Table of contents for Vol. 58 no. 2 2023 in Agora

In 1970, an Indigenous Australian (Lardil) man named Goobalathaldin, more commonly known today as Dick Roughsey, completed the manuscript of his autobiography, Moon and Rainbow. In it, he recounted many of his ancestors’ stories, including those about the time when the North Wellesley islands, where his people had lived for thousands of years, were once connected to the Australian mainland. These are his words: In the beginning, our home islands, now called the North Wellesleys were not islands at all, but part of a peninsula running out from the mainland. Geologists … thought that the peninsula might have been divided into islands by a big flood which took place about 12,000 years ago. But our people say that the channels were caused by Garnguur, a sea-gull woman who dragged a…

One of my earliest memories, from more than forty years ago, is of having a day at the beach with my family. To this day I can still smell the seaweed, feel the sand between my toes, and wince as my pinky toe is glanced by a sharp rock. It wasn’t particularly sunny, just one of those slightly overcast Victorian autumn days. I remember watching on as my Dad and Nana collected mussels and cockles off the rocks at Point Lonsdale. After a few hours they had enough to fill two buckets and were planning a feast for dinner. As the sun dipped and they were finishing for the day, my brother, all of two years old at the time, realised what was happening. He grabbed one of the buckets…

History is not simply the story of what happened in the past. It is an active process of enquiry, and what we are able to discover depends on the questions we ask.1 History is generally regarded as an ‘interesting’ subject that students often associate with their favourite books, movies, TV series and even video games, yet one of the greatest challenges that teachers face is not in generating an interest in the past but in developing in students the mindset and skills to actively do so. Seeing learners evolve from passive students of history to active historians is immensely rewarding, but the ‘how’ of such a goal is readily forgotten in the ‘why’ and ‘what’ of curriculum design at different levels. A common perception is that rote-learning of dates, people…

The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia’s (NFSA) collection includes more than four million items. It is a diverse, dynamic and often surprising repository, ranging from items inducted into the UNESCO Memory of the World register to sporting matches, game shows and advertising jingles. The archive holds more than 5000 oral histories comprising interviews with people who have made noteworthy contributions to the Australian film, broadcast, music, sound recording and games sectors. The collection features accounts from individuals involved in all aspects of Australia’s audio-visual industries, including those working in front of and behind the camera or microphone. As well as collecting and preserving these items for future generations, NFSA curators also commission oral histories to ensure an unbroken record of life in Australia, and of Australian creativity. The…

I still have vivid memories of being in a Year 7 History classroom in the mid-1990s and learning the foundational knowledge of how History as a discipline is studied. My teacher had a unit at the beginning of the year where we covered the topics of primary and secondary sources, explorations of various archaeology technologies and techniques, and an examination of oral and written history. The exploration of oral and written history focused on how these histories could be used to support an historical argument as well as a critical engagement to determine their suitability and accuracy. I still remember the day that my teacher had us line up and complete an oral history activity. This was based on a party game that once had the name 'Chinese Whispers' but…

In Australia, English is the dominant language yet there are so many Australians of culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds who may never be fluent in English or might lose their English as they age. In 2021, 872,206 people in Australia—3.4% of the population—spoke a language other than English at home, and reported difficulties with English.1 Mandarin remains the most widely spoken language other than English, with 685,274 people speaking it at home.2 This is followed by Arabic (367,159 people), Vietnamese (320,758 people), and Cantonese (295,281 people). Despite their numbers in the community, Cantonese folk describe themselves as ‘mute’.3 A Missing Voice in Australian Oral History Collections Oral history projects in Australia have for too long reflected English as the dominant language. As a result, the voices and experiences of non-English…

When I was a high school student on the mid-north coast of New South Wales in the 1980s, in the lead-up to Anzac Day there would be a special assembly where a veteran would stand on the stage and tell us about ‘the war’. Normally the veteran would be a grey and balding man (although there was a woman one time) who had served in World War II or Korea. Vietnam veterans weren’t ready to speak publicly about their war; their welcome home from a finally grateful and contrite nation didn’t happen until the year after I left school. I think most of us were in awe and accepted that we should remember those who died in war. At the end, we would express our appreciation and the veteran departed,…

I have taught VCE Modern History and its earlier incarnation, VCE Twentieth Century History, for more than a decade. Unit 2’s second area of study, Challenge and Change, allows for a study of civil rights movements.1 The American Civil Rights Movement is always of deep interest for students. Rarely in History classes do we teach about a time that has positive outcomes, and this Area of Study has so much relevance in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement and the forthcoming referendum on an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament. The use of oral histories in the classroom can make this learning even more dynamic and empathetic. Oral Histories Provide a Unique Lens After delving through the rich tapestry of the American Civil Rights Movement over…

I initially dismissed the hype about ChatGPT. As a teacher, it’s easy to become inured to the constant deluge of fads and tools. Some offer useful learning opportunities, but until this year none had persuaded me that they could offer a fundamental change in how students learn. However, that initial scepticism vanished after I received my first essay written by ChatGPT. One of my students put an essay question I had assigned into ChatGPT, transcribed the output by hand onto loose-leaf paper, and submitted it as her own work. I was initially impressed by the clarity of her writing, but my suspicions grew. The written voice differed from the student’s previous work, the introduction and conclusion offered irrelevant generalisations, and the essay contained none of the evidence we had gathered…

In the early 2000s I was fortunate enough to have dinner and an impromptu tour of Bristol with Ronald Hutton, Senior Professor of History at Bristol University. In our discussions around my forthcoming book Shock! The Black Dog of Bungay: A Case Study in Local Folklore, we chatted about the impact of early twentieth century folklorist Theodora Brown.1 I had travelled to Exeter University to view the private collection of Brown's research notes, as these were critical to my research into the legends of British black dog ghost stories.2 Hutton commented that he found her work as a historian of the English Civil War invaluable. Her studies of ghost stories from the west country were a treasure trove of heritage sources into the conflict. He said that these ghost stories…

Casey Station, Antarctica, December 2012. We were waiting for the thick fog to clear so we could board the Basler Twin Otter, fly to Wilkins Runway and board the Airbus back to Hobart. Time was running out, and I still had one more interview to conduct. The weather had given me a reprieve. The cameraman and I quickly set up the camera and sound gear in the white-out conditions—there was no distinction between ice and fog—and began recording. In reality, the interview was rushed (we had to be ready to pack and board the plane at a moment’s notice) and it was uncomfortable (the freezing conditions meant icicles were forming in my hair). And what you don’t see in the photo above is that during the interview I had to…

When I started teaching the Australian anti-Vietnam War response, I found only a few sources coming from the people who were actually involved. Even fewer documented the experience of women, despite photos of the May 1970 moratorium showing many women present. To redress this lack of source material, six years ago I started interviewing Melbourne women who had protested against the Vietnam War and the National Service Act 1964. Part of the reason for interviewing women was simply to find resources for my students. Since then, the project has grown. I have now interviewed nearly sixty women and done a great deal of archival research. One of the outcomes of this endeavour is a set of resources now available on the Australian Living Peace Museum’s (ALPM) website.1 The ALPM resources…

In the long dark nights and bitter cold of a northern winter, the Vikings gathered around the fire, with food and drink in hand, to hear tales of great kings and heroes or tales of their ancestors. These oral tales were known as sagas, which is the Norse word for ‘something said’. In the kings’ courts the heroic tales were sung by poets called ‘skalds’, and often referred to the king or his ancestors, while in the long-houses of farmers the head of the family would recite family histories. These tales were sung long before Christians introduced writing to Iceland from 1000 CE. Since the earliest written works were religious, the sagas, which were secular, were not written down but continued to be recited for 200 years.1 While there was…