Category: History, philosophy and humanities
With 30 years of experience in the heritage sector, and as Managing Director of SHP, Sue Hodges exercises best practices in enabling the rights of Firsts Nations peoples to determine how their histories are told in the design and production of heritage interpretation. Sue is a doctoral researcher at UTS with a PhD project on the 'Economic and social value of heritage interpretation'.
In this extended podcast version, we also discuss Sue's international work and recognition as an international leader in heritage interpretation. Sue works with the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) as President of the Committee on Interpretation, which is a global role. Sue also shares further thoughts on History as a profession and her view on doing meaningful commercial work.
A wide-ranging conversation about gender, race, ethnicity and university queer spaces. Sara Chaturvedi is a third-year student in the Communications/BCII course at UTS majoring in Social and Political Science. Sara is a member of the UTS Ethnocultural Collective and the Queer Collective and is currently involved in student politics as the Queer Officer on campus.
To coincide with International Workers’ Day, historian Professor Glenda Sluga kindly participated in a chat about internationalism with attention to how international workers associations and the International Labour Organization fits in the history of the early phase of twentieth century internationalism.
In part two of this chat with author Nicholas Graham we hear about his vocational pathway to becoming a novelist of historical fiction, and what horse riding and reading Latin have to do with this vocational pursuit.
This follows an earlier episode about Nicholas' debut novel The Judas Case which is set in the first century with a biblical backdrop and told as a master detective story.
Karima Hazim shares the motivation behind her efforts to document and share Lebanese food culture and how it relates to the history of the migrant experience.
One of the ways Karima is doing this is through Sunday Kitchen, a cooking class she runs with her mother whose family left Lebanon at the start of the civil war in the 1970s and migrated to Australia where traditional recipes, ingredients and cooking methods were passed down through the generations.
Karima had been a student of Fashion Design at UTS and went on to create her own small fashion label. She tells the story of her experiences meeting with tailors in regional Vietnam and how she found a way to overcome the language barriers and cultural differences by relating through food.
The theme music is derived from 'Tuesday Morning' by The Pogues written by Spider Stacy.
This is a follow up to an introduction to Natural Language Processing (NLP) in response to a listener suggestion that we should consider concerns and fears about the technology. Dr Sarah Barns has an academic and vocational speciality in Digital Futures and is someone who thinks deeply about the history of technology and information as well as being an artist with creative practices.
Dr Rachel Yuen-Collingridge shares insights from her studies of papyrology including ideas about cultural receptions to new forms of knowledge communication technology in antiquity and thoughts on ethical approaches to studying Ancient History.
This is the radio version broadcast on 2SER 107.3FM. An extended podcast version of this conversation (which is twice as long) is available by subscribing for free to the Wide Open Air Exchange podcast. After you subscribe, look in your podcast library for the episode titled: “Papyrology, Dr Rachel Yuen-Collingridge".
Rachel was a guest on the Wide Open Air Exchange in early September 2022 and this radio version is being shared as part of a short holiday series while the podcast is on hiatus.
Revisiting part of a conversation with historian Catherine Freyne about her doctoral project which situates her own family experience of her father being secretly homosexually active with a wife and kids in an historical context.
The extended podcast version of this conversation (which is more than twice as long) is available by subscribing for free to the Wide Open Air Exchange podcast and searching in your podcast library for the episode titled: "Sexuality, History, and Family Memoir".
Catherine was a guest on the Wide Open Air Exchange in July 2022 whilst a doctoral researcher at UTS nearing completion of a thesis titled, “The Family as Closet: Gay/Bisexual married men and their families in Sydney, 1970-2000″.
Some of the primary sources that Catherine had been studying were her father’s personal correspondence and writings which document his experiences of having secret relationships with men and his reflections after leaving a 30 year marriage and claiming a homosexual identity.
This is the radio version that was broadcast on 2SER 107.3FM Sydney.
An introduction to transborderism and how living at a borderland region is a formative experience and specifically, in the thesis worked discussed, the perspectives of pupils and students at the Cali-Baja region who routinely cross the Mexico-U.S. border.
