The painting has finally been bought back from its "foreign" buyer from 2001, by both the UK's National Portrait Gallery and the Getty in Los Angeles. It will now reside 50/50 in UK and USA. I'm still frustrated by the framing of the whole thing, which has been quite ludicrous since its sale to John … Continue reading On Reynolds’ Mai Portrait (again)
Another review for Inside Story, on a topic that I didn't think I would know enough to write upon. But it turns out this great book by Kate Loveman on Pepys's famous 17th-century diary is mostly about the different ways readers have and can approach history. Loved it. Here it begins: The website pepysdiary.com has been posting … Continue reading Gateways to History and Samuel Pepys
Loved writing this more personal (for me) and reflective essay for Australian Book Review. It begins: Zoom in. The most unusual detail in this painting is the left hand, with tattooed dots carefully spaced across its back and knuckles. The fingers themselves are poorly done. The thumb and pointer are folded into the figure’s thick … Continue reading Questions for Mai – ABR essay
Loved doing this podcast with Richard Whatmore for the ANU's new Urgent History series. It was based mostly on Richard's last book, The End of Enlightenment (2023), which I reviewed in May 2024 in Inside Story. Here we discuss his book, eighteenth-century Europe, the Voice Referendum, and Trumpian USA. This series looks like a good … Continue reading Podcast on Enlightenment
The best advocacy I could do right now as a historian is to help fight for equity and recognition of the value of the humanities and social sciences in Australia. Both are under severe threat, from both the government and Vice Chancellors (who take their cues from govt). Most specifically we fight the egregious Job-Ready … Continue reading Advocacy for Humanities
The art journal J18 recently published a roundtable that I led in 2024 on Joshua Reynolds' Mai portrait. The roundtable discussion is reproduced here in a fashion; it reflects something of the rich conversations we had. It includes seven of the participants as well as the keynote, Prof. Peter Brunt. My thanks to Robert Wellington … Continue reading Roundtable on Reynolds’ Mai
Readers of Stephen Gapps’s work will be delighted to see this latest instalment of his quest to highlight the reality of Australia’s internal wars from 1788. Gapps’s first major contribution to this literature was The Sydney Wars (2018), which detailed the military conflicts between the Darug-speaking peoples of Sydney Harbour and the British newcomers from the First … Continue reading Reviewing Uprising by Stephen Gapps
Some things come in clusters. I was profiled by my associated organisations recently. Both here below by the Australian Historical Association and here by my employer ACU, where I discussed my upbringing and life in Canberra. And here is a scholarly review of many of my works.
This is a loooong time coming, but finally here is our three-part podcast on Unsettling Portraits! I undertook this with my good friend Michael McDonnell a few years ago. We interviewed our friends through 2023. We were lucky to have two wonderful sequential producers, Helene Thomas and Catherine Freyne; with executive producer History Lab, Impact … Continue reading Unsettling Portraits
Last year I became the Vice President of the Australian Historical Association, which is a society increasingly important to me as an agent for advocating for History in Australia. Recently we linked with our counterpart in the UK, The Royal Historical Society. They invited the President, Michelle Arrow, and me to write the opening blog … Continue reading Connecting the AHA
Another review for Inside Story, this one allowed me to let off some steam about what is happening in the US right now, what I always worry about for the humanities, and what I think of people who lean into profiteering arguments. Nussbaum reissued her 2010 book Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities … Continue reading On the Humanities, Profit, and Martha Nussbaum
Kate Fullagar 