Celebrating Independent Thought Isaa Twenty Years On
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CELEBRATING INDEPENDENT THOUGHT ISAA TWENTY YEARS ON 2015 CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS INDEPENDENT SCHOLARS ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALIA INC CONTENTS Celebrating Independent Thought: ISAA Twenty Years On EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION 1 2015 Conference Proceedings Elizabeth Morrison Independent Scholars Association of Australia Inc PANEL. REFLECTING ON TWENTY YEARS OF ISAA 5 ISBN 978-0-9807641-9-2 David Headon ISSN 2203-1367 Ann Moyal Published by the Independent Scholars Association of Australia Inc in 2016 Gretchen Poiner Copyright © 2016 Independent Scholars Association of Australia Inc Auriol Weigold Copyright of each paper reverts to the author on publication. Doug Cocks Reproduction and communication for other purposes: Except as permitted under Mike Austin the Act, no part of this volume may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or communicated in any form or by any means without prior written permission. All ANNUAL LECTURE. INDEPENDENCE AND 19 requests for reproduction or communication should be made to ISAA: INTEGRITY IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN PO Box 268, Canberra City ACT 2601, Australia A SUMMARY www.isaa.org.au Julian Disney [email protected] Editor: Elizabeth Morrison ‘A MAN MUST MAKE HIS OWN DECISIONS’ 23 Production: Caren Florance THE INDEPENDENCE OF DAVID SYME, PRESS SUPREMO Cover design and image: Catherine Rogers Elizabeth Morrison Note on cover image: This old river red gum near Wilpena Pound in the Flinders Ranges FLORA SHAW 33 was photographed by prominent Australian photographer Harold Cazneaux, who made the well-known and popular photographic print ‘Spirit of Endurance’ in 1937, included A ‘LADY FROM LONDON’ IN 1890S QUEENSLAND in most histories of Australian photography. The tree and its location have attracted many Patricia Clarke artists over the years, including Hans Heysen, all seeking what they regarded as a uniquely Australian visual experience. Cazneaux’s spirit of artistic independence is evident in his BATTLING THE BUREAUCRACY 51 final print of the old tree because he actually reversed the negative, feeling this made a much PIONEER BOTANIST SARAH HYNES’S WATERLOO better picture. This photograph by Catherine Rogers (2013) shows the same, older, tree in Christine Yeats the landscape, not horizontally reversed as Cazneaux imaged it, but as visitors today see it, albeit from behind a fence. AN INDEPENDENT WAY OF SEEING 61 THE PHOTOGRAPHIC SCHOLARSHIP OF Printed by Bytes 'n Colours, Braddon ACT. ] CATHERINE ROGERS Views expressed in these papers are those of the authors and are not necessarily shared Susan Steggall by the editor or by ISAA. GUARDIAN ANGELS 77 EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION THE RED CROSS ON THE WARTIME HOME FRONT Ian Willis Independence is a two-edged word which can mean isolation as well as freedom. —Pringle1 INDEPENDENT THINKING AND DIFFICULT IDEAS 87 A FEW PRELIMINARY THOUGHTS ON INFANTICIDE The Independent Scholars Association of Australia, founded in 1995 Julie Marcus through the in itiative of Ann Moyal and support of David Headon, aims INDEPENDENT THOUGHT AND SCHOLARSHIP 99 and has served to mitigate the isolation and enhance the freedom of an RAMIFICATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT WHEN IT IS Australia-wide diaspora of individuals researching and writing outside SUPPRESSED the support of academe and other institutional structures. The 2015 Glenn Burns ISAA Annual Conference, held in Canberra at the National Library of Australia on 1 and 2 October, began with a panel session where founding 1979 AND ALL THAT 111 members reflected on twenty years of the Association. As recorded in these STRUCTURAL STABILITY IN WORLD AFFAIRS published proceedings, Gretchen Poiner and Auriol Weigold noted that Stephen Horn belonging to the Association has brought them welcome friendship and THE MAKING OF AN INDEPENDENT 121 a sense of collegiality, while Doug Cocks and Mike Austin observed that DICTIONARY-WRITER ISAA activities have provided horizon-extending introduction to ideas and Bernadette Hince investigations outside their particular disciplines and fields of research. INDEPENDENCE MEETS SCHOLARSHIP 129 The other side of the coin, freedom—for independent scholars to express MONASH UNIVERSITY’S WORLD WAR I views and research findings independently of external influence, authority 100 STORIES PROJECT and control—has been enhanced through the activities organised by local Jim Windeyer chapters and groups formed in Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne, through the twice-yearly ISAA Review and, not least, through presentations to PANEL. SCHOLARSHIP OF THE FUTURE 137 the national Annual Conference and the subsequent publication of the Colin Steele (ACADEMIC PUBLISHING FUTURES) proceedings. In