Dr Mitxy Mabel Meneses Gutiérrez is a lecturer in International Relations and a researcher at Sheffield Hallam University with interests in postcolonialism and transborderism and a geopolitical focus on the Americas.
Lydia Ayame Hiraidē is a doctoral researcher studying environmentalism from a social justice perspective and thinking about what it means to move towards a Black feminist theory of ecology.
Dr Rachel Yuen-Collingridge shares insights from her studies of papyrology including ideas about cultural receptions to new forms of knowledge communication technology in antiquity and thoughts on ethical approaches to studying Ancient History.
"Urbanist" is only one of the vocational descriptors for Dr Sarah Barns who has an interesting and varied vocational life at the intersections of academic research, public art and creative practice, and policy and strategy, with some of her specialities being in Urban Research and Digital Futures. Here we discuss Sarah's early influences and interests and some of the thinking that informs her interdisciplinary approach.
18 July is United Nations Nelson Mandela International Day and on 2SER Breakfast we reflected on Mandela’s social justice legacy through the prism of pop culture.
Historian Catherine Freyne is nearing completion of a doctoral thesis at UTS, titled: "The Family as Closet: Gay/Bisexual married men and their families in Sydney, 1970-2000" which places her own father’s story and her family's experience in an historical context.
Matthew Connell's early interests in science and culture led to a 30+ year career as a museum curator specialising in computing and mathematics. We hear about Matthew's early influences, his thoughts on the relevance of museums and material culture, and his concerns about the trappings of technology.
Jingdong Yuan was a student in China when US President Richard Nixon made an historic visit for diplomatic meetings, and these days he's an Associate Professor at the University of Sydney specialising in China's defence and security policy and Asia-Pacific security. In these respects Jingdong is the perfect guest for discussing the historical significance of the event as well as the legacy of the visit in the context of current US-China relations and China's place in the world.
Dr Tim Dean describes his approach to philosophy communication and explains his interdisciplinary research on the evolution of morality including some of the ideas explored in his book, How We Became Human: And Why Need to Change
If public records are correct Dr Elisabeth Kirkby turned 100 earlier this year (2021). I've been thinking about our conversation for the Wide Open Air Exchange podcast when Lis was aged 96 and how it could be of interest to researchers of women in mid-20th century British and Australian social and political culture and to other readers more generally.
A conversation for the interest of students and practitioners of History and others interested in scholarly approaches and attitudes to biography and autobiography as historical methods. Professor Barbara Caine explains changing perceptions of biography in the historiography and the emergence of what some refer to as a biological turn and more recently an autobiographical turn.
A brief introduction to the contributions of Socrates and Plato and other influential ancient Greek thinkers with freelance philosopher Dr Tim Dean. This is an unpublished excerpt from a longer conversation with Tim about the Philosophy of Love.
Valentine's Day is a time when romantic love is idealised. This conversation explores the usefulness of different philosophical conceptions of love and considers contemporary applications of various ancient Greek words for love: éros, storgē, philía and agápe.
English obscenity law from the Victorian period in the mid-nineteenth century was unevenly applied to literature available to working class audiences. Hierarchical thinking and elitism in the application of the law was enduring and is evident as late as 1960 during the Lady Chatterley's Lover trial. This is an idea explored in a forthcoming book by Professor Chris Hilliard from the University of Sydney. Chris is researching censorship and cultural change in Britain from the Victorian period to the 1970s.
Nerida Campbell is an historian with an interest in criminal and deviant history including the treatment of women in criminal histories. Nerida is curator of the Sydney portfolio for Sydney Living Museums where her current Underworld exhibition includes images from the the 'Specials' collection of the NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive: a series of unique and candid mug shots of suspects in custody taken between 1920 and 1930.
