AustLit

'This chapter re-assesses the colonial Australian versions of the London Punch, making a case for their importance as essentially migrant and minority publications. Founded as a means of maintaining a sense of Britishness, and as a direct link to the culture of Metropolitan London, these magazines were staffed overwhelmingly by migrants (from Britain and elsewhere), directed to a predominantly migrant readership, and filled their pages with migration-themed jokes, cartoons, and pieces of doggerel. The everyday worries of a stranger in a strange land could be soothed by reference to the humour of the local satirical magazine, and a sense of shared community built through regular recourse to the pages of Melbourne Punch, Sydney Punch, Tasmanian Punch, Ballarat Punch, Adelaide Punch, Queensland Punch, or even Ipswich Punch.'

Source: Abstract.

'L’Italo-Australiano was the first Italian-language newspaper in Australia and was published in Sydney for a brief period, in 1885. The chapter analyses the ideological discourse of this newspaper within the historical context of its production. In particular, the analysis focuses on the newspaper’s interpretation of the character of italianità, identifying the way in which such interpretation influenced the definition of the (imagined) Italian community addressed by the newspaper, as well as the terms of the relationship with a homeland whose features were in continual transformation, and with an equally evolving Australian dimension. The study applies a transnational perspective to the analysis, which allows to consider the cross-border interrelations and connections that were involved in the production of the newspaper.'

Source: Abstract.

'Between 1912 and 1919, at different times, seven fortnightly Russian newspapers, legal and illegal, circulated in Queensland, most of them as organs of the Brisbane Union of Russian Workers. This study will survey the available newspapers in the context of their time and treat the key personalities involved, most of whom had left Australia or been deported by the end of 1919: “Artem” Sergeeff, a Bolshevik and close ally of Lenin; Peter Simonoff, appointed Soviet consul in 1918; Alexander Zuzenko, leading anarchist, journalist, and instigator of the Red Flag procession; and Herman Bykoff, Zuzenko’s ally. The survey will be in three parts: first attempts (Artem and his allies 1912–1917); the press and revolution (Simonoff, Zuzenko, Klushin 1917–1918); and last gasp (Zuzenko, Bykoff 1919).'

Source: Abstract.

'Italian Fascism began to exert ideological demands over the communities, businesses, and newspapers of Italian migrants in Australia by the mid-1920s. In the lead up to the Second World War, the Commonwealth government enacted measures to thwart the danger of Fascist propaganda, which impacted profoundly on Italian migrant community networks and newspapers. Tracing the history of the lost Queensland newspaper, L’Italiano (1930–1941), through the official wartime files of its editors, Cesare Baucia and Cristofaro Albanese, this chapter explores how both men navigated the competing business obligations impacting on their roles, readership, and communities. L’Italiano’s anti-Fascist reputation gradually shifted towards appeasing the Fascist authorities, challenging perceptions of Italian migrant respectability and loyalty in a context of nation-building, ethnicity, and race.'

Source: Abstract.

'In the immediate post-war period, Jewish communities worldwide sought to draw political lessons from the events of the Holocaust, the rise of fascism and the Second World War. At the same time, diasporic Jewish communities were struggling to create new political frameworks to understand the establishment of the State of Israel. In Australia, these conditions produced an intense level of cultural and political debate in the Jewish community. This chapter examines three major Jewish magazines of this period: Unity; The Zionist; and The Australian Jewish Outlook. These magazines reflected different perspectives on Jewish politics, representing antifascist, Zionist and assimilationist ideas, respectively. A central feature of these magazines was a transnational political imagination. The issues of Jews in Australia were refracted through an international lens.'

Source: Abstract.

'This chapter highlights the abundance of cultural and literary forms and themes featured in Polish-language periodicals published in Australia. With over 150 individual titles published before the 1990s and contributions from a relatively high number of sophisticated writers, the Polish-language press is a unique Australian LOTE (Languages Other Than English) phenomenon. The chapter argues that this profusion of literary work indicates that these periodicals served predominantly as a means of self-expression, reinforcing the cultural identities and sense of belonging of a dislocated diasporic intelligentsia, and that this function might have been more important to some editors than dealing with issues of interest to the broader migrant community. These periodicals shed light on hidden histories of migration to Australia, and hence refine perspectives on Australia’s migrant communities, past and present.'

Source: Abstract.

'In January 1949, the Australian Department of Immigration commenced publication of a monthly newspaper The New Australian. This new bulletin, aimed specifically at European migrants, and Displaced Persons (DPs) in particular, was produced in simple English primarily as an aid to assimilation. Regular features included English language lessons, information about the Australian way of life, and the “Write to us” column. For many migrants the opportunity to “write to us” provided a means to garner information and to express, often desperately, their current circumstances. Through an examination of the original migrant letters, and the government responses to them, this chapter will explore these migrant voices and what they contribute to our knowledge of the post-war European migrant experience within the Australian context.'

Source: Abstract.

'Described as “the platypus of prose”, crónicas are a genre that combines journalistic reporting, social commentary, humour and fiction. In his chapter, Jacklin surveys the scholarship focusing on this phenomenon of the Latin American press and then turns to examine crónicas in the Australian newspaper El Expreso, published for only a few months in 1979. Though short-lived, El Expreso offered an alternative to Australia’s existing Spanish-language press. Its inclusion of Luis Abarca’s Crónicas de un Blady Woggie, along with cronicas by Uruguayan-born Alberto Domínguez, and those by UK-born academic John Brotherton marked the newspaper as radical. A focus on these crónicas provides opportunity to investigate the role of this unique genre in the migrant press, and its contribution to the negotiation of Spanish-language Australian identities.'

Source: Abstract.

'Trove, the National Library of Australia’s discovery service for Australian content, comprises resources from disparate sources ranging from universities to local cultural and history groups. It also hosts a growing body of digitised and born-digital collections including fully text-searchable Australian newspapers, a subset of which are community language newspapers. Enabling “in context” discovery across a range of formats and collections, Trove allows patrons to interact with the resources, subject tagging, correcting machine-generated text and including annotations. This enhanced access to full-text newspapers has yielded not only time savings, but enabled new perspectives and types of analysis to be conducted. This chapter will focus on two themes—that of surfacing “hidden” intercultural stories and engaging communities in conversations around their documentary content—through Trove.'

Source: Abstract.