Making Public Histories: Australian History Beyond the University
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Nikita Vanderbyl, La Trobe University
Kat Ellinghaus, La Trobe University
Clare O'Hanlon, La Trobe University
Copyright Year:
Last Update: 2025
Publisher: Council of Australian University Librarians
Language: English
Formats Available
Conditions of Use
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
CC BY-NC-SA
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: Introduction to Making Public Histories
- Chapter 2: Illustrated essay
- Chapter 3: Podcasts
- Chapter 4: Wikipedia entry
- Chapter 5: Exhibition display
- Chapter 6: Plan your research for publishing public history
About the Book
This is a book and subject that asks broadly what it means to ‘make history’ – in particular, what history means beyond schools and universities. We ask, what are the different forms and functions of historical knowledge in the modern and contemporary world? What does history mean in the public sphere, in parks, on webpages, in museums, and in people’s homes? What happens when historians operate in the public sphere? How is the past utilised by politicians? How does it bind us (or not) as a nation? How is it used to inform debates about the future both inside and outside universities, in schools, and in the mainstream community? How is history presented in commemorations, films, heritage sites, historical fiction, memorials, museums, re-enactments, and tours? What are the ethical and moral obligations historians have as ‘gatekeepers’ of the past?
About the Contributors
Authors
Nikita Vanderbyl is a writer, researcher, and teacher of history to undergraduate students. She is most interested in the transnational art histories of Aboriginal cultural objects and artworks from the nineteenth century and their relevance to communities today.
Kat Ellinghaus is an Associate Professor of History in the School of Archaeology and History at La Trobe University, where she teaches Australian history. She is of Irish and German descent and is the author of Taking Assimilation to Heart: Marriages of White Women and Indigenous Men in the United States and Australia, 1887-1937 (University of Nebraska Press, 2006) and Blood Will Tell: Native Americans and Assimilation Policy (University of Nebraska Press, 2017). In 2014 she was awarded an Australian Research Council Discovery Project grant to write a history of Aboriginal exemption policies in Australia, a project which continues in collaboration with Judi Wickes, Kella Robinson, Lucinda Aberdeen and Jennifer Jones. In 2019 Kat was lead Chief Investigator on a successful Australian Research Council Discovery project grant which funded a large team to research a project entitled ‘Indigenous mobilities to and through Australia: agency and sovereignties’. In 2020, together with Barry Judd and Richard Broome, she was awarded an Australian Research Council Special Research Initiative Grant to produce a four-volume collection of primary documents entitled ‘Indigenous Australia: A History of Documents 1770-2000’ to be published by Routledge. Kat has researched and written extensively on Indigenous assimilation policies and made an enduring contribution to the field in Australia and internationally. She has presented work to Australian, Canadian and US journals, conferences and publishing houses and has made significant interventions into the history of Indigenous assimilation policy, colonial history, intimacy, gender and racial discourse, and to the task of bringing Australian history to the attention of the international scholarly community and beyond. In the field of Australian settler colonial history, ethical scholarly practices are becoming as, if not more, important than scholarly esteem and expertise. In her most recent work Kat has added a new and important focus: collaborative practice and history writing based on collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars and people which places ethics and community at the highest priority.
Clare O’Hanlon is a librarian who is passionate about encouraging collective reflective practice and making critical and diverse knowledges, theories, and histories accessible within, across and beyond the Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museum (GLAM) and higher education sectors. Their practice is guided by social justice principles, compassion, courage, and creativity.