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Personal History

Bain Attwood has published extensively in the history of colonialism. His sole authored books include The Making of the Aborigines (1989), Rights for Aborigines (2003) and Telling the Truth About Aboriginal History (2005). He has also done a jointly authored book with his colleague Andrew Markus, The 1967 Referendum (1997, revised edn 2007), and edited several collections of essays. He has held fellowships at the Australian National University (2001-03) and Cambridge University (2007-08), and has undertaken work for the National Museum of Australia, and has written occasionally on indigenous history for newspapers.

Current Research

Bain has recently completed a book considering the history of Batman's treaties, native title, settler commemoration and Aboriginal remembrance in Australia, which will be published by the Miegunyah Press in 2009 under the title Possession: Batman’s History and the Matter of History.

He is currently the recipient of an Australian Research Council, Discovery Grant to research the history of indigenous sovereignty and rights to land, historical remembrance and restorative justice in Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

Major Publications

Chapters in Books
'The constitution and the power of race', The 1967 Referendum, Race, Power and the Australian Constitution, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 2007, pp. