Assoc Prof Christina Twomey - Researcher Profile

Christina Twomey

Address

School of Philosophical, Historical and International Studies
Faculty of Arts, Clayton

Contact Details

Tel: +61 3 990 52182

Email: Christina.Twomey@monash.edu


Biography

Stories of Australian identity more than just a matter of record

A war’s history is said to be written by its victors. But those stories are also framed by the dominant voices within that victorious nation. Associate Professor Christina Twomey’s detective work in Australia’s national archives is about uncovering what the wars of the 20th century have meant for our national identity over the decades and why stories of internees, prisoners of war and Anzacs rise and fall in the public consciousness.

When Christina first started delving into Australia’s archives from the two world wars, she was struck by how these histories marginalised the experiences of women and civilians. But the stories of civilian internees and prisoners of war seem to resurface and take on iconic status based on surrounding social movements, she says.

The stories of female internees, such as those depicted in the film Paradise Road, first emerged publicly during the 1970s. The idea of women forming a sisterhood in response to oppression appealed to the rising swell of feminism of that time.

Prisoners of war (POWs) received short shrift in the mid to late 1940s, following failed attempts by POW groups to obtain back-pay for time spent in camps.

“The government of the time didn’t want to highlight the experiences of prisoners of war. It was worried that, if POWs were valorised, soldiers in a future conflict might surrender too easily,” says Christina. But during the 1980s, in the wake of the peace movement inspired by the Vietnam War, the POWs became a much more palatable face of war. They were victims, not aggressors.

Christina also says there is nothing natural in how the Anzac story has been repositioned at the heart of Australian identity in the past decade. Anzac Day is now observed more widely than it was for much of the past century. The infamous Cronulla riots were accompanied by calls from ringleaders to defend the ‘Spirit of the Anzacs’.

“It’s a puzzle for scholars and historians,” says Christina. The 1960s and ’70s were characterised by a reaction against the Vietnam War. The 1980s brought an accompanying anti-nuclear movement. But from the late 1980s and in the 1990s, “war came back very strongly as one of the cornerstones of Australian national identity”.

One theory for the rise of the Anzac story is that the criticism of Indigenous activists in the 1980s made celebrating Australia Day, the anniversary of British settlement, more difficult. “It was more convenient for a smooth story if the birth of a nation was through an offshore war. Gallipoli has nothing to do with dispossession.”

She suggests other contributing factors could be the rise of Western interest in trauma, thanks to reality TV and programs such as the Oprah Winfrey Show. Australian identity is also at the heart of debates about multiculturalism, which have intermingled with concerns for national security arising post-September 11. This project has been funded through an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant and Christina expects to complete it in 2012.

More answers may emerge from her next major project, which is a collaboration with the ABC and the National Library and is also supported by ARC Linkage funding. She is gathering oral histories from Australians of all ages, focusing on themes such as place, faith and family. This project is expected to be completed in 2014 and will include publication of a book about generation change in Australia.
 
The realities of war are gruesome, but Christina values the human stories she discovers in her daily work. “I like having that sense of connection to the past and using my historical imagination to analyse it and convey it back to contemporary audiences.”

Keywords

Australian cultural and social history, and 20th century Australian history, gender and welfare, humanitarianism, cultural and social history of war, photography of atrocity, war and Australian society, internment and detention, Pacific War, prisoners of war

Qualifications

GRADUATE CERTIFICATE IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Institution: Monash University
Year awarded: 2006
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Institution: University of Melbourne
Year awarded: 1996

Publications

Books

Peel, M., Twomey, C., 2011, A History of Australia, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke UK.

Twomey, C.L., 2007, Australia's Forgotten Prisoners: Civilians Interned by the Japanese in World War Two, Cambridge University Press, Port Melbourne Vic Australia.

Twomey, C.L., 2002, Deserted and Destitute: Motherhood, Wife Desertion and Colonial Welfare, Australian Scholarly Publishing Pty Ltd, Kew Vic Australia.

Book Chapters

Twomey, C.L., 2012, Severed hands: Authenticating atrocity in the Congo, 1904-13, in Picturing Atrocity: Photography in Crisis, eds Geoffrey Batchen, Mick Gidley, Nancy K. Miller and Jay Prosser, Reaktion Books, London, United Kingdom, pp. 39-50.

