Nation, Memory, Myth: Remembering Gallipoli in Australia over 110 years
Professors Anne Pender, Steve Vizard, Stuart Ward and John Williams.
On 25 March the JM Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice and the School of Humanities hosted a Public Conversation featuring Professor Stuart Ward with Professor Steve Vizard on the topic Nation, Memory and Myth: Gallipoli and the Australian Imaginary.
The topic is also the title of Steve Vizard’s new book, to be published in April by Melbourne University Press. The book probes the ‘social myth of Gallipoli’ in Australia, its imperial genesis and its enduring legacy in contemporary Australia.
Many Australians know Steve Vizard as the host of an award-winning television show Tonight with Steve Vizard from the 1990s. Vizard is celebrated for creating, writing and producing several iconic Australian television shows including The Micallef Program, Big Girls Blouse, Fast Forward (subsequently titled Full Frontal) and for launching the careers of dozens of performers in this country. He has written stage plays, the libretti for two operas (The Space Between and Banquet of Secrets), with Paul Grabowsky and a musical entitled Vigil. For the centenary of Gallipoli Steve was commissioned to create a theatrical work entitled The Last Man Standing, produced at the Melbourne Theatre Company.
Professors John Williams, Steve Vizard, Stuart Ward and Anne Pender.
Photos by Dr Wendy Riemens.
Stuart Ward has recently been appointed to the School of Humanities as Professor of History in the Department of Historical and Classical Studies, after many years at the University of Copenhagen. Ward is the author of many books and articles including Untied Kingdom: A Global History of the End of Britain published by Cambridge University Press in 2023. Ward is also the author of other books: Australia’s Empire (edited with Derryck Schreuder, 2008), The Unknown Nation: Australia after Empire, co-authored with James Curran, 2010), Australia and the British Embrace (2001) and British Culture and the end of Empire (2001).
At this special pre-publication discussion in front of some 50 guests, Professor Vizard offered a range of new perspectives on the way we understand Gallipoli and its meaning for Australians 110 years after the event.