we're too small and have too little a history to warrant the suffix even though nobody bats an eyelid at "Australianist".) In my own work I try to write New Zealand history as a country with its own agency, i.e. with only so much British content as necessary.

What's Research Frontiers about? And I do hope Feminist History is proper history rather than pointless theoretical wank.

 

[liamcool]

Just as a quick I'm at the bar and have five minutes response. I don't mind Reynolds but I've read hom before and so see him as regressive.

I'm doing a lot of stuff with Britain and Ireland so the second language thing doesn't really apply. Aside from Gaelic.

Research frontiers is basicslly a course to get our cohort (seven) in a room to talk about methodology and to bring our own research practices to the group. We have to write an alaysis of research trends in a certain journal; I do a lot of stuff with memory and PTSD with how it relates to history so I would analyse how History and Memory has changed over the course of the last 16 issues say; what historical.and historiographical.issues have come out as a resukt of recent developments.

Long response forthcoming (when I get to a PC)

 

[liamcool]

Holy typos.

Here's the Feminist week by week schedule:

• Week 1– Introduction -The rise of the second wave and the

theorisation of patriarchy

• Week 2 – The (white) subject of feminism

• Week 3 – Pornography and desire

• Week 4 - The problem of Freud and the possibility of psychoanalysis

• Week 5 - Can the third world woman speak?

• Week 6 – Postmodernism and the category of “women”

• Week 7 – How do bodies matter?

• Week 8 - Masculinities in question

• Week 9 - The rise of queer and the death of identity politics?

• Week 10 – Reading week

• Week 11 - Power in and through the subject

• Week 12 - Affective politics

• Week 13 – Where to now?

 

[Vlad n U 2]

How many MRAs do you get in your classes?

 

[liamcool]

In this class I'm one of two gents. So...obviously not too many

 

[Vlad n U 2]

Did you just suggest you're actually an MRA?

Or is my reading comprehension off?

 

[cobl04]

Off. For the second time in two pages.

 

[Axver]

The hell is an MRA?

Just as a quick I'm at the bar and have five minutes response. I don't mind Reynolds but I've read hom before and so see him as regressive.

I'm curious how you see Reynolds as regressive. The Other Side of the Frontier is anything but. Or do you just mean studying him in postgrad feels like a regression back to undergrad for you?

I'm doing a lot of stuff with Britain and Ireland so the second language thing doesn't really apply. Aside from Gaelic.

Where I stand with British history is a bit funny. In a way I try to move away from it, but I'm also aware that I don't actually know all that much of it, and when I dig it's actually pretty interesting, especially if I stay the fuck away from anything that gives me an allergic reaction like monarchical or military history. I guess I sometimes avoid it because a lot of really seminal New Zealand history texts were written by the imperial school of historians - you may know what I mean, given a similar thing occurred in the interwar period in Australian historiography. So these were histories of New Zealand that viewed it as an extension of British life, culture, and economy. I write against this for the most part, even if my history idol was an imperial historian himself - W.P. Morrell.

(I also intend to learn Maori some day. Few New Zealand historians do. I think it could really help to add some extra flavour, especially because nobody working in my specific area has ever tried to integrate Maori.)

Research frontiers is basicslly a course to get our cohort (seven) in a room to talk about methodology and to bring our own research practices to the group. We have to write an alaysis of research trends in a certain journal; I do a lot of stuff with memory and PTSD with how it relates to history so I would analyse how History and Memory has changed over the course of the last 16 issues say; what historical.and historiographical.issues have come out as a resukt of recent developments.

Hmm, interesting; I'm not sure if I'd find that rewarding or infuriating. I very much have a reputation for deprecating theory and overly elaborate methodological approaches. I summarise my methodological approach as "I read the thing; I think about the thing; I write about the thing".

I really do need to get into some memory theory though, since I'm starting work on the long-term consequences of disasters and I know I can't get too much further into that without critical engagement with memory.

Here's the Feminist week by week schedule:

Oh dear, no first wave feminism at all, which is the wave I find most interesting (fun fact: I got into doing New Zealand history thanks to writing a second year essay on the suffrage movement). Looks like far too much theory for my tastes.