Twomey, C., 2011, Atrocity narratives and inter-imperial rivalry: Britain, Germany and the treatment of 'native races', 1904-1939, in Evil, Barbarism and Empire: Britain and Abroad, c. 1830-2000, eds Tom Crook, Rebecca Gill and Bertrand Taithe, Palgrave Macmillan, Houndmills Basingstoke Hampshire UK, pp. 201-225.

Twomey, C., 2011, Wounded minds: testifying to traumatic events in Ireland and Australia, in Exhuming Passions: The Pressure of the Past in Ireland and Australia, eds Katie Holmes and Stuart Ward, Irish Academic Press, Dublin Ireland, pp. 37-50.

Twomey, C., 2010, Double displacement: Western women's return home from Japanese internment in the Second World War, in Homes and Homecomings: Gendered Histories of Domesticity and Return, eds K.H. Adler and Carrie Hamilton, Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester West Sussex UK, pp. 216-230.

Twomey, C.L., 2008, Remembering war and forgetting civilians: The place of civilian internees in Australian commemorations of the Pacific War, in Forgotten Captives in Japanese Occupied Asia, eds Kevin Blackburn and Karl Hack, Routledge, New York, pp. 210-223.

Twomey, C.L., 2005, Retaining integrity? Sex, race and gender in narratives of Western women detained by the Japanese in World War II, in Prisoners of war, prisoners of peace, eds Bob Moore and Barbara Hately-Broad, Berg Publishers, Oxford UK, pp. 175-184.

Twomey, C.L., 2003, 'Impossible history': trauma and testimony among Australian civilians interned by the Japanese in World War II, in History on the Couch: Essays in History and Psychoanalysis, eds Joy Damousi and Robert Reynolds, Melbourne University Press, Carlton Vic Australia, pp. 155-165.

Twomey, C.L., 2002, Vagrancy, indolence and ignorance: race, class and the idea of civilization in the era of Aboriginal 'protection', Port Phillip 1835-49, in Writing colonial histories: comparative perspectives, eds Tracey Banivanua Mar and Julie Evans, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Vic Australia, pp. 93-113.

Journal Articles

Twomey, C.L., May, A.J., 2012, Australian responses to the Indian famine, 1876-78: sympathy, photography and the British empire, Australian Historical Studies [P], vol 43, issue 2, Routledge, Australia, pp. 233-252.

Twomey, C.L., 2012, Framing atrocity: photography and humanitarianism, History of Photography [P], vol 36, issue 3, Routledge, United Kingdom, pp. 255-264.

Twomey, C.L., 2012, The national service scheme: citizenship and the tradition of compulsory military service in 1960s Australia, Australian Journal of Politics and History [E], vol 58, issue 1, Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Asia, United Kingdom, pp. 67-81.

Twomey, C.L., 2009, Double displacement: Western women's return home from Japanese internment in the Second World War, Gender and History [P], vol 21, issue 3, Blackwell, Oxford UK, pp. 670-684.

Twomey, C.L., 2007, "In the front line"?: Internment and citizenship entitlements in the second world war, Australian Journal of Politics and History, vol 53, issue 2, Blackwell Publishing, Carlton, Australia, pp. 194-206.

Twomey, C.L., 2007, Emaciation of emasculation: Photographic images, white masculinity and captivity by the Japanese in WW2, The Journal of Men's Studies, vol 15, issue 3, Men's Studies Press LLC, Harriman, USA, pp. 295-310.

Peel, M.A., Caine, B., Twomey, C.L., 2007, Masculinity, emotion and subjectivity: Introduction, The Journal of Men's Studies, vol 15, issue 3, Men's Studies Press LLC, Harriman, USA, pp. 247-250.

Maher, J., Lindsay, J.M., Peel, V.M., Twomey, C.L., 2006, Peer mentoring as an academic resource: or 'my friend says...', Australian Universities Review, vol 48, issue 2, National Tertiary Education Union, South Melbourne Vic Australia, pp. 26-29.

