New book – The Work of History: Writing for Stuart Macintyre

Stuart Macintyre was an eminent figure within the world of Australian history scholarship for 45 years. This collection of essays and responses revisits and extends this extraordinary life of achievement and engagement. Leading scholars write here of Macintyre’s contribution to understanding radicalism and communism, postwar reconstruction, education and civics, universities, liberalism, historiography and the history wars. They also tell us about collegiality and friendship.

The Carnival is Over

by Howard Prosser

“Carnivals in History” (1981) is the only article Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie published in Thesis Eleven. The piece’s appearance, then and now, arguably says more about the journal than it does the esteemed historian. Having him appear in its early pages was a coup for the new publication. Other big names followed. And, mercifully, some lesser ones. To include his piece in the Top 40 offers a marker of the journal’s prestige as well as the persistence of critical thought among its many pages.
 

New book: The barber who read history

scholars to look outside the universities for their field of writing/publication/action; they define radical history and discuss the work of some of its past and present practitioners; they show that labour history grew out of intellectuals within the labour movement, and argue that labour history should re-invent itself as working class history; and they provide examples of their recent ‘radical history’ work

New Book: History and the Present

History of the Present describes the emergence of this ‘contemporary’ historical consciousness across a wide spectrum of cultural phenomena ranging from historiography to heritage and museum studies, and from the globalization of the novel to the rise of science fiction.

Culture in ‘Isolation’

by Donald Sassoon

Consuming culture in almost complete isolation has been possible for years but under the conditions of the current pandemic we are encouraged and even obliged to do so.

Viral histories: thinking in a pandemic

by Dilip M Menon

Covid-19 has made us reflect on the human condition, the connection with unknown others, in our own societies as much as elsewhere. From Wuhan to Washington, from Johannisholm to Johannesburg, the virus laughs at national borders and travels through human hosts. Virality is however, trumped by nationality as nations put into place more and more restrictions on travel and movement and the body remains marked as ever by colour, class and caste.

Agnes Heller (1929-2019): A Personal-Philosophical Memoir

I remember it clearly, as if it was yesterday, the day I first met Ágnes Heller. It was early in 1980 on the ground floor of La Trobe University’s Social Sciences building. I had an appointment with her. I had come to ask her if she would supervise my PhD. I had read an article she had published in Telos journal on ethics, and I felt a strong affinity with it. I brought with me my Honours thesis on Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. As I got to her office she appeared—both of us characteristically on time. My first impression: a short woman with penetrating deeply intelligent eyes. My lasting impression: she appeared with slightly damp hair and a towel around her shoulders. She’d been swimming in the university pool, one of her life-long favourite activities.

Radio: Cooking for assimilation

Thesis Eleven editor Sian Supski features in this fascinating episode of The History Listen on RN that explores Evi Balint’s story of migration through the lens of recipe books, cooking and the kitchen radio.

Issue 116, June 2013

Theo-Philosophical Reflections on History This special issue of Thesis Eleven examines the relationships between history, philosophy, theology and politics. The authors reopen a debate that centers on the questions of secularization – the historical roots of modernity in religious thought and structures – and of historicity – the evolving, sublating embodiment of that history in…