The larrikin subject: hegemony and subjectivity in late nineteenth century Sydney

2009

Postcolonial Studies Vol 15, 2012

The male larrikin, or street rowdy, is a common figure in late-colonial Australian history. His female counterpart is much harder to find. Rather than presenting us with images of female larrikins, many commentators tell us that the closest equivalent to the male larrikin was the prostitute, or that adolescent girls only participated in the larrikin subculture as ‘donahs’ (meaning ‘moll’ or ‘girlfriend’). These commentators mostly reach this conclusion from reading the Bulletin and the fictional work of its contributors. This over-reliance on the Bulletin is problematic because its images of the larrikin and ‘donah’ in the 1890s were heavily influenced by Cockney vaudeville routines. In this article, I offer alternative evidence to show that there were adolescent Australian girls who acted as larrikins in their own right rather than simply as girlfriends or sexual conveniences to the boys. These girls held prize fights, got drunk on street corners, participated in attacks on police and in rare cases even formed members of pushes – all activities considered to be hallmarks of larrikinism in Australia at the time. I also suggest that these girls' relationships with each other were more significant to them than their relationships with male larrikins. It is thus time to set aside the image of the ‘donah’ in favour of the brazen larrikin girl among her female friends.

First published in Miles Taylor and Michael Wolff, editors, The Victorians since 1901: Histories, Representations and Revisions (New York: Manchester University Press, 2004) pp. 201-214.

The Year's Work in English Studies, 2012

This chapter has five sections: 1. Cultural Studies and Prose; 2. The Novel; 3. Poetry; 4. Drama; 5. Periodicals and Publishing History. Sections 1 and 2 are by William Baker; section 3 is by Gregory Tate and Martin Dubois; section 4 is by Alexis Easley; section 5 is by David Finkelstein.

Church History, 2013

Victorian culture was dominated by an ever-expanding world of print. A tremendous increase in the volume of books, newspapers and periodicals was matched by a corresponding development of the first mass reading public. This reference set provides a composite picture of this expansion. Its aim is to gather together material rare or otherwise available only in disparate sources so as to facilitate a new understanding of the ways print media operated. Hitherto it is the book that has dominated the study of the nineteenth century; recently, though, there has been increasing awareness of its interconnectedness with what has been regarded as more ephemeral forms, periodicals and magazines. But we expand this still further to include the production, distribution and consumption of advertisements in newspapers and the East End ‘Poetry of Seven Dials’ to illustrations in expensive annuals and the working conditions of journalists. We accordingly provide here a resource for students both of literature and of media history: indeed we see the two as conjoined.

2019

PhD Thesis, Department of English, University of Sydney Awarded the Eva Veronika Vidak Memorial Prize

The La Trobe Journal, 2008

In his preface to the Guide to the Intercolonial Exhibition of 1866, the exhibition's commissioner John George Knight concludes by underlining the event's principal significance as a showcase for colonial commercial and industrial achievement: The great aim of an Exhibition is to give the fullest possible notoriety to new manufactures and processes, and bring the manufacturer and inventor more closely into contact with the merchant, speculator, and capitalist; and, by this most practical method of advertising, to enlarge the basis of trade. 1 Given this avowedly mercantile and progressivist vision-a vision borne out by the numerous displays of colonial manufacture-it might seem something of a surprise to us today to learn that one of the Exhibition's most arresting exhibits was a Mediaeval Court. Nor would our surprise be anachronistic. The incongruity of the Court was not lost on the exhibition's earliest commentators either, among them the reporter for the Australian News for Home Readers, who commented: One would scarcely expect to find a Mediaeval Court in an exhibition of the products of a new colony: but such a court there is, intended to illustrate portions of ecclesiastical architecture; and it constitutes, perhaps, the most pictorially effective part of the whole building. 2

2015

In this chapter we will explore the radical changes that took place during Queen Victoria’s reign by focusing on certain key ideas or larger clusters of thoughts and the reactions that they generated. As we shall see, the Victorian era was a period marked by unprecedented changes, and Victorian thinkers and writers had a mixed reaction towards these shifts. Some of them welcomed change as a sign of progress, while others considered it an indication of decline and nostalgically contemplated past glories. Here are the major key concepts which this chapter investigates as they are organized in units: