Social Attitudes and Historical Authority: The Question of Banditry in Colonial and Contemporary Australia
Event details
Join us for research seminars hosted by the Department of History with a selection of visiting academics, alongside University of York researchers. All students and staff are very welcome.
A zoom link will be made available for distance learning PhD students on request. Please contact Dr Jasper Heinzen or Dr Stephanie Mawson if you have any questions. View the full schedule for the semester.
Speaker: Dr. Meg Foster (University of Technology Sydney)
Abstract: Despite operating over a hundred years ago, bushrangers (Australian bandits) and the police who pursed them still arouse deep passions in contemporary Australia. White male bushrangers are national heroes. Bushrangers who broke the white, straight, male mould are often demonised, if they are mentioned at all.
Social memory research is essential to chart this history's impact on the present, but what happens when local 'truth' is at odds with historical sources? This work-in-progress paper explores the messy territory of authority, race and settler colonialism in rural NSW.
Image: William Strutt, Bushrangers, Victoria, Australia 1852 1887, oil on canvas, The University of Melbourne Art Collection