Centre for 21st Century Humanities Update

WEB VERSION

August 2018

Welcome to a short update on the recent activities and achievements of the Centre for 21st Century Humanities.

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Researchers uncover true stories of Vines, Wine and Identity in the Hunter Valley

A new book examining the history and personalities of the Hunter Valley wine community will be launched at Newcastle Museum on 22 September.

Hunter Wine: A history is one of the outputs of a four-year research project Vines, Wine and Identity: Hunter Valley NSW and Changing Australian Taste, a world first collaboration between a university, the peak wine body for a region and the cultural sector. The University of Newcastle project team is renowned sociologist Professor John Germov and Australia’s foremost wine historian Dr Julie McIntyre, a member of the Centre for 21st Century Humanities.

Professor Germov and Dr McIntyre will launch the book on 22 September surrounded by an exhibition, currently on display at the Newcastle Museum until Sunday 14 October, which brings to life the early years of the Hunter Valley tied to colonial, national and global themes, as featured in the book. The book launch will be accompanied by the screening of a forgotten Australian film. This made-for-TV movie has scenes shot at Pokolbin in the Hunter wine region in the late 1960s, and stars famous Australian and international actors.

Prof Ros Smith receives ARC Future Fellowship

Outstanding mid career researcher, Professor Ros Smith has received a million dollars in Australian Research Council Future Fellowship funding. Professor Smith is the Director of the Centre for 21st Century Humanities and co-founder of the internationally renowned Early Modern Women Research Network.

She will use the funding over the next four years to examine records of women’s annotations in the margins of their books from the 16th and 17th century to make new discoveries about how women read and wrote in the English Renaissance. Professor Smith's Future Fellowship adds another category 1 grant to the seven already held by Centre members.

Massacres on Australia’s colonial frontier climb to 250

The launch of stage two of the Colonial Frontier Massacres Map has seen an addtional 81 massacres of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders added to the map. This brings the total number of massacres recorded on the map to 250 following an influx of valuable information and evidence from regional communities around Australia follwing the map's first launch a year ago.

The map website recieved a huge spike in visits on the day of the launch with over 31, 000 people viewing the map and many accompanying media reports followed.

“It’s important to document these incidents because they resolve the long standing question: how violent was the colonial frontier? The map shows that massacre was widespread and affected hundreds of Aboriginal and and Torres Strait Islander communities," said project leader Professor Lyndall Ryan, a member of the University’s Centre for 21st Century Humanities and the Centre for the History of Violence.

Dr Arrighi’s research and journal receive top accolades

Creative and performing arts researcher with the Centre for 21st Century Humanities and the School of Creative Industries, Dr Gillian Arrighi, has received two prestigious awards for her research into the role of children in the entertainment industry and popular entertainment.

At the recent Australasian Association for Theatre, Drama and Performance Studies conference, Dr Arrighi was presented with the Marlis Thiersch Prize. Awarded by a panel of judges in recognition of research excellence in English-language articles published anywhere in the world in the field of drama, theatre and performance studies, Dr Arrighi won the prize for her article “The Controversial ‘Case of the Opera Children in the East’: political conflict between popular demand for child actors and modernizing cultural policy on the child,” published in the US-based Theatre Journal.

The second accolade is the Joanne Tompkins Prize for excellence in journal editing, awarded to Dr Arrighi and her colleague, the late Victor Emeljanow, for their work on their journal Popular Entertainment Studies. Dr Arrighi described it is a peer-reviewed, inter-disciplinary eJournal dedicated to the exploration of all aspects of popular entertainment.

Invitation to opening of Long Shadows Exhibition

Come along on Tuesday 11 September at 6pm to the official opening of the Long Shadows exhibtion at the University Gallery.

Long Shadows: The Great War, Australia and the Middle East brings together past and recent histories to highlight lesser-known aspects of the First World War in the Middle East. It examines the long shadows cast by this conflict, which reach well beyond Gallipoli and deep into present day experiences within the broader region.

The exhibition was developed by Associate Professor Hans-Lukas Kieser, an Australian Research Council Future Fellow, in collaboration with Dr Kate Ariotti of the Centre for 21st Century Humanities, PhD candidate Caroline Schneider, and the University Gallery.