Centre for 21st Century Humanities Newsletter - November

WEB VERSION

Welcome to our November newsletter

It's been a busy month for the University of Newcastle's Centre for 21st Century Humanities, read on to learn about our research and activities.

ARC DECRA for Dr Kate Ariotti

Centre for 21st Century Humanities member Dr Kate Ariotti has been awarded an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) worth $379,405 for her project 'Between Death & Commemoration: An Australian History of the War Corpse'.

The project aims to provide the first ever account of the changing policies, practices and attitudes that have shaped how the physical remains of Australian war dead have been dealt with between the First World War and the recent wars in the Middle East (1915-2015).

"By investigating this invisible aspect of our military past, it will create new directions in Australian war history and provide an Australian perspective on global conversations about the history of the corpse in war," Dr Ariotti said. "New knowledge about the war corpse will advance national understandings about the realities of war, and provide valuable information and more informed perspectives about death in war to history educators, cultural institutions, military units and the public."

True extent of colonial frontier massacres revealed as new sites added to interactive map

The University, in partnership with The Guardian Australia, has launched stage three of the Colonial Frontier Massacres in Australia 1788-1930 online map, incorporating for the first time, sites of massacres in Western Australia, along with new sites in the Northern Territory to provide a national picture of the extent of the violence.

In what is an important ‘truth telling’ project, the research team, led by Centre for 21st Century Humanities member Professor Lyndall Ryan, hopes their work can change the way we understand the violent and traumatic period of our colonial history.

“In the past there has been a denial of the violence that took place, and Australia’s true history has largely been invisible,” said Professor Ryan.

“Our work mapping the massacres of the colonial frontier changes the way we understand that period in our history. We now know that it was a very violent time.”

Harrowingly, the research now reveals that at least an estimated 8400 people were killed during 311 massacres that took place between 1788 and 1930. Most of the victims were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Digital Humanities Symposium

You are invited you to attend ‘Digital research across the humanities’, a three-day symposium to be held at the New Space campus from the 28th to the 30th of November 2019. View the symposium blog for more information. Register here.

Thursday 28th November - A hands on beginners workshop on leading stylometry tool Stylo, led by its creator Associate Professor Jan Rybicki from Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland.

Friday 29th November - A day of scholarly papers presenting current and exciting digital humanities projects. External academics from Deakin, Western Sydney University and the University of Adelaide will present their research alongside some of the Centre for 21st Century Humanities members.

Saturday 30th November - A public event consisting of the following talks:

10.00 - 10.45am Professor Ray Siemens - "Why Wikipedia?"
10.45am - 11.30am Associate Professor Jan Rybicki - "Authors, Translators and Algorithms"
11.30am - 12.30pm Dr Gillian Arrighi - "Virtual Reality Recreation of the Victoria Theatre"

Centre members receive Women in Research Fellowships

Two Centre for 21st Century Humanities members, Dr Helen English and Dr Hedda Askland have received Women in Research Fellowships for 2020. The fellowships are designed to empower femal researchers reach their full potential and focus intensively on research, strengthen and fast track their academic careers and nurture research leadership capability.

Dr English will use the fellowship to further her research that explores the impact of song-writing courses on aged-care residents.
Dr Askland is a social anthropologist examining mining and displacement in the Upper Hunter and Mid-Western Regions of New South Wales. Dr Askland was also in the media recently highlighting how urban spread is creating farming challenges.

Congratuations to both women!

Research examines older people’s engagement with creative and physical activities

Does being involved in creative and physical activities benefit you as you age? And how much creative and physical activity is optimal? These are the questions that Centre for 21st Century Humanities member, Dr Helen English is researching in her project on creative aging. The project is part of a large-scale interdisciplinary endeavour that is focussed on understanding the benefits of engagement with creative activities, such as in music, dance or art, for older members of society.

She recently presented the initial findings from her project at the Australian Association of Gerontology conference in Sydney.

Dr English and team are currently surveying over 400 older people in the Hunter, NSW, in order to discover what creative, as well as physical activities, older people have engaged with throughout their lives.

“We are identifying what activities they currently engage in and the barriers and enablers to lifetime engagement. We are also measuring a number of wellbeing factors including mood, social connections and quality of life.”

TLCMap Update

The Centre for 21st Century Humanities is leading the development of a powerful software platform called the ‘Time-Layered Cultural Map of Australia’ (TLCMap).

We are happy to announce that our Multi-Institutional Agreement has been signed off and executed. TLCMap is now fully funded and officially began on 22 October.

Our System Architect Dr Bill Pascoe is supported by a team of five developers, who are swiftly working towards the first deliverables of designing user enhancements to the Gazetteer of Australian Historical Place Names and Temporal Earth.

Also in view is the development of a TLCMap instance of Recogito, an online platform for collaborative document annotation.

We are partners in two Australian Data Research Commons applications in the current round, and look forward to hearing about the outcomes of these in the new year.

Also in the diary for early 2020 is our meeting in Melbourne with the wider team of 11 Chief Investigators from our 6 partner Universities on 10th and 11th February.

You can keep up to date with the TLCMap project via our newsletter. Subscribe here.