It was great working with @drdrehistorian.bsky.social
on this. If you're interested, you can enrol for free! creds.curtin.edu.au/courses/john...
11.03.2026 04:26
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It was great working with @drdrehistorian.bsky.social
on this. If you're interested, you can enrol for free! creds.curtin.edu.au/courses/john...
John Curtin at desk.
In my day job, I helped develop "John Curtin's Vision", a credential on the life & prime-ministership of Curtin Uni's namesake. I appear in some videos using objects he owned to tell the story of his life - his cut-throat razors, engraved pocket watch, file copies of the Worker.
A subtle profile of a biographer and a biographical relationship gone wrong for reasons unclear.
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/08/b...
Vale Emeritus Professor Heather Goodall. Anna Clark has shared 'Remembering Heather Goodall (1950–2026)' with History Australia readers. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
1908: the Lancet, one of the most respected scientific journals, calls for 18 age limit on reading in bed amidst a moral panic surrounding children becoming "addicted" to novels, which were "designed to keep kids hooked" and destroy their attention/mental health
Dig by Frank Clune cover
Dig title page
I was at Swan's Moonah Bookshop in Hobart today. It reminded me of the beloved book exchanges of my childhood, now nearly all gone in WA - it even had Phantoms and Commandos! I left with this.
You're welcome, Wayne, and so glad someone read our bibliography 😆
A few weeks back, as part of my #SLVResidency, I created a big, fully-searchable database with all the content from the 24 volumes of Sands & MacDougall's directories digitised by the SLV. I've finally written up the details: https://updates.timsherratt.org/2025/11/12/a-new-way-of-searching.html […]
"Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake."
Wallace Stevens, born on this day in 1879
The SLV is digitising thousands of photos of streetscapes around Victoria created by the Committee for Urban Action in the 1970s. Here's some from Fitzroy: https://find.slv.vic.gov.au/discovery/search?query=series,exact,Committee%20for%20Urban%20Action%20Collection.%20Photographic%20survey […]
Picture shows a book cover for Dangers of Youth
I'm honoured to be speaking to @petermcphee.bsky.social on Mon 6 Oct at 1pm AEDT about my book Dangers of Youth: Age, Criminality, and Juvenile Justice Reform in Third Republic France at an online event hosted by the George Rudé Society. Please register here: uni-sydney.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
Wonderful!
Good work!
I'll be speaking at this event: The 80th anniversary of World War II & the formation of the #UN United Nations. What have we learnt and what may the next 80 years hold? Join us at
@curtinuniversity.bsky.social tomorrow evening, brought to you by the Faculty of Humanities and #GlobalFutures Curtin.
Depressing news. Meanjin hardly posed a significant call on the University of Melbourne's finances: its annual budget was no more than a third of the VC's salary. To shut it down diminishes the University of Melbourne and leaves a large hole in Australia's already threadbare cultural landscape
The Egg, a cricket trophy awarded to the winners of Overland vs Meanjin matches, alongside a copy of Jim Davidson's Emperor in Lilliput, the book about magazine founding editors Clem Christesen and Stephen Murray-Smith.
Since our very first issue Meanjin and Overland have been comrades, mates, rivals, and drinking buddies. The UMP board’s decision is a shockingly myopic act of cultural vandalism which will grievously harm the Australian literary community.
Dr Samson Lim (Monash U) is giving the next seminar of the Historians of Southeast Asia Network (HiSEAs) on the 'feral territories' of Eastern Bangkok, Thailand. Intrigued? Join us on Thu 11 September, 4.00 pm AEST on Zoom:
anu.zoom.us/j/8293727404....
Meeting ID: 829 3727 4043/ Passcode:491526.
Anyone out there in #genealogy , #LocalHistory or #FamilyHistory land know of any collections that should be identified?
I've just had confirmation that Newcastle Writers Festival's partnership with Port Waratah Coal Services has ended. I'm pleased to hear this and hope this is an ongoing alignment of NWF's values with their actions. Fossil fuels are the villains and we don't need them to tell stories
New rule. A parent may only propose removing a book from the school library only after reading it in its entirety and delivering a book report to the librarian. Until then no discussion shall be entered into.
There's differences of perception, but there are also subjects who are actually paradoxical. How to depict these things biographically? Perhaps: a composite portrait, recognising limits of any one perception. A provisionality to judgements & traits.
Variation on the theme in Martin McKenzie-Murray's profile on Richard Marles in yesterday's The Saturday Paper: 'in the funhouse mirrors of politics there’s no single prevailing view of anyone'.
Hazel Rowley once said, 'The opposite is also true' about anything she could write about her biographical subject, Christina Stead.
Will use this opportunity again to mention my list of online and open access radical historical collections. Nearly 1000 listed from across the world.
hatfulofhistory.wordpress.com/radical-onli...
“You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.”
Annie Proulx, born on this day in 1935
This podcast series is now in its 3rd season. I'm grateful to Gabriella for her commitment to biographers and her talents in drawing out insights about biographical choices, which extends the work she did in her PhD thesis and her own biography, Breaking Through the Pain Barrier.
My interview with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about The Red Witch and the art of biography has just been released on the Biographers in Conversation podcast.
www.biographersinconversation.com/s03e05-natha...
'The Red Witch: A Biography of Katharine Susannah Prichard'
open.substack.com/pub/gabriell...
@nathanhobby.bsky.social
