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Stephanie HoltIn an age when we are, literally, bombarded with news from multiple forms of ‘mass media’, it is hard to imagine a time when news was scarce. Before newspapers were published, how did the people find out what was happening in their world? In this seminar we explore the fascinating world of the pre-modern newshound — the ballad singer, the pamphleteer and the public orator. Were there limits to ‘free speech’, and how were they overcome? Historians Una McIlvenna and Ruby Lowe combine analysis and performance as they explore this fascinating topic.
SPEAKERS
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Dr Ruby Lowe “I Speak to the Printed Page”: Listening to Free Speech in 17th Century England Dr Ruby Lowe writes about John Milton and written forms of speech in 17th Century Britain. She is currently undertaking an Ernest Sprott Research Fellowship at the University of Melbourne and an Inglis Fellowship at the Australian Book Review. She co-edited Kim Scott: Language, Readers, Interpretation (UWAP 2019) and her first monograph The Speech Without Doors: John Milton and the Tradition of Print Oratory is currently under review |
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When The News Was Sung: Using Ballads as a Historical Resource Dr Una McIlvenna is Australian Research Council Future Fellow 2023-2027 and Senior Lecturer in English at the Australian National University, where she researches the tradition of singing the news. She has published about news-singing in journals like Past & Present and Renaissance Studies, and her most recent book, Singing the News of Death: Execution Ballads in Europe 1500-1900 won the 2023 Katharine Briggs Award from the Folklore Society. She is currently on the editorial board of the ‘Song Studies’ book series with Amsterdam University Press. |
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MODERATOR
Dr Molly McKew holds a PhD in history from the University of Melbourne, focusing on Melbourne's urban countercultures of the 1960s and 1970s. She has had academic and non-academic work published in the Conversation, Overland Literary Magazine, Verandah Literary Journal, The Suburban Review, Archer magazine, and others. Molly is currently the History Council of Victoria's Communications Officer. She also writes and performs music around Melbourne. |
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This seminar is part of an ongoing series of free online seminars, Making Public Histories, that is offered jointly by the Monash University History Program, the History Council of Victoria and the Old Treasury Building.
Each seminar aims to explore issues and approaches in making public histories. The seminars are open, free of charge, to anyone interested in the creation and impact of history in contemporary society. Click HERE to learn about other events in the series.
We thank the series sponsors, Monash University Publishing, the Monash University History Program and the Old Treasury Building.
Posted by Admin Account on February 12, 2025