Dr Louise Prowse explores how communities negotiate and demonstrate ownership of historical traditions. Looking closely at rural historical traditions in five country towns – the Coo-ee March (Gilgandra), the former Henry Lawson legacy (Mudgee), the Lambing Flat Riots (Young) and the Thunderbolt legend (Uralla) – this research considers how historical knowledge is reinterpreted, revisited and re-enacted and became during the twentieth century a means of performing territorial ownership over folk myths and historical legends. Country towns carved out distinct local identities, based on the past, that changed the way we as residents and tourists now understand the rural landscape.
Dr Louise Prowse is an Australian cultural historian in place identity, tourism, heritage and the intersections between local and national history-making. Her research explores how historical identities of country towns came to epitomise modern Australian understandings of the rural ideal. Louise has taught in nineteenth and twentieth century Australian cultural and political history, American political history and the history of tourism at New York University (Sydney) and The University of Sydney.
Light refreshments will be served from 5:00pm.
Proudly presented as part of the History Council of NSW’s Speaker Connect program for History Week 2016.
When: Thursday 8 September 2016, 5:00pm for 5:30 start.
Where: Tamworth City Library
466 Peel Street
Tamworth NSW 2340
Cost: Free
Contact: cnl@tamworth.nsw.gov.au
Presented by Tamworth Library.
Image: Postcard, ‘Thunderbolt Rock, near Tamworth,’ c1960, courtesy The Royal Australian Historical Society.
This event is part of
History Week: Neighbours
3-11 September 2016
Presented by the History Council of NSW
#HistoryWeek16 | www.historyweek.com.au