AustLit

'Oliver MacDonagh, a distinguished historian of Britain and Ireland, was appointed in 1963 to the foundation chair of history at what became the Flinders University of South Australia. The present article dissects the process of his elevation to the Flinders chair, at a time when senior academic appointments were handled differently than today, and discusses MacDonagh’s work at his new place of abode. As one of the new universities in Australia during the 1960s, Flinders had a brief to be different from its traditional counterparts and to ‘experiment boldly’. But was this what MacDonagh did during his time there?'  (Publication abstract)

'Once a comparatively rare beast, historians’ autobiographies are becoming prevalent to the point of being commonplace. Since the 1980s, such works have crystallised into a genre and have become a historiographic growth area. Limiting the head count to monograph-length works, a dozen historians’ memoirs were published in the 1970s, rising to three dozen in the 1980s, five dozen in the 1990s, and the contributions continue apace. Once on the fringes of the historical enterprise, historians’ memoirs are now edging closer to centre stage. Increasing frequency has lent respectability. There remain significant pockets of resistance, the usual canards being that autobiography is inescapably egotistical, self-indulgent and narcissistic. Nonetheless, the genre is rapidly gaining acceptance and being treated seriously – and not simply historians’ autobiographies but autobiography by academics generally. Almost without exception, historians’ autobiographies contain a chapter or chapters on childhood and coming of age. In parallel with the increasing prevalence of historians’ autobiographies, a subgenre devoted to the childhoods through to the young adulthoods of historians has also become a growth area. We are concerned in this chapter with three such works: Sheila Fitzpatrick’s My Father’s Daughter (2010); John Rickard’s An Imperial Affair (2013); and James Walvin’s Different Times (2014).' (Introduction)

'This volume of essays was inspired by the increasing though still-limited body of scholarship connecting the writing of history directly with the lives of those who write it, and the contributions were initially presented as papers at an intensive workshop held at The Australian National University in July 2015. While the writing of historians’ lives by themselves or others is not new in itself – Edward Gibbon’s Memoirs of My Life and Writings, for example, appeared posthumously in 1796 – considerable discussion flowed during the 1980s and 1990s from the publication of Pierre Nora’s Essais d’ego-histoire.  The extent of subsequent developments is demonstrated in the seminal work in the English language – Jeremy Popkin’s History, Historians, & Autobiography – where the significant increase in historians’ autobiographies and associated discussion of the genre becomes evident.' (Introduction)

'Including contributions from leading scholars in the field from both Australia and North America, this collection explores diverse approaches to writing the lives of historians and ways of assessing the importance of doing so. Beginning with the writing of autobiographies by historians, the volume then turns to biographical studies, both of historians whose writings were in some sense nation-defining and those who may be regarded as having had a major influence on defining the discipline of history. The final section explores elements of collective biography, linking these to the formation of historical networks. A concluding essay by Barbara Caine offers a critical appraisal of the study of historians’ biographies and autobiographies to date, and maps out likely new directions for future work.'  (Publication summary)

'Scholars at War is the first scholarly publication to examine the effect World War II had on the careers of Australasian social scientists. It links a group of scholars through geography, transnational, national and personal scholarly networks, and shared intellectual traditions, explores their use, and contextualizes their experiences and contributions within wider examinations of the role of intellectuals in war.

'Scholars at War is structured around historical portraits of individual Australasian social scientists. They are not a tight group; rather a cohort of scholars serendipitously involved in and affected by war who share a point of origin. Analyzing practitioners of the social sciences during war brings to the fore specific networks, beliefs and institutions that transcend politically defined spaces. Individual lives help us to make sense of the historical process, helping us illuminate particular events and the larger cultural, social and even political processes of a moment in time.'(Publication summary)