Suchergebnisse

Australian history has generated intense political and historiographical interest in recent years, as historians, politicians and public commentators weighed into captivating and divisive contests over the nation's past. Commemorations, museums and school syllabuses became sites of great public interest and contestation, powerful reminders of the politics of collective memory. While such discussions continue to stimulate argument and analysis in scholarly articles, opinion pieces and public commentary, little is known of their impact on the wider community. What do so-called "ordinary Australians" think about the nation's past? Are the historical questions it raises also debated in our sports clubs, living rooms and community centre kitchenettes? Does that historical concern reach out beyond opinion pages or academic journals, and across the garden fences that Tom Griffiths wrote about in relation to historical practice?

Today, concern about population displacement triggered by climate change is prompting some sovereign states to tighten security measures, as well as inciting ethically and politically motivated calls to relax border controls. This paper explores resonances between the current climate predicament and events in the mid-Holocene. Paleoclimatic and archaeological evidence is reviewed, suggesting that an abrupt turn to cooler, drier weather in the 4th millennium BCE triggered high volume migration to fertile river valleys&mdash ; most fully documented in Mesopotamia but also visible in other regions around the world. This unprecedented agglomeration of bodies has been linked to the emergence of intensive irrigated agriculture and the rise of city-states. In conversation with the ancient Sumerian Gilgamesh epic, this paper draws upon archaeological research to conceptualize urban wall building and emergent practices of graphical notation as different forms of mediation. Both city walls and early writing, it is argued, deal with the interplay of mobilism and sedentarism, and both &lsquo ; media&rsquo ; entail tactile, plastic use of local materials&mdash ; namely riverbank clay. This paper addresses the paradox that the underpinning of &lsquo ; civilization&rsquo ; by these once experimental media may now be fundamentally restricting socio-political, cultural, cognitive and embodied capacities to engage effectively with climate-driven upheaval.