![\"Lisa](\"http:\/\/stumblingpast.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/07\/dscn9784-lisa-murray.jpg\")
<\/a>“I am a strumpet for history” declared the first speaker, Dr Lisa Murray.<\/a> She opened her jacket for all to see her \u2018strumpet\u2019 t-shirt. \u201cI wore it just for you today\u201d she confided to laughs from the audience.<\/p>\n Yet Murray was making a serious point.\u00a0 Reaching out to a wider audience is her professional goal as a public historian working for the City of Sydney Council. Her audience also includes fellow council workers.\u00a0 By wearing this t-shirt occasionally to work she elicits questions from other Council employees which leads to discussions about her historical work.<\/p>\n Murray said that merely stating that \u2018everyone\u2019 was the audience for historians is simplistic.\u00a0 Historians need to think deeper about exactly who they are trying to reach with every historical project they are working on.\u00a0 The City of Sydney Council history unit<\/a> chooses different publication media according to which audience they are trying to reach.\u00a0 This may be a website such as that used by the Dictionary of Sydney<\/a> and City of Sydney Oral History<\/a>.\u00a0 It may be a YouTube video such as A History of Sydney Streets<\/a>.\u00a0 Or it may be using Facebook <\/a>to share historical photos and participating in popular online activities such as \u2018Throwback Thursday<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n The same message was delivered in the same week by Professor of Media and Communications, Deb Verhoeven, at a conference on the other side of the country. Jo Hawkins reports<\/a> that Verhoeven told researchers in Perth, \u201cwe are not communicating to a homogenous group of people called \u201cthe public\u201d\u201d.\u00a0 It is encouraging to see that this conversation is taking place in a number of forums.<\/p>\n Each of the speakers has successfully connected with audiences outside of academia.\u00a0 They have done this through creative use of a wide range of media and forms.\u00a0 Sandra Pires<\/a> is a documentary film-maker and shared her passion for relating local stories and exploring what they meant for developing community mindedness.\u00a0 She said there was an untapped demand for local stories and explained that telling someone\u2019s story is a gift which people appreciate.<\/p>\n Pires works with ordinary people who are passionate about history.\u00a0 She explained that people are researching and relating historical stories themselves citing the Facebook page, Lost Wollongong<\/a>, with over six thousand members, as just one example.\u00a0 \u00a0She sees the role of the historian is to help people tell their historical stories effectively.<\/p>\n Sandra Pires is reliant on funding for her films, however, most television networks are nationally based and she found it difficult to get funding for one local history project because they said it did not have enough national appeal.\u00a0 However, she believed in her project and raised funds locally.\u00a0 Her documentary, \u2018Beneath Black Skies<\/a>\u2019, turned out to have enough broad appeal for History Channel to buy it. She shared an excerpt of another successful documentary that she has produced – \u2018My Backyard, Your Backyard<\/a>\u2019 about Italian backyard gardeners as well as a sneak preview of her current project, \u00a0\u2018Pigiron Bob<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n Academic historians in Australia do not confine themselves to writing academic books. Graeme Davison<\/a>, Emeritus Professor of History at Monash University, is a good example of this.\u00a0 Davison writes scripts for documentaries as well as writing books. He has advised museums as well as delivering lectures. There are not many historical arguments that can\u2019t be explained in intelligible language Davison told us.\u00a0 I gave a hearty, but silent cheer on hearing this comment. I liked the fact that Davison assumes that there is an audience of people outside academia that are interested in history and can intelligently engage with the thoughts shared by historians.<\/p>\n Yet Davison cautioned that historians should not simply focus on improving their prose in order to connect with audiences outside academia.\u00a0 He reminded us that print media and publishing are facing problems generally which is affecting sales of all books including histories.\u00a0 However, he remained upbeat about the influence of books. Sales numbers don\u2019t reflect the effect of the book he observed.\u00a0 \u201cA book published is a seed that can grow\u201d, even when it goes out of print due to the effect of things such as library circulation.<\/p>\n It was abundantly clear from the plenary that the book and journal article are just one form of history and that historians need to also use other forms to communicate history.\u00a0 This requires a change to traditional work practices.\u00a0 Collaboration in documentaries and museums is hard for a profession that values individual authorship observed Davison.