NUMBER 8, 2017 » CHRIS ANDREWS » IEN ANG » PETER ANSTEY » JOY DAMOUSI » NICHOLAS EVANS » JOHN FITZGERALD » JANE LYDON » PETER McNEIL THE JOURNAL OF THE AUSTRALIAN ACADEMY OF THE HUMANITIES THE ACADEMY COUNCIL President John Fitzgerald Honorary Secretary Elizabeth Minchin Welcome Honorary Treasurer It is my pleasure to welcome you to the Richard Waterhouse eighth issue of the Australian Academy of the Vice-Presidents Elizabeth Minchin Humanities’ flagship publication, Humanities Ian Lilley Australia, edited by Emeritus Professors Editor Graham Tulloch Elizabeth Webby AM FAHA and Graham Tulloch International Secretary FAHA. This publication is one of the many ways Ian Lilley Immediate Past President in which our Academy supports excellence Lesley Johnson AM in the humanities and communicates their Ordinary Members value to the public. It showcases some of the Joy Damousi Bridget Griffen-Foley most exciting current work of humanities Jane Lydon Graham Oppy researchers throughout Australia. Graeme Turner For almost fifty years, the Academy has CONTACT DETAILS been dedicated to advancing scholarship and For further information about the Australian promoting understanding of the humanities Academy of the Humanities, contact us: across our education and research sectors, Email [email protected] and in the broader community. Founded Web by Royal Charter in 1969, the Academy now www.humanities.org.au Telephone comprises close to six hundred Fellows elected (+61 2) 6125 9860 on the basis of the excellence and impact EDITORIAL/PRODUCTION of their scholarship. Our Fellows have been Academy Editor recognised nationally and internationally Elizabeth Webby AM (2009–2016) Graham Tulloch (2016– ) for outstanding work in the disciplines of Designer archaeology, art, Asian and European studies, Gillian Cosgrove classical and modern literature, cultural and Printed by CanPrint, Canberra communication studies, language and linguistics, Cover illustration philosophy, musicology, history and religion. Detail, Ridiculous Taste or the Ladies Absurdity. Oil on canvas painted on the Humanities Australia draws on the ideas reverse of a possible signboard, 84 × 52 cm, and inspiration of its Fellows and others c. 1780. Kulturen, Lund, Sweden, KM 15580. in the community with an interest in the © 2017 Australian Academy of the Humanities and individual contributors humanities. It aims to demonstrate that an understanding of cultures and communities, ISSN 1837–8064 of how people experience the world and Funding for the production of this publication their place in it, have a major role to play in has been provided by the Australian Government through the Department of discussions about Australia and its future. Education. We hope you enjoy the selection of essays, The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department stories and poems presented here – a small taste of of Education or the Australian Academy of the the quality, range and depth of research currently Humanities. under way in the humanities in Australia. ¶ The illustrations and certain identified inclusions in the text are held under separate copyright and may not be reproduced in any form without the permission of the respective JOHN FITZGERALD FAHA copyright holders. Every reasonable effort President, Australian Academy has been made to contact relevant copyright of the Humanities, 2014– holders for illustrative material in this journal. Where this has not proved possible, the copyright holders are invited to contact the publisher. The Journal of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, 8 (2017) Humanities Australia ELIZABETH WEBBY & GRAHAM TULLOCH 04 Editors’ Introduction 06 CHRIS ANDREWS Pacific Rim 08 JOHN FITZGERALD Academic Freedom and the Contemporary University: Lessons from China IEN ANG 23 Smart Engagement with Asia 34 NICHOLAS EVANS Ngûrrahmalkwonawoniyan: Listening Here JANE LYDON 45 Empathy and the Myall Creek Massacre: Images, Humanitarianism and Empire PETER McNEIL 57 Macaroni Men and Eighteenth-Century Fashion Culture: ‘The Vulgar Tongue’ JOY DAMOUSI 72 Australian League of Nations Union and War Refugees: Internationalism and Humanitarianism, 1930–39 PETER ANSTEY 80 A Very Principled Project CHRIS ANDREWS 86 Two Bridges The Journal of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, 8 (2017) » ELIZABETH WEBBY & GRAHAM TULLOCH Once again it is a pleasure to welcome readers the knowledge that the liberties we enjoy in the to a new issue of Humanities Australia and a academy play an important role in the life of the sample of the outstanding research and writing community at large.’ being carried out by Australian humanities The second day of the symposium was largely scholars. While the contributors to this issue devoted to highlighting three interdisciplinary come from a broad range of the disciplines reports produced under the Academy’s auspices represented in the Academy, including linguistics, as part of the Securing Australia’s Future (SAF) philosophy, the arts, history and Asian studies, program, a multidisciplinary research initiative some common themes have emerged, especially of the Australian Council of Learned Academies in relation to questions of human rights, both in (ACOLA), funded by the Australian Research the past and today. Council (ARC). We include here Ien Ang’s outline Those who attended the Academy’s 2016 of the report produced by the expert working symposium, ‘Asia Australia: Transnational group she chaired, Smart Engagement with Connections’, at the State Library Victoria, Asia: Leveraging Language, Research and Culture greatly appreciated the annual Academy Lecture (2015). As she notes, this report ‘was a unique given by our current President, John Fitzgerald. opportunity for humanities scholars to work We present an expanded version of his lecture together with other researchers — scientists and here, under the title ‘Academic Freedom and social scientists — on a topic of crucial importance the Contemporary University: Lessons from for Australia’s future prosperity and security, China’. Fitzgerald draws attention to the Western allowing them to conduct evidence-based research concept of academic freedom, noting that this and generate interdisciplinary findings to support ‘sits uneasily alongside the immense resources policy development.’ The report focuses on three invested in contemporary universities charged areas — ‘languages and linguistic competencies, with driving innovation, industry, and business research and research collaboration, and cultural in highly competitive national and international diplomacy and relations’ — highlighting problems markets.’ As a leading scholar of contemporary in all of them that urgently need addressing. China, he stresses in particular the limitations If Australians know less than is desirable of placed on academic freedom in China, arguing Asian languages and cultures, their knowledge that this has implications for Australian of Australia’s indigenous languages and cultures (above) universities as their links with China increase. is even smaller. Nicholas Evans draws attention Academy Secretariat, In concluding, he reiterates our ‘need to talk to this in discussing his current ARC Australian Canberra, Australia. about values’: ‘We have a duty to speak out about Laureate Fellowship project, ‘The Wellsprings of PHOTO: AAH ARCHIVES contemporary risks to academic freedom, in Linguistic Diversity’. As he notes, over thousands 04 Humanities Australia The Journal of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, 8 (2017) of years our ‘indigenous cultures developed a Humanitarian issues return in Joy Damousi’s diverse mosaic of over three hundred languages’, essay, ‘Australian League of Nations Union but, today, these languages are ‘invisible and and War Refugees: Internationalism and inaudible in the public sphere’. His essay gives Humanitarianism, 1930–39’, which focuses on the an account of some of the links between activities of local branches of this Union, formed language, culture and country as well as showing to promote the values and aims of the League of how indigenous cultures were fascinated by Nations, in response to the growing number of language, as seen in the metalinguistic terms, international refugees. As she argues, members practices and products they developed. While aimed ‘to foster within Australia an international deploring the loss of so many indigenous and humanitarian outlook towards the plight languages since 1788, he is optimistic about of war refugees during the interwar years’. In the ways in which new technologies are aiding doing so, they put pressure on the Australian language recording and retrieval. government ‘to change its international policy For those colonising Australia, indigenous and accept more refugees from Europe’, pushing linguistic achievements were certainly invisible; it ‘into a sphere of independent international many saw Aboriginal peoples as no better diplomacy and relations — one less governed by than animals and treated them accordingly. Imperial interests — a move which was required if In ‘Empathy and the Myall Creek Massacre: a more open immigration policy was to develop.’ Images, Humanitarianism and Empire’, Jane In ‘A Very Principled Project’, philosopher Lydon discusses reports of this 1838 massacre, Peter Anstey takes us back to the early modern looking in particular at an engraving by ‘Phiz’, period, ‘the age of the Scientific Revolution ‘Australian Aborigines Slaughtered by Convicts’, and the Enlightenment’, a time