Transnational History Symposium

Conveners: Professor Ann Curthoys, History, Arts, ANU, and Professor Marilyn Lake, History, La Trobe University

Venue: HRC, Old Canberra House, ANU

Dates: 8-10 October 2004

The aims of the conference were to investigate the potential of transnational history to develop new approaches to the study of the past. This aim arose in the context of the growing reaction by historians against the national constraints within which the discipline, notably in modern history, has generally operated. The question many historians now ask is: has history as handmaiden to the nation-state distorted our understanding of the past? In considering transnational history and its possibilities, our aim was both theoretical and practical. On the theoretical side we wished to consider the claims of ‘post-colonial’, ‘cosmopolitan’, and other theoretical frameworks to illuminate historical analysis, while in practical terms, we wanted the symposium to explore ways to develop forms of scholarly and public communication that welcome and enhance transnational approaches. We particularly set out to focus on ways in which expertise in 'Australian history' can contribute to and benefit from transnational histories.

The conference involved 21 speakers. A total of 60 registered, including 14 postgraduate students. We opened the proceedings with welcome drinks and the conference dinner, which about 30 attended, and both were most lively occasions that helped to break the ice for the proceedings to follow.

The conference was divided into eight sessions. The first, Why Trans-National? Gains and Losses introduced many of the concerns that informed the next two days. Pierre-Yves Saunier discussed the emerging trend to transnational history, describing it as an ‘enthusiasm’ rather than a field, and warning against the development of just another sub-specialism in history. Marilyn Lake described her own move from a national to a more transnational approach to Australian history, and illustrated the ways in which a transnational approach helps us think about ‘white men’s countries’ in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

As chair of the second session, on two recent important historical texts, Ian Tyrrell provided some contextual information on the rise of interest in the idea of transnational history in the US. Angela Woollacott discussed Catherine Hall’s Civilizing Subjects as an example of postcolonial history while Tony Ballantyne used his discussion of C.A. Bayly's The Birth of the Modern World to clarify some of the distinctions between transnational, global, and world history. He usefully pointed out how easily world history can become a new form of economic history, and drew attention to Bayly’s innovations and distinctiveness as a world historian.

The third session considered The Rise of the Oceans in Historiography. Laurence Brown focused on the career of Arthur Gordon, a colonial administrator who moved around the British Empire to show how indentured migration policies and practices in one part of the Empire influenced those in another. Cassandra Pybus spoke about her work on the connections between slavery, the migration of runaway slaves to Canada and England, and the convict trade to Australia. She also indicated the ways in which Australian history can be enhanced by knowledge of seafaring culture. Emma Christopher also drew out the connections between the slave trade and convict transportation, with a focus on the appalling death rate on the Second Fleet. Michael McDonnell concluded the session with a discussion of the Anglo and North American centrism of Atlantic World scholarship, and the difficulties of developing a truly Atlantic World scholarship.

We then turned from oceans to migration. The theme of the session entitled Migrations: Living Here and There was the ways in which family and other identities are maintained transnationally. John Fitzgerald spoke about the role of Chinese-Australasian Kuomintang between 1923-1937, showing how important the Chinese Australians were in the KMT. Amanda Rasmussen showed the ways in which Chinese-Australian families maintained their links with family in China and indeed with relatives worldwide, in England, Canada, and Vietnam. Jim Hammerton discussed the migration of British people to Australia in the years between the Second World War and the late 1960s, and the ways these British migrants both became Australian and maintained strong British family ties.

After drinks, conference participants scattered, some to restaurants, others to private homes, to watch the results of the national election.

The second day of the conference saw sessions on modernity, the emotions, political movements, and publishing. In the session on Modernity and Trans-National Life, Desley Deacon discussed the ideas expressed at Paramount about film as a transnational vernacular that could help the peoples of the world understand one another, and the concomitant idea that film could act as a force for world peace. Jill Matthews showed how national historiographies have been unable to capture the multi-continental career of JD Williams, an early film distributor and entrepreneur, and went on to ask what kind of audience there might be for a history of that career. Her suggestion was that cultural nationalism makes film history and criticism still unreceptive to a transnational approach. Margaret Allen considered the mobility of modernity in a different sense, when she discussion the work of Australian women missionaries in India, seeing their role in India as quite different from anything they could have envisaged in Australia: their mobility, she argued, across national, race, and other barriers made them ‘modern’.

