History Lab || exploring the gaps between us and the past || This series is made in collaboration by the Australian Centre for Public History and Impact Studios at the University of Technology, Sydney.
Latest episodes
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37 min
Scholars at Risk | Emergency Exit Bonus 2
In this bonus episode, Ana Filipa Vrdoljak speaks with Rob Quinn, executive director of Scholars at Risk, about the international network's work protecting the human rights of thre…
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25 min
Bureaucratic violence today: an interview with Josh Bornstein | Emergency Exit Bonus 1
In this bonus episode, employment and human rights lawyer Josh Bornstein talks with Katherine Biber about the family history that shaped his career. Bornstein's grandparents left P…
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42 min
Displaced | Emergency Exit Ep3
In the aftermath of World War II, a charismatic Estonian man named Ilmar Tammelo arrived in Australia as one of more than 170,000 in the Displaced Persons Scheme. Trained as a lawy…
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42 min
Enemy Alien | Emergency Exit Ep2
Leonhard Adam’s life was twice transformed by bureaucratic categories. Declared a “non-Aryan” by Nazi rules, he was forced out of his career and from his home in Germany. He fled t…
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45 min
Escape | Emergency Exit Ep1
The Nazi rise to power looms over Europe in the 1930s, causing an exodus of emigrants seeking refuge from persecution. But fleeing fascism involves contending with the arcane - and…
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4 min
Introducing Emergency Exit
Coming October 1st - this special History Lab series explores the stories of European refugees who escaped Nazi persecution, only to confront new forms of exclusion through Austral…
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47 min
Musquito: the real story of a legendary colonial warrior
How do you tell the story of a "warrior" without flattening him into myth? Associate Professor Delia Falconer talks with historian Dr Naomi Parry Duncan about her new biography of…
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38 min
BONUS | Australia and Wikipedia: the bias in the map, from All That We Touch
Wikipedia doesn't set out to play favourites. But when a made-up Melbourne suburb has more history than real Australian places, something is shaping what gets written.Who - or what…
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48 min
History Beyond Humans - Environmental Histories | Field Notes Ep4
Environmental history in Australia has moved from the margins to something close to the centre of the discipline — but the path there was longer and less obvious than it might appe…
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40 min
Which China Do You Belong To? Chinese-Australian Histories | Field Notes Ep3
In this episode of Field Notes, historians Sophie Loy-Wilson and Mei-fen Kuo trace their paths into Chinese Australian history — one drawn by questions of racism and resistance, th…
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33 min
When the War is Over - Military Histories | Field Notes Ep2
Military history in Australia carries a weight that few other subfields do — it sits at the intersection of popular memory, national identity, and institutional commemoration in wa…
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49 min
52. Field Notes 2: Gendering the Past - Feminist Histories
Feminist history in Australia grew out of the women’s liberation movement and the theoretical challenge it posed to what counted as a proper subject for historical inquiry. Marilyn…
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44 min
Ending Empires - Decolonisation Histories | Field Notes Ep1
What does decolonisation mean as a field of historical inquiry — and what does it demand of the historians who work in it? Jon Piccini and Angela Woollacott approach these question…
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52 min
BONUS | Spirits of the Hoey: a rock 'n' roll archive
Before social media, before streaming, before algorithms decided what you'd hear next, Sydney had the street press — and the street press had the Hopetoun Hotel.In this episode, St…
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46 min
BONUS | Fringe to Famous: building and sustaining creative industries
What made Australia's fringe cultural scene so generative in the 1980s — and what can it teach us about sustaining creative industries today?Tony Moore and Mark Gibson, co-authors…
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53 min
BONUS | Looking back: Drusilla Modjeska on women artists and what they saw
What happens to women's art when the world stops looking?That's the question at the heart of A Woman's Eye: Her Art, Drusilla Modjeska's book about a century of women artists who m…
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27 min
BONUS | The Last Tour: Ann Curthoys on Paul and Eslanda Robeson
In this episode of History Lab Live, we revisit a remarkable moment in Australian history: the 1960 visit of Paul Robeson and his wife, Eslanda Robeson.Paul Robeson was one of the…
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14 min
BONUS | Red Light, Green Light
In this episode from History Lab's archive, we stay in Darlinghurst with the award winning Red Light Green Light story from our Listen to Darlinghurst series.Going back to the stre…
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37 min
BONUS | Darlinghurst's AIDS Crisis with Leigh Boucher and Tamson Pietsch
In this bonus episode, History Lab's Tamson Pietsch speaks with historian Leigh Boucher about the making of Darlinghurst's AIDS Crisis — our three-part History Lab series exploring…
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44 min
Faultlines and farewells | Darlinghurst's AIDS Crisis Ep3
By the early 1990s, AIDS had reached its devastating peak in Darlinghurst. Obituaries filled the pages of the Star Observer, funerals became routine. Sickness and loss touched almo…