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A conversation about the study of architectural history as an interdisciplinary pursuit combining art history, intellectual history and visual culture. Deborah Ascher Barnstone is a professor of architectural history and architectural design at UTS and a licensed architect and principal with Ascher Barnstone Architects. Deborah's latest book is titled, The Break with the Past: Avant-Garde Architecture in Germany, 1910 – 1925
Dr Ooi Kee Beng is Executive Director of the Penang Institute which is a major public policy think tank in Malaysia. Dr Ooi explains some of the political history of Malaysia in relation to global history and international order and by critically analysing concepts of colonialism, nationalism and regionalism. Dr Ooi is an accomplished academic and author and his public commentary can be found at Wikibeng.com
Professor Naguib Kanawati is Director of the Australian Centre for Egyptology. He explains his fascination with the Old Kingdom and why he considers that researchers should have hands-on experience of archaeological digs. Professor Kanawati has an inspirational personal story of pursuing what he loves doing.
A discussion of human milk sharing and emerging markets in breast milk with Dr Julie Smith from the Australian National University. Julie was formerly a senior economist for Australian and New Zealand governments, an advisor to the World Health Organisation, and a breastfeeding councillor and board member of the Australian Breastfeeding Association.
There are not many people who can say they were working in counter-terrorism during the 9/11 terror attacks on the United States. Nick O'Brien, who worked for Scotland Yard for thirty years, was on duty in charge of international intelligence and operations in Special Branch and he recalls the gravity of that moment.
From Ovid's Metamorphoses to the poetry of Charles Bukowski, the textual nuances of Flaubert's Madame Bovary, and the genre-bending of Jamaica Kincaid's The Autobiography of My Mother, Sarah Houillon shares insights from her broad interest in literature and her own artistic inclinations. Sarah has been a fellow of New College, Oxford where she taught French literature and language and a member of Pembroke College, Oxford as a graduate of English literature.
A conversation about identity and languages with Lily Begg from Pembroke College, Oxford. We met when Lily was editor-in-chief of The ISIS magazine in Oxford where she’s studying French and Italian. Lily shares personal insights from her experiences living in Belgium and England and on exchange in Italy and from her roles as a language translator, magazine editor, and theatre director.
Olivia Durand is an Oxford scholar researching neo-Frenchness in the cities of New Orleans and Odessa. Olivia has lived in the United States as a Fulbright scholar and in the Ukraine working for the French Foreign Office. A doctoral researcher with the Department of Global and Imperial History at Oxford University, Olivia is also vice-president and treasurer of the MCR at Pembroke College.
As a school leaver Timothy Farrant took up a trade in amenity horticulture and worked as a greenkeeper on golf courses and as a farm labourer. It was whilst on his Morman mission that Tim was encouraged to apply to university and went on to study Medieval History. Tim is currently a Clarendon Scholar of Theology at Pembroke College, Oxford where he's researching Augustinian influences on zoology in the Middle Ages.
Theologian Dr Chris Deacy from the University of Kent in Canterbury specialises in analysing the intersections of religion and secular films. Chris explains his approach with reference to popular films including Groundhog Day and Fight Club. We also discuss some philosophical questions about religion and Chris shares stories from his formative years and his discovery of film and theological studies.
Corina Smith is a doctoral researcher studying the ancient Chinese texts, the Shangshu. She shares stories of learning Mandarin and living in Beijing and the benefits of these new and difficult experiences. We also touch on music as Corina grew up listening to prog rock and appreciates the history of its emergence in Britain in the 1970s. Corina is a Clarendon Scholar with the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Oxford University and a member of Pembroke College.
Dylan James is a Clarendon Scholar of Ancient History in the Classics Faculty at Oxford University who specialises in Greek and Roman historiography. We discuss his intellectual development from being fascinated in ancient history and classics as a child to learning Latin and Greek languages as a young man so he could study classical texts for his honours, masters, and now doctoral research. Dylan is somewhat of an all-rounder and we also chat about his other pursuits in music, sport, comedy, and politics.
Carolyn Davis is co-host of the podcast Snatched! and a PhD student at the University of Texas. One of the few black people in her grad program, Carolyn discusses diversity issues in Austin as well national racial injustices with policing and the prison system. Carolyn shares personal insights as a queer bisexual woman. We also discuss her research of 18th century transatlantic literature and the class she teaches about fandom.
This week is dedicated to an explanation of gender identity terminologies and concepts which Jess explains both from an academic perspective and from his personal experience transitioning from being assigned female at birth to identifying as a genderqueer transgender man. Jess O’Rear is a PhD student at the University of Texas in Austin.
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