In the session ‘Are emotions trans-national?’ a somewhat different set of oppositions emerged. Where the other sessions had been considering the tension between national and transnational approaches, the study of the history of emotions has tended to be divided between those who see emotions as universal and those who see them as culturally and historically specific. Joanna Bourke considered these debates in terms of the history of fear, or at least ideas about fear; Hsu-Ming Teo in relation to notions of romantic love, and Joy Damousi in relation to ‘football melancholia’. All three papers showed the complexity of the growing field of the history of emotions.

n a session Political Movements, John Maynard discussed the ways in which his study of the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association of the 1920s led him to consider the influences of Marcus Garvey and his Universal Negro Improvement Association on the Australian movement, through black seamen encountering Aboriginal waterside workers and other labourers during visits to Sydney. Ann Curthoys spoke about her attempts to study the American influences on the Australian Freedom Ride of 1965, and her own changes in thinking about the relation between national and transnational historical scholarship.

In the final session, on Publishing, an issue that had emerged frequently throughout the previous two days - the question of national and international audiences for history - was addressed in very practical ways. Liz Conor and Georgine Clarsens spoke of their successful attempts to publish transnational histories including Australian material with American academic publishers, while Pierre-Yves Saunier outlined the plans he and Akira Iriye (of Harvard University History Department) have for their forthcoming Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History. Discussion focused on the question of local and American publishing, the difference between book publishing and scholarly journals, and much else. Many people contributed their experiences and ideas to this final session, which young scholars in particular found very useful.

To conclude, the conference was helpful for many of the participants in helping us define just what ‘transnational history’ is and is not, especially for those working in an Australian context and/or working on Australian history materials. It is, as Saunier said in his introductory talk, the study of histories that cannot be confined within national borders, histories that operate between, across, and around national distinctions. It became clear through the conference that it is an idea that has very specific applications. It is of special interest to those involved in modern history, where the nation has been such an important organizing principle, both intellectually and pedagogically. The difficulty the speakers had in the ‘Emotions’ session in making the ‘transnational’ idea truly work for their material highlighted this issue; these were all excellent papers, but the dynamic underlying their work was more universal-particular than national-transnational, and these two dichotomies are not the same. It was the conference discussion itself that helped make these points clear. Another distinction that became clearer as a result of the conference was that between transnational and world or global history. The former tends to adopt a conceptual framework of networks and connections, of influences and reactions, while the field of world and global history seeks more holistic, and often economic, accounts of the history of the world.

Many participants commented on the high quality of the papers. This was, we think, a result of historiographical reflexivity, contributors’ willingness to reflect on past practice and current projects, and their demonstration of the new insights that a transnational perspective can give. While discussion of transnational history has been going on for some time in the US, and the fields of world history, empire history and postcolonial history have all made gains in recent years, this was the first time transnational history had been discussed in any detail as such at a conference of historians in Australia. Our sub theme, on ways in which expertise in 'Australian history' can contribute to and benefit from transnational histories, was especially successfully developed.

The papers were written especially for this conference. None had been accepted for publication prior to this conference. Given the high standard of the papers, and the enormous enthusiasm the conference itself generated, the convenors have agreed to prepare a book proposal for a mainstream academic publisher. At the time of writing we are preparing the proposal for ANU EPress.

Administrative Aspects

Venue
The conference was held at the Humanities Research Centre in Old Canberra House. It proved to be an ideal venue for a conference of this size.

Organisational
Leena Messina, of the HRC, provided organizational assistance with great efficiency. Everything ran smoothly.

Catering
Catering for lunches and morning and afternoon teas was provided by University House. We Centre also provided two receptions, on the Friday and Saturday early evenings.

Registration
There were sixty-six registrants, of whom 14 were postgraduate students.

Publicity was provided both by the HRC in the form of its website and through email publicity, and also by the NIHCA (Suzanne Knight), who produced the poster and provided email publicity.

Accommodation
Accommodation for speakers and participants was booked at University House. Many speakers and conference participants appear to have chosen other accommodation, as only five of the 20 pre-booked rooms were ultimately used by conference participants.

Travel
There were three fully-funded international guests. The HRC funded Dr Pierre-Yves Saunier (from Lyons, France); while NIHCA and La Trobe jointly funded Professor Joanna Bourke (Birkbeck College, University of London) and Dr Tony Ballantyne (University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand). As well NIHCA/La Trobe supported the following local participants: Jim Hammerton, Amanda Rasmussen, and Corinne Manning from La Trobe University, and Michael McDonnell from the University of Sydney.

Financial Arrangements
The speakers were funded as noted above, under ‘Travel’.
NIHCA and La Trobe paid (or have agreed to pay) for speakers’ lunches and morning and afternoon teas, two receptions on the Friday and Saturday evenings, conference folders, advertising posters, and cleaning.
The HRC provided the venue and Leena Messina’s services.