Assoc. Prof Janis Wilton
Associate Professor, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, School of Humanities
Qualifications
BA (Hons)(USyd), PhD (NE)
Contact
| Email: | jwilton@une.edu.au |
| Room: | E11 G67 |
| Phone: | 02 6773 2107 (or +61 2 6773 2107 overseas) |
| Fax: | 02 6773 3520 |
Affiliations
Council member, Vice President, and President, International Oral History Association, 1998 to 2006. (http://www.ioha.fgv.br)
Member, Local Studies Strategy Committee, Maitland City Council Library (2009)
Member, National Committee, Oral History Association of Australia, 1998 to 2007. (http://www.ohaa.net.au)
Trustee, Historic Houses Trust of NSW, 1999 to 2007. (http://www.hht.net.au)
Areas of Teaching
Oral history; history and museums; local history; public history.
Research interests
Oral history theory and practice; ethnic community and family histories; history and museums; local and regional histories; public history.
Prizes, Honours & Awards
Hazel de Berg Award for Excellence in Oral History, 2009.
Honorary Life Membership, Oral History Association of Australia, 2009.
Order of Australia in the General Divison (OAM) for ‘service to the community as historian, author and researcher, to historical associations, and to the Chinese heritage of New South Wales’, 2006.
EnergyAustralia/National Trust Heritage Award for Cultural Heritage/Individuals (for Golden Threads), 2005.
Publications
Books & Monographs
Maitland Jewish Cemetery: A Monument to Dreams and Deeds, Maitland Regional Art Gallery, Maitland, 2010.
Different Sights: Immigrants in New England (NSW Migration Heritage Centre, Sydney, 2009).
Golden Threads: The Chinese in Regional NSW 1850-1950 (Powerhouse Publishing, Sydney, 2004.)
Museums and Memory: Museum of Antiquities Maurice Kelly Lecture, University of New England, Armidale, 2004.
Immigrants in the Bush, NSW Department of Education Multicultural Education Coordinating Committee and Armidale CAE, Armidale, 1988/1989.
(ed.) Internment: The Diaries of Harry Seidler May 1940-October 1941, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1986.
with Richard Bosworth, Old Worlds and New Australia: The Post War Migrant Experience, Penguin, Melbourne, 1984.
Refereed Articles and Book Chapters (since 2000)
‘Imaging family memories: my Mum, her photographs, our memories’ in Alexander Freund and Alistair Thomson (eds), Oral History and Photography, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010 (in press)
‘Oral history in universities: from margins to mainstream’ in Donald Ritchie (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Oral History, Oxford University Press, New York, 2010 (in press)
‘Belongings: oral history, objects and an online exhibition’, Public History Review, 16, 2009, pp.1-19.'Telling objects: material culture and memory in oral history interviews', Oral History Association of Australia Journal, 30, 2008, pp 41-49.
'A white Australia?' in Deborah Gare and David Ritter (eds), Making Australian History: Perspectives on the Past since 1788, Thomson, Melbourne, 2007, pp.272-279.
'Twentieth-century immigrants' in Alan Atkinson et.al. (eds), High Lean Country: Land, People and Memory in New England, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 2006, pp 196-208.
‘Museums and memories: remembering the past in local and community museums’, Public History Review, 12, 2006.
‘Generations of journeys’ in J.A. Hammerton and Eric Richards (eds.) Speaking to Immigrants: Oral Testimony and the History of Australian Migration, History Program and Centre for Immigration and Multicultural Studies, ANU, 2002, pp. 149-169.
‘The Chinese history and heritage of regional NSW’ in Ann Curthoys, Henry Chan, Nora Chiang (eds), The Overseas Chinese in Australasia: History, Settlement and Interactions, National Taiwan University and Centre for the Study of the Chinese Diaspora, ANU, Canberra, pp. 91-101.
‘Chinese immigrants in Australia’ in Daniel Snowman ed. , Past Masters: The Best of History Today,Sutton Publishing and History Today, London, 2001, pp.425-434.
Exhibitions and Online Resources (since 2000)
Different Sights: Immigrants in New England (online database), 2008. http://hfrc.une.edu.au/heritagefutures/neimmigrants
Golden Threads: The Chinese in Regional NSW 1850-1950. (website launched 2001) http://www.amol.org.au/goldenthreads/index.htm
Golden Threads: The Chinese in Regional NSW 1850-1950 (Travelling exhibition, 2001 - 2004 17 venues in regional and metropolitan NSW, Queensland, South Australia and Victoria).