line with one of ISAA’s stated purposes, namely, the Roxanne Missingham & Heather Jenks ‘supporting knowledgeable dissent and independent opinion’, more active (THE LIBRARY OF THE FUTURE) participation in public debate in addition to the established outlets for Katherine Bode DIGITAL SCHOLARSHIP FUTURES ( ) expression is being advocated by a number of members, including panellists ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS 165 Gretchen Poiner, Doug Cocks and Mike Austin, who spoke on this lively and as yet unresolved matter. As demonstrated in this volume, the 2015 Conference speakers explore d the theme, ‘Celebrating Independent Thought’, in individual, group, national and international contexts, with the presenters themselves 1 John Pringle, Australian Accent, Chatto & Windus, London, 1958, p. 170. ISAA TWENTY YEARS ON 1 INTRODUCTION ELIZABETH MORRISON displaying incisive, critical, frequently dissenting thought. All ten papers Three essays focus, in socio-historical contexts, on independent ideas. presented are included here with minimal changes, preceded by summary Julie Marcus ventures into a sensitive area, propounding a view alternative notes of the (unrecorded) Conference Annual Lecture, ‘Independence and to received attitudes and thus exemplifying Disney’s injunction to be Integrity in the Public Domain’, delivered by Professor Julian Disney AO. ‘willing to disclose unwelcome facts and express unpopular views’. She His strong endorsement of contributions from scholars outside institutions outlines, in a historical context, infanticide as a crime, juxtaposes this with and industries accompanies his broad canvassing of multifarious threats to observations of pre-assimilation indigenous practices of infanticide that independence, serving to emphasise that it is not simply a given, passive she interprets and explains as socially responsible rather than barbaric, condition of ‘freedom from/freedom’ to but a stance requiring vigilant, presents cases in contemporary Australian society that call for compassion assertive integrity. rather than condemnation, and implies and argues for decriminalisation Four essays in this volume each deal with the life and achievements under Australian law today. of an independent individual—one man, three women. My ‘case study Glenn Burns takes a considered look at the Japanese people today, in the pluses and minuses of being independent’, looks at autocratic, through his sampling and surveying finding the opposite of independence innovating David Syme, chiefly responsible for making the Melbourne in expressed attitudes and behaviour—a subservience to authority that Age a leading daily newspaper of the British Empire. Patricia Clarke’s would equate with Disney’s warning about ‘blind adherence to dogma’, study of Flora Shaw, another nineteenth-century journalist, shows how and which, Burns argues, has inhibited economic and social progress. this female English roving correspondent for The Times of London (her Stephen Horn presents an independent, philosophically grounded, travels included Australian colonies), ‘broke through gender barriers to histor ical view of contemporary instability in the Middle East, relating gain financial independence and influence’. Another independent woman it to Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979, and discussing models of war and to challenge gender roles of the time, and suffer for it, was botanist Sarah peace that represent if not fully explain these events. Hynes, shown here by Christine Yeats to have made a valuable contribution Light-hearted by contrast, Bernadette Hince’s essay relates her exper- to botanical studies and have a ‘well earned place in the pantheon of late iences as an unauthorised and unfinanced (but ultimately successful) nineteenth and early twentieth century Australian feminists’. dictionary-maker, providing a window onto the life of one independent Moving to today’s world, Susan Steggall’s illustrated exposition scholar, and illustrating the isolation-versus-freedom duality. examines the ‘photographic scholarship’ of Catherine Rogers, showing her In the final essay by an independent scholar, Jim Windeyer explicitly powerful pictorial commentary to range ‘across environmental, social and defines his stance, independent of research support and family and aca- aesthetic concerns’ and reminding that Rogers has, for the past five years, demic constraints before embarking on a masterly critique of one segment produced singularly appropriate cover images for ISAA publications. of a presti gious, amply funded academic project. Under his scrutiny and A different take on feminism is provided by Ian Willis. Examining Red with modest understatement, glaring errors, small and large are exposed, Cross activities during World War I and acknowledging the important amounting to a dismal failure to measure up to several of Disney’s criteria contributions from the home front, he argues that while