2026-09-21T17:23:11Zhttps://opus.lib.uts.edu.au/oai/request

oai:opus.lib.uts.edu.au:10453/202312023-08-24T07:09:48Zcom_10453_19978col_10453_19979

Morris, Meaghan Elizabeth 2007-03-14T01:53:16Z 2012-12-15T03:52:53Z 2007-03-14T01:53:16Z 2012-12-15T03:52:53Z 1996 http://hdl.handle.net/10453/20231 As cultural studies has consolidated its claim to constitute a distinct field of study in recent years, debate has intensified about its characteristic objects, concepts and methods, if any, and, therefore, its relationship to traditional disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences. In History in Australian Popular Culture 1972-1995, I focus on an intersection of cultural studies with history. However, I do not debate the competing claims of 'history' and 'cultural studies' as academic projects. Rather, I examine the role played by historical discourse in popular cultural practices, and how those practices contest and modify public debate about history; I take 'historical discourse' to include argument about as well as representation of the past, and so to involve a rhetorical dimension of desire and suasive force that varies according to social contexts of usage. Therefore, in this thesis I do cultural studies empirically by asking what people say and do in the name of history in everyday contexts of work and leisure, and what is at stake in public as well as academic 'theoretical' discussion of the meaning and value of history for Australians today. Taking tourism and television ('public culture') as my major research fields, I argue that far from abolishing historical consciousness -- as the 'mass' dimension of popular culture is so often said to do -- these distinct but globally interlocking cultural industries have emerged in Australian conditions as major sites of historical contestation and pedagogy. Tourism and television are, of course, trans-national industries which impact on the living-space (and time) of local communities and blur the national boundaries so often taken to define the coherence of both 'history' and 'culture' in the modern period. I argue, however, that the historical import of these industries includes the use of the social and cultural spaces they make available by people seeking to publicise their own arguments with the past, their criticisms of the present, and their projects for the future; this usage is what I call 'popular culture', and it can include properly historical criticism of the power of tourism and television to disrupt or destroy a particular community's sense of its past. From this it follows that in this thesis I defend cultural studies as a practice which, far from participating in a 'death' or 'killing' of history, is capable of accounting in specific ways for the liveliness of historical debate in Australia today. Thesis (PhD) 276993 bytes 1358812 bytes 1136077 bytes 1078950 bytes 690232 bytes 1182299 bytes 1171715 bytes 1456580 bytes 1737713 bytes 1159269 bytes 1358512 bytes 668969 bytes 931905 bytes 1351259 bytes 669220 bytes 648134 bytes 1036890 bytes 816106 bytes 988151 bytes 1007024 bytes 1271128 bytes 1625459 bytes application/pdf en en_AU University of Technology, Sydney. Department of Writing & Contemporary Cultures https://opus.lib.uts.edu.au/bitstream/10453/20231/14794/02Whole.pdf http://hdl.handle.net/2100/310 The author owns the copyright in this thesis including all reproduction and reuse rights for the work. The work may not be altered without the permission of the copyright owner. Attribution is essential when quoting or paraphrasing from this thesis. au.edu.uts.lib/ppc info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess http://www.lib.uts.edu.au/disclaimer.html Copyright Meaghan Morris Popular culture. Australia. History. Civilization. 20th century. History in Australian popular culture : 1972-1995 Thesis open_access