OPENBOOK at the State Library of NSW asked me to write an essay about writing Bennelong & Phillip. It was fun to do; I also wrote this in reverse, as I wrote the book, reflecting on what the method gave me, how it felt for the book to come out in the same month as … Continue reading On Writing Bennelong & Phillip
Another book review ... and reflection on the present. Writing for my favourite mag, Inside Story, this is about Richard Whatmore's new work—eight enlightenment thinkers and the meaning of their ideas today. "The resonant experience that Whatmore notes at the close of his book is that of a set of ideas for peaceable settlement coming … Continue reading The End of Enlightenment
Double review of: Maeve E. Kane, Shirts Powdered Red: Haudenosaunee Gender, Trade, and Exchange across Three Centuries (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 2023). Pp. 366; 12 b/w illus., 5 maps, 15 charts. $64.95 cloth. AND Mairin Odle, Under the Skin: Tattoos, Scalps, and the Contested Language of Bodies in Early America (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, … Continue reading Double Review for 18th-Century Studies
My first chat (short!) about my new project, commencing next year: the secret life of an eighteenth-century spy mistress. I explain how and I why I became intrigued by her role in imperial world history in this segment of SBS Dutch Radio. [Love the note on the SBS page about my reference to the character … Continue reading Marguerite Wolters
As ever, enjoyed writing for Inside Story. Here is a review of a new book on the eighteenth-century intellectual women who called themselves bluestockings. 'In my usual manner, I began this book by reading the conclusion. There, Susannah Gibson closes her new book on eighteenth-century intellectual women, The Bluestockings, by quoting Virginia Woolf. “It is the masculine … Continue reading Bluestockings review
A new review in Journal of British Studies. "Williamson is less concerned with virtue as a personal category of analysis and more with virtue as a political idea. This is a preference heartily welcomed in eighteenth-century British studies, which has not taken late twentieth-century debates about civic humanism nearly far enough out of their home … Continue reading Orienting Virtue
Here's a short commissioned piece for the North American Conference for British Studies - a group of us were asked to respond to this piece about the crisis of British Studies in North America. Australian humanities scholars have experienced and analysed crises in their fields for somewhat longer than others, so I was pleased to … Continue reading British Studies and the Humanities in Australia
Australia Day comes round again, with the same debates about the significance of 26 Jan. 1788. I wrote about this fateful summer in my latest book. The relevant part is here, if you care to read a narrative, told in reverse, of the three key groups meeting each other then (the Yiyura, the French, and … Continue reading The summer of 1788
In October 2023, I had the great honour of delivering the Annual Greg Dening Memorial Lecture in Melbourne. It does talk about my new book a bit but also talks about Greg Dening, his influence on me, and my growth as a historian (and also contemporary ACU shenanigans, which are ongoing). It's one of the … Continue reading Greg, Arthur, Bennelong, and Me
It's been a wild month here; just as my new book was released, my employer ACU suddenly announced a change plan that saw me and 40 other academics be 'disestablished.' I don't know what the future holds, but in the meantime I carry on with my writings. Here is a book review that I was … Continue reading Western Civilisation and its Discontents
Kate Fullagar 