Cargoes of Women: The Undocumented
As I slowly trawl through the pages of the Scottish press, I now and then come across a humorous anecdote, a winking satire, or a ludicrous lampoon. For the most part, I have shared these as research notes. Yet, as my folio of absurdities grew, a curious trend began to manifest; the marriage and migration of British women appeared almost exclusive in satirical form. Accounts of the migration of men or family groups were occasionally the target of a mischievousness rub, but single women departing Britain were rarely discussed in a serious tone. As fortune would have it, this realisation...
Read MoreMusings on the Historical Evidence of Wife-Selling in 19th Century England
There are a variety of reasons why a historian might consider a primary source to be misleading. The author may have had a vested interest in portraying an event in a certain way, or may have been somehow impaired in his or her ability to observe or reflect upon the event. Likewise, the historian might misinterpret the choice of language or allusion within the piece because he or she comes to it with a very different set of experiences and expectations from those of the original author or audience. There is also the issue of satire. My current sub-project, as those of you who attended the...
Read MoreResearch Taxonomies; or, Things that from a long way off look like flies.
[Borges] quotes a ‘certain Chinese encyclopaedia’ in which it is written that ‘animals are divided into: (a) belonging to the Emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) sucking pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) inumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies.’ Preface to The Order of Things by Michel Foucault Several weeks ago, in the midst of AcWriMo, I decided that my filing...
Read MoreMr Geary, I Presume; or, Not All Bush Rangers go to Hades
Alexander Pearce, of whom I spoke last week, was not the only unredeemed convict to appear in the Australasian press. Indeed, in the early nineteenth century, a great many transported prisoners fled their labour placements, or places of imprisonment, to survive on the edge of civilisation. Some, though certainly not all, took to banditry as a means of substance; some were outright murderers. Australian bush-ranging had two heydays. The second, and better known, was in the 1870s, when Ned Kelly and his gang murdered several colonial officials and robbed a series of...
Read More‘When it comes to cannibalism, the best defence is a good offence’ and Other Tasteless Ways to Justify Murder
The act of cannibalism, often described by colonial commentators as the consumption of an enemy’s flesh, was often attributed to the inhabitants of Pacific islands. Although the validity of these claims have been frequently disputed, or heavily qualified, anthropologists such as Gananth Obeyesekere have posited that ‘statements about cannibalism reveal more about the relations between Europeans and Savages during early and late contact than, as ethnographic statements, about the nature of Savage anthropophagy.’ Instead, the British obsession with cannibalism, as he classifies it,...
Read MoreAcWriMo: Aims, Ideals and Challenges
November is writing month, whether its a novel, an academic book or that grant proposal you have been putting off because of mounting pressures from work, home and life in general. But, as my stack of half-completed articles now rivals my stack of completed articles, I have finally decided that 'enough is enough'. Originally, I had intended to use the NaNoWriMo platform to kick start my writing cycle. I was not writing a piece of fiction, but I was aiming for 50000 words, and the freebies offered to successful writers seemed rather enticing. Yet, fortuitously the academic twitter-verse...
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