Non-refereed Articles & Papers (since 2000)
‘Jews’ burial ground’ in Hanna Kay: Undertow, Maitland Regional Art Gallery, Maitland, 2009, pp. 19-22.
‘Moving objects: material culture and migrant oral histories’ in Oral History- A Dialogue with Our Times: Proceedings of the 15th International Oral History Conference, Gudalajara, Mexico, International Oral History Association and University of Guadalajara, 2008.
'Migration stories, international oral history and transnational networks', Bios, 2007, pp.230-234.
with Rosemary Block and Paula Hamilton (eds), Dancing with Memory: Proceedings of the 14th International Oral History Conference, Sydney, Australia (CDRom), International Oral History Association and Oral History Association of Australia, 2006.
With Joe Eisenberg, ‘Learning from Golden Threads’, Golden Threads: Stories (website), http://archive.amol.org.au/goldenthreads/stories/, 2001.
‘Objects and their stories’, Golden Threads: Stories (website), http://archive.amol.org.au/goldenthreads/stories/, 2001.
‘Wing Hing Long: from store to museum’, Golden Threads: Stories (website), http://archive.amol.org.au/goldenthreads/stories/, 2001.
‘Tingha’s Wing Hing Long’, Locality, 11/3, 2000, pp. 22-26.
‘The walls speak, don’t they? Heritage places and contested memories: a case study’, Oral History Association of Australia Journal, 22, 2000, pp.16-23.
‘”Yum cha, ah bak”. The stories teapots can reveal: memories, museums and the Chinese in Australia’, Proceedings of the XIth International Oral History Conference, June 2000, Bogaziçi University, Istanbul, 2000, pp. 1088-1092.
with Jinx Miles and Kevin Brooks, Conservation and Management Plan for Wing Hing Long and Co Store, Tingha. National Trust of Queensland prepared for the NSW Heritage Office, 2000.
Public History Projects
Views of Maitland: Art + History (2008 - )
This is a public history/public art project in partnership with the Maitland Regional Art Gallery (www.mrag.org.au) and Maitland City Council Library (www.maitland.nsw.gov.au/library/) which is researching and presenting the histories of specific sites, events and individuals from the locality. Interpretations and presentations are sought from visual artists, local historians and local residents. The results will appear as exhibitions, public programmes, and print and electronic publications. In 2009, the focus is on the Maitland Jewish Cemetery (with artist Hanna Kay and the history component supported by the NSW Migration Heritage Centre, http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/ ), and on the Maitland Technical College and Museum, the building which now houses a part of the new Maitland Regional Gallery (with artist Fiona Davies).
Different Sights: Immigrants in New England (2007 - 2009)
Different Sights is a project of the UNE Heritage Futures Research Centre and has been funded and supported by the Heritage Branch, NSW Department of Planning and the NSW Migration Heritage Centre. The project team has worked with local museums, historical societies, residents and local government authorities across the New England tableland to research and present the histories of immigrants from non-English-speaking backgrounds in the region. It has produced an online database (http://hfrc.une.edu.au/heritagefutures/neimmigrants/ ) which links individuals and communities to the documents, images, memorials, objects, oral histories, sites and publications that help to tell their stories. It has also produced a thematic history of the non-English-speaking background immigrants on the Tableland.
Family Ties (2005 - )
This project is an initiative of the Inverell District Family History Group and the Inverell Cultural and Arts Council with support from the Historic Houses Trust of NSW and the UNE Heritage Futures Research Centre. It has involved the development of an online presence and interpretation of the ongoing research being conducted on the Newstead pastoral property as well as the development of interpretation panels at the property itself. This property and its locality is significant for its association with Tom Roberts (it was the site of his iconic paintings, The Golden Fleece, Bailed Up and In a Corner on the Macintyre). The online database can be viewed at http://hfrc.une.edu.au/heritagefutures/familyties .
Golden Threads: the Chinese in regional NSW 1850-1950 (1996-2004)
The project worked with local museums and historical societies in different parts of regional NSW in order to document and interpret the Chinese presence represented in museum collections and in local memory. Outcomes of the project include a travelling exhibition which was on the road for four years (2001 to 2004) and was exhibited at twenty venues; a website (http://archive.amol.org.au/goldenthreads/index.htm) hosted by the federally funded Australian Museums On Line (now Collections Australia); and a book (Powerhouse Publishing, Sydney, 2004.) The book was awarded the Energy Australia/National Trust Heritage Award for Cultural Heritage/Individuals in 2005.