History Week Goes Pop!
Hashtags, Heroines, and Histories: Popular Culture in History
Steph B.
.
Between 2 and 10 September 2017,
over 80 events were staged across the state as part of the History Council of
NSW’s annual flagship event, History Week. Now in its 20th year,
History Week aims to ‘engage a range of audiences by showcasing the rich,
diverse history being produced by organisations and individuals across New
South Wales.’
Each year, the History Council
assigns a particular theme to History Week for participating institutions and
individuals to use as both their inspiration and focus. In 2017 History Week
went ‘Pop!’ - or rather, as their
website explains – members were ‘invited to celebrate popular culture across the decades, to investigate its
construction and analyse its impact on communities and individuals.’ This was a
really fun premise and I’m kicking myself that I
didn’t do as I did in 2016, which was to take the entire week off as annual
leave, book myself into a swanky hotel in the city and attend as many events as
humanly possible. Lesson learnt for next year.
But one event I was fortunate enough to attend was an afternoon
symposium at the State Library of NSW called Hashtags, Heroines and Histories: Popular Culture in History. And
the blurb?...
The Department of Modern History, Macquarie University, in
conjunction with the Centre for Media History and
the Centre of Applied History, present
a symposium that explores the different ways popular culture is and can be used
in historical research. Presenters will investigate not only the history of
popular culture, but also how different cultural texts both shape and are
shaped by political and social forces. In a landscape where presidential tweets
can act as official statements, where #blacklivesmatter and diversity of gender
and racial representation has taken on increasing significance, asking
questions of the political and cultural possibilities and limits of popular
culture is as important as ever.
So, fuelled with strong black
coffee from the library’s onsite café, I settled in with my notepad and pen for
what I hoped would be a fascinating afternoon indulging in what is – for me at
least – one of life’s great pleasures, namely listening to frighteningly clever,
articulate and thought-provoking historians and researchers present papers on
their individual areas of historical investigation, followed by lively audience
discussions, and more coffee. A quick glance at program indicated that I was
not about to be disappointed. Indeed, I think that the final speaker of the
day, Dr Leigh Boucher from Macquarie University, had perhaps one of the most intriguing
titles for a presentation I have ever come across (see below). The line-up consisted of:
- Professor Kate Darian-Smith, University of Melbourne – Connecting Histories of Television and Histories of Migration
- Catherine Fisher, Australian National University – Fighting Soap: Australian Women Broadcasters and Post-war Citizenship
- Dr Scott McKinnon, University of Wollongong – Out on Screen and In the Audience: Sydney’s Gay History as Told Through the City’s Movie Theatres
- Professor Bronwyn Carlson, Macquarie University – The Global Call to Action: #SOSBLAKAUSTRALIA
- Dr Jodi McAlister, University of Tasmania – Modern Love in Period Clothing: The History of Romance via Historical Romance
- Dr Rebecca Sheehan, Macquarie University – Rock the Cradle of Love: Pop Music and the Making of Sexual Consent
- Dr Leigh Boucher, Macquarie University – Crying Footballers and the Affective Associations of Neoliberal Despair
I won’t go into detail regarding the content of each speaker’s
paper as I do understand that most are probably not as interested in the
historical dissertations of a group of academic smarty-pants as I am - see me later if you are - but I
will mention a few things that this symposium highlighted:
- Collecting, preserving and making accessible documents and records which cover a wide range of subjects and in numerous formats is so important. We have no idea what use future researchers might want to use these items for, but without them large, significant and diverse pieces of our history could go unexplored or, at best, will be under-represented.
- Surprising and enlightening stories can be found when we look at things from a different angle. Do you remember that scene in the film Dead Poets Society when the Robin Williams character instructs his students to stand on their desks in order to get an alternative view of things? Well, that’s what it felt like listening to many of the presenters at the Pop! symposium. By linking seemingly unrelated aspects of Australian history – like post-war migration and the birth of television; or Sydney’s gay history with that of movie theatres; or even how sports coverage today often focuses more on the losing team than the winning, and what lines can be drawn between this and the Neoliberal man (!!!) – new and illuminating concepts come to life.
- It is essential to allow time and the opportunity for conferring at conferences. The clue is in the name – although to be fair, this was a symposium rather than a conference. Never-the-less, historical study doesn’t (or shouldn’t) happen in a vacuum and there is often a lot of value - both for the speaker and members of the audience - in questioning and discussing points raised in presentations.
- There are some very clever people out there doing some amazing work!
- I’ll definitely be watching the AFL Grand Final with a different eye this weekend – especially when it comes to the sobbing losers at the final siren.
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