Twomey, C.L., 2006, Problems in paradise: gender, race and historical 'truth' in Paradise Road, Journal of Interdisciplinary Gender Studies, vol 10, issue 1, University of Newcastle, Ourimbah NSW Australia, pp. 30-52.

Twomey, C.L., 2006, Revisiting A Town Like Alice, Australian Feminist Studies, vol 21, issue 49, Routledge Journals, UK, pp. 85-101.

Twomey, C.L., 2004, Australian Nurse POWs: gender, war and captivity, Australian Historical Studies, vol 36, issue 124, University of Melbourne, Melbourne Vic Australia, pp. 255-274.

Conference Proceedings

Twomey, C.L., 2009, Bearing witness: Modes of testimony among civilian internees of the Japanese, When the Soldiers Return: November 2007 Conference Proceedings, 28 November 2007 to 30 November 2007, School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics , University of Queensland, Brisbane Qld Australia, pp. 34-40.

Twomey, C.L., 2005, The limits of sympathy: Australian civilians interned by the Japanese in World War II, Margaret George Award Public Lecture, 06/04/-06/04/2005, National Archives of Australia, www.naa.gov.au/about_us/christinatwomey.html, pp. 1-15.

Postgraduate Research Supervisions

Current Supervision

Program of Study:
(DOCTORATE BY RESEARCH).
Thesis Title:
A History of Australian Fatherhood, 1918-1960..
Supervisors:
Twomey, C (Main), Hau, M (Associate), Peel, M (Associate).
Program of Study:
(DOCTORATE BY RESEARCH).
Thesis Title:
Looking inside the lives of Australian Women: 1950-2000..
Supervisors:
Twomey, C (Main), Attwood, B (Associate).
Program of Study:
(DOCTORATE BY RESEARCH).
Thesis Title:
Made in Melbourne: The Rise and Fall of the Domestic Appliance Industry in Twenthieth-Century Melbourne.
Supervisors:
O''Hanlon, S (Main), Twomey, C (Associate).
Program of Study:
(DOCTORATE BY RESEARCH).
Thesis Title:
THE REPRESENTATION OF DELINQUINT WOMEN IN LATE VICTORIAN TO EARLY MODERN WESTERN CULTURES.
Supervisors:
Twomey, C (Main), Maher, J (Associate).
Program of Study:
(MASTER'S BY RESEARCH).
Thesis Title:
The Australian Natives' Association and the Invention of Australia Day.
Supervisors:
Attwood, B (Joint), Twomey, C (Joint-co).
Program of Study:
(MASTER'S BY RESEARCH).
Thesis Title:
Women and childbirth in Australia from the 1900s to today..
Supervisors:
Caine, B (Main), Twomey, C (Associate).

Completed Supervision

Student:
Collier, L.
Program of Study:
'Sisters of Mercy' - the needlewomen of the culloden. (Masters) 2011.
Supervisors:
Twomey, C (Main), Attwood, B (Associate).
Student:
Dammery, S.
Program of Study:
First blood: a cultural study of menarche. (PHD) 2011.
Supervisors:
Caine, B (Main), Twomey, C (Associate).
Student:
Grant, L.
Program of Study:
Mateship, Memory and the Australian Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial. (Masters) 2005.
Supervisors:
Twomey, C (Main), Peel, M (Associate).
Student:
Grant, L.
Program of Study:
The AIF in Asia and the Pacific 1941-1945: a reorientation in attitudes toward Asia, empire and nation. (PHD) 2010.
Supervisors:
Twomey, C (Main), Copland, I (Associate).
Student:
Sleight, S.
Program of Study:
The territories of youth: young people and public space in Melbourne, c. 1870-1901. (PHD) 2008.
Supervisors:
Davison, G (Joint-Co), Twomey, C (Joint).
Student:
Stylianou, M.
Program of Study:
Combating 'Ignorance... the greatest enemy of health': health education in Australia, 1945-1981. (PHD) 2010.
Supervisors:
Twomey, C (Main), Hau, M (Associate).
Student:
Wilson, J.
Program of Study:
Public history and the Australian prison museum an investigation of social memory and the 'other'. (PHD) 2006.
Supervisors:
Quartly, M (Main), Twomey, C (Associate).