I am surprised to see you have thirteen weeks. I didn't think any unis still did that. I know Melbourne switched to twelve week semesters by the nineties, and UQ had also made the switch before I began there. From a tutor's-gotta-earn-money perspective though, I'd love a reversion to thirteen weeks! Except that I fear tutoring is going the way of the dodo; ANU's phasing it out and the rumour is that Melbourne's higher-ups think it is inevitable.

 

[liamcool]

The hell is an MRA?

I presume he's meaning a Men's Rights Activist? As in people who say that men are being oppressed by feminism, etc.

I'm curious how you see Reynolds as regressive. The Other Side of the Frontier is anything but. Or do you just mean studying him in postgrad feels like a regression back to undergrad for you?

I'm reading Forgotten Wars now and finding it quite progressive. No, we read Reynolds in high school and first year undergrad, so I've just done it a few times by this point and am a bit blah on the whole idea of redoing it.

Hmm, interesting; I'm not sure if I'd find that rewarding or infuriating. I very much have a reputation for deprecating theory and overly elaborate methodological approaches. I summarise my methodological approach as "I read the thing; I think about the thing; I write about the thing".

I really do need to get into some memory theory though, since I'm starting work on the long-term consequences of disasters and I know I can't get too much further into that without critical engagement with memory.

I suppose because I did a lot of philosophy and specifically epistemology, I have an interest in how knowledge is actually constructed. With the post-structural turn and the whole idea of subjective knowledge, I'm constantly trying to find a way to find more "objective" ways of writing history; you can take a piece of evidence and analyse it in a Marxist manner, in a feminist manner, etc etc. I also just find the methodology of writing history endlessly fascinating, so I like to get in and deconstruct it.

So, I turn to memory in an attempt to find some sort of definitive evidence; psychological effects of a historical event can pretty strongly said to exist within the sample examined. Of course, this then brings up questions of what is an appropriate sample, can you apply a psychological effect on a wider population, what are the consequences of integrating history and psychology, all of that sort of stuff.

I suppose I like getting into people's brains.

But yeah, my thesis is going to be on how trauma interacts with history in 1980s Ireland (regarding how people are affected by terrorism), but I'm also writing a paper about how people construct autobiography and how they historically situate memory (and then the consequences on the historical discipline), and also about how memories of death affect literature (but that one is in very early stages.)

You may want to check out Brown, N. R. and P. J. Lee (2010). "Public events and the organization of autobiographical memory: An overview of the living‐in‐history project." Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 2(2): 133-149.; it deals with how disasters affect memory, both in a violent (i.e. war) and non-violent (i.e. weather), and then how that affects history.

Oh dear, no first wave feminism at all, which is the wave I find most interesting (fun fact: I got into doing New Zealand history thanks to writing a second year essay on the suffrage movement). Looks like far too much theory for my tastes.

I am surprised to see you have thirteen weeks. I didn't think any unis still did that. I know Melbourne switched to twelve week semesters by the nineties, and UQ had also made the switch before I began there. From a tutor's-gotta-earn-money perspective though, I'd love a reversion to thirteen weeks! Except that I fear tutoring is going the way of the dodo; ANU's phasing it out and the rumour is that Melbourne's higher-ups think it is inevitable.

It was instituted because there was no course in ANY discipline for gender, so it's meant to encompass a lot of different disciplines. Which is kinda shitty, but makes it accessible for people not well versed in feminist theory (hello!)
Probably should be called "Crash Course In Feminism" or something.

Every Sydney uni has 13 weeks; most subjects generally have a reading week so it's effectively 12 weeks of teaching. Most unis have a one week mid-semester break, we have two weeks.
Macquarie's been looking at keeping this schedule but removing a week from the holidays in order to tighten schedules, which has been responded with from much derision from students and tutors; we also have a third semester condensed in January that is getting more and more popular; I think it's both great to have that, and also absolutely horrible (because casual tutors are then teaching 37 weeks a year and marking 10-13, which...is a problem.)

 

[Vlad n U 2]

MRA = Men's Rights Activist.

EDIT: Liam beat me to it.

 

[Axver]

MRA = Men's Rights Activist.

It actually amuses me that such people exist. If I hadn't had run-ins with financeguy on FYM, I'd think it's just an elaborate joke. But then I'm not shackled to Tumblr all day like my other half.

