http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/services/Feed ${session.getAttribute("locale")} 5 http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:5749 This paper has two clearly divided sections – the first will explore the concept of colonial history as a metaphor - likened to a cruising shark. The domain of this powerful shark is the oceans of history – its practice, understanding, delivery and ownership. The second part of the paper will examine two aspects of Keith Windschuttle’s book The Fabrication of Aboriginal History with which I take issue namely the massacre at Risdon Cove in 1804 and secondly, Windschuttle’s denigrating and uninformed appraisal of the relationship between Aboriginal men and women. I will state upfront that it is Windschuttle’s blinding faith in the objectivity of the empirical record that is his Achilles heel. He does not recognise or consider that the archival record can be biased or recorded by those with a vested interest. This sort of naïve historical understanding is seriously flawed. 2010-09-27T06:00:01.968Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:1867 This article will challenge and dispel many of the myths and misconceptions associated with the onset of organised Aboriginal political protest. This paper examines the rise in the 1920s of the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association, highlighting international influences that impacted on the directives of this early Aboriginal political organisation. By identifying and describing such influences, the article necessitates a re-evaluation of Australian Aboriginal political history. 2010-04-27T06:34:47.206Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:5650 On a cool, clear late August morning, about 150 people gathered in the Downstairs Lecture Theatre at the National Library of Australia, to attend the conference in honour of Henry Reynolds’ seventieth birthday. Organised by Tom Griffiths from the History Program, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University and Bain Attwood, from Monash University and sponsored by the History Program in RSSS at the ANU, the School of History and Classics at the University of Tasmania and the National Library of Australia, which was celebrating its fortieth birthday in its current location. The conference had two purposes: to critically assess Reynolds’ work in a national and political context; and to address new questions and problems that he had helped to pioneer in the field of Aboriginal history. Over the two days, a very interested audience heard about 14 papers, spread over seven sessions. The last paper was presented by Reynolds himself. This was a satisfying and thought provoking conference. It not only provided the opportunity to celebrate Reynolds’ enormous achievements, it enabled a new generation of historians to take up new directions. It is heartening to know that Aboriginal history is in safe hands and that consideration of the role of class is making a comeback. 2010-04-27T04:38:25.231Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:5825 This collection grew out of several years of discussions during conference lunch breaks as we met and reported on the progress of our various projects with their shared focus on settler colonialism, white women and Aboriginal history. One day, we said, we must work on a book together. We had all contributed in one way or another to the debate concerning the ethics of historical research, and were challenged by the question of privilege and perspective, the importance of memory and reading against the grain of the official archives, and the moral issues surrounding the kinds of history we chose to write. We were conscious of an Indigenous argument that white historians’ incorporation of Aboriginal subjects in historical work was yet another form of neo-colonialism. In putting together a collection primarily on ‘white’ women involved in the Aboriginal domain we have sought to respond positively to such criticism. 2010-04-27T04:31:11.582Z ]]>