Summer 2025
Issue No. 6
Liberation or Condemnation? World War II and the Australian Female Experience
Maisie Palmer explores how, for Australian women, World War II was simultaneously a period of economic and social liberation as well as a time of increased restriction and condemnation. She also examines whether these changes persisted in post-war society.
Co-Editors' Note
Alexander Cooper-Williams, Isabella Mathiou, Maisie Palmer, Isabella Tran, Erin Cauchi, Olivia Deson, Stella Buckby, Shontai Day, Amelia Hartin, Maisie Gillespie, Steph Goltz, Charlie Conroy, and Hannah Shaw
The Makings of a Homeric Hero: Ancient vs. Modern Interpretations of Achilles
Rain Riches examines the modern representations and receptions of Homeric heroes in cinema through a critical analysis of Troy (2004).
Olympic Fundraising Politics in Australia
Hao-ching Hsu provides an analysis of Australia’s participation in the 1948 ‘Austerity Games,’ revealing how postwar financial struggles and state rivalries over Olympic funding exposed deeper tensions in Australia’s emerging national identity and federal coordination.
Representations of Womanhood and the Domestic Feminine in the Australian Myth Making Tradition
Mia Wright explores the construction of womanhood and nature in Henry Lawson’s The Drover’s Wife (1892) and select artworks from Russell Drysdale.
Chinese Women and
Gender Roles, 1904-1942
Conor Jedam explores women’s changing roles in modern China through the lives and writings of Qiu Jin and Ding Ling, tracing the evolution of feminist thought and gender expectations from the late Qing dynasty to the Republican era.
"Rouse Yourself to a Sense of Your Merits": Locating a Woman's Rights Discourse in Chartism
Isabella Hollewand discusses how Chartist women used domestic ideals to justify political activism, turning the language of the home into a subtle platform for early claims to women’s rights.
'Lovable Communism'
Max Grayson explores how the Japanese Communist Party’s shift from a legal party to an insurrectionary movement came about not as a result of policies within Japan, but because of interventions by both Cold War superpowers: the Soviet Union and the US.
Rose Coloured Diamonds: The Illusion of Female Empowerment in Republic Rome
Maisie Gillespie discusses the political influence of women in Republic Rome, revealing how elite Matronae shaped civic affairs through both private and public means, despite being largely obscured by the records of history.
The Damned, the Pure, and the Forgotten: Interrogating the Limits of Summers' Gendered Dichotomy
Shontai Day provides an analysis of Anne Summers’ 1975 work ‘Damned Whores and God’s Police’, exploring how it reshaped Australian historiography by centring women’s experiences, redefining moral archetypes, and challenging masculinist narratives, while also tracing later critiques that exposed its limits in addressing class and race within feminist history.
The Impact of European Colonial Powers on the 'Tributary System' Between Southeast Asian Kingdoms and Imperial China
Dakota McGuire’s examination of the so-called Chinese “tributary system” and its Southeast Asian participants, particularly Siam and Vietnam, reveals how these asymmetric yet pragmatic relationships were shaped by negotiation, agency, and the shifting power dynamics of colonialism.
"Truly the Work of Satan" - Religious Persecution in Moscow in the Early 20th Century
Noah Keenan analyses how religious persecution of Catholicism, Judaism, Orthodoxy, and the subsequent rise of Soviet atheism affected Moscow from 1905 to 1935.
Tracing the 'Glorious Revolution' of 1688 through Historiography: Causality, Character, and Consequence
Ahnu Guan critically examines the political, religious, and constitutional dimensions of England’s Glorious Revolution (1688–89) including how political disenfranchisement and succession crises outweighed religious prejudice as causal factors.
"Won by Sword's Edge Undying Glory in Battle": Brunanburh and the Memory of Æthelstan in 12th Century Historiography
Sarah K. Harm examines how twelfth-century chroniclers transformed the Battle of Brunanburh from a tenth-century military triumph into a moral and theological symbol of divinely sanctioned kingship.
The Willow Palisade: Tactics of Empire in the Qing Dynasty
This Anonymous essay explores the cultural, economic and geopolitical functions of the Willow Palisade during the Qing Dynasty in China. It considers how the history of the Willow Palisade unsettles certain current Chinese national narratives.
Consistency in the Accounts of Agrippina's Death in Tacitus, Suetonius, and Cassius Dio
Courtney Tucker unpacks the reasons behind the conflicting accounts of Agrippina’s death through a case study of the ancient historians Tacitus, Suetonius, and Cassius Dio.