I suppose because I did a lot of philosophy and specifically epistemology, I have an interest in how knowledge is actually constructed. With the post-structural turn and the whole idea of subjective knowledge, I'm constantly trying to find a way to find more "objective" ways of writing history; you can take a piece of evidence and analyse it in a Marxist manner, in a feminist manner, etc etc. I also just find the methodology of writing history endlessly fascinating, so I like to get in and deconstruct it.

The thing I love about History is that it is a democratic discipline, moreso than most others. I fear that some academic history goes right up its own arse, and I strongly disapprove. History does not have, nor does it need, any specialised language or framework, and it should be as comprehensible to a popular or lay audience as it is to a scholarly one. I approach History as a writer and a storyteller; I want to construct narratives that are entertaining, meaningful, and instructive. Above all I prize good writing, and except in the hands of a talented few, theory is the death of good writing. Plus it usually just leads to generalised wank that lacks specificity or evidence. (I immediately stop taking seriously anybody who mentions Foucault; it's normally just a disguise for "I don't actually have any evidence to prove this so I'm going to namedrop instead".)

I have, though, sometimes wondered how my work might be classified. I'm certainly not activated by any ideology - I generally dislike it when people use their political ideology as a framework for history, be that Marxist history, Whig history, feminist history, whatever. It inevitably creates a skewed, partisan perspective that is only persuasive to other people who've bought into the ideology. I have to cop on the chin that I am perhaps a nationalist historian, much as I hate the term "nationalist"; I cannot deny that I write about New Zealand for New Zealand's sake, and think that it is important on its own terms. I think I'm part of a new breed of what are, for lack of a better term, "new political" historians; I write political history but from the bottom up. I'm not interested in great statesmen; I'm interested in why electors supported politicians and policies, and how institutions shaped and were shaped by their popular perception.

But yeah, my thesis is going to be on how trauma interacts with history in 1980s Ireland (regarding how people are affected by terrorism), but I'm also writing a paper about how people construct autobiography and how they historically situate memory (and then the consequences on the historical discipline), and also about how memories of death affect literature (but that one is in very early stages.)

You may want to check out Brown, N. R. and P. J. Lee (2010). "Public events and the organization of autobiographical memory: An overview of the living‐in‐history project." Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 2(2): 133-149.; it deals with how disasters affect memory, both in a violent (i.e. war) and non-violent (i.e. weather), and then how that affects history.

This sounds very interesting - both the thesis and the autobiography paper sound like things I would be interested in reading. Cheers for the reference; will chase it up.

It was instituted because there was no course in ANY discipline for gender, so it's meant to encompass a lot of different disciplines. Which is kinda shitty, but makes it accessible for people not well versed in feminist theory (hello!)
Probably should be called "Crash Course In Feminism" or something.

Every Sydney uni has 13 weeks; most subjects generally have a reading week so it's effectively 12 weeks of teaching. Most unis have a one week mid-semester break, we have two weeks.
Macquarie's been looking at keeping this schedule but removing a week from the holidays in order to tighten schedules, which has been responded with from much derision from students and tutors; we also have a third semester condensed in January that is getting more and more popular; I think it's both great to have that, and also absolutely horrible (because casual tutors are then teaching 37 weeks a year and marking 10-13, which...is a problem.)

We've got a number of postgrad courses that have been introduced recently that are inter-disciplinary. How are yours working out? I began early enough to dodge ours, but the general feeling is that they struggle to really cater to the breadth of student expertise and interest.

Ah, we've never had anything like a reading week. Most Melbourne unis have a fortnight's break mid-semester; the University of Melbourne however has just a one-week break in exchange for longer summer/winter holidays. We used to have a fortnight break in second semester only, but this year it's just one week (and not until after week nine, the fuck?!). We have a summer semester - and even a handful of winter intensives - but there's no defined length. Each course determines its own teaching schedule for those. Some begin in mid-January; others not until February, by which point the teaching phase of the earliest courses has already finished. I like it from the perspective of being able to work before semester one and get some money, but we offer very few History courses so getting tutoring is hard. As it stands, most casual teaching staff have essentially no chance of earning a living over December/January.

 

[Alisaura]

1. New thread!

2. Vlad! Manics are hosting rage!

/exclamation marks

 

[cobl04]

They be ballin the D League
Uh
I be speakin Swaghili !

 

[Vlad n U 2]

2. Vlad! Manics are hosting rage!

They were and it was grand until I couldn't physically stay up any longer.