<\/p>\n Lecturer in US politics, Michael Ondaatjie<\/a>, focussed on the work historians need to do to engage a broad, mass audience.\u00a0 He drew on his experience as a television commentator about US politics. He observed that while historians regard their role as to revise our received notions of history, people outside the profession can review such revision with suspicion.\u00a0 The reason historians are revising older accounts of history is because they excluded marginalised groups such as women, indigenous people, the working classes, non-English speaking people.\u00a0 This confronts some people.<\/p>\n We can\u2019t claim to provide \u201call the answers\u201d to issues, remarked Ondaatjie.\u00a0 History offers many cautions, but not lessons. It does not provide a roadmap.\u00a0 However, history is powerful.\u00a0 Politicians simplify and mislead.\u00a0 Many of the \u2018lessons\u2019 they talk about are based on a selective depiction of history. Where a history is popular and contested historians have an important public role. Later he noted that public debates such as those prompted by history depicted in films provide an ideal opportunity for historians to provide useful comment and to be heard.<\/p>\n There are plenty of examples of historians reaching out to a broader audience but Ondaatjie observed that universities deter such involvement.\u00a0 Much has been written about how academics are required by universities to write academic books and academic journals in order to continue their employment, be promoted or secure another academic position.\u00a0 The teaching and research workload of academics is intense and thus communicating with people outside academia can be the area that suffers.<\/p>\n You know that a conference session has been successful in encouraging the audience to think by the quality of questions and observations from the audience.\u00a0 There were many.\u00a0 I\u2019ll share just a couple of the comments.<\/p>\n Associate Professor Richard White<\/a> from the University of Sydney said he was struck by the use of humour by most of the speakers when talking about history \u2013 Lisa Murray\u2019s ‘strumpet’ t-shirt being a good example.\u00a0 He said that he finds history entertaining.\u00a0 You may find it hard to believe but the Hansard records of the debates concerning Queensland\u2019s Bible in State Schools referendum of 1910 kept me amused for hours.\u00a0 (I must write about that).<\/p>\n The other comment that struck a chord with me was that of the convenor of the conference the Dragon Tails conference<\/a> about Chinese\/Australian history which preceded the Australian Historical Association conference.\u00a0 Paul Macgregor noted that the Dragon Tails conference engages family historians, academic historians and independent scholars working outside universities.\u00a0 This is an interesting model of collaboration between various groups who love learning and sharing history.<\/p>\n This plenary was one of the highlights of the conference for me.\u00a0 While we may complain that historians are not doing enough to engage with non-academic audiences, there were many examples in this plenary of historians doing good work in this area and branching out of traditional academic modes of sharing history.\u00a0 On reflection I have not shared enough of these types of histories on this blog.\u00a0 I\u2019ll try to share these forms of histories with you in coming months.<\/p>\n It bodes well for history in Australia that the Australian Historical Association has chosen to tackle the issue of engaging with broader audiences at both the 2012 and 2013 conferences.\u00a0 They are taking a lead in discussing this issue and I hope this will continue at the 2014 conference.<\/p>\n There are many Australian historians interested in the engaging with wider audiences.\u00a0 The Macquarie University and the History Council of New South Wales are holding, Presenting the Past: A Symposium on History and the Media<\/a>.\u00a0 It is described as a \u201chands-on\u201d event bringing together historians and media professionals to \u201cshare ideas, skills and visions for the future\u201d.\u00a0 I am looking forward to it both as a participant and as part of a panel on social and digital media.\u00a0 It will be held on 10th<\/sup> and 11th<\/sup> September in Sydney.\u00a0 You can book here<\/a>.\u00a0 I look forward to seeing some of you there!<\/p>\n As I explained earlier these posts from the Australian Historical Association conference are my impressions and reflections of the sessions I attended rather than a complete report. I recommend that you read Rosemary Kerr’s post about this session in order to hear a different perspective. \u00a0It can be read on the blog of the Professional Historians’ Association of NSW<\/a>.<\/p>\n Janine Rizzetti did a great job of blogging the Australian Historical Association conference. Read her posts on her blog, The Resident Judge of Port Phillip<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>Some Other Perspectives…<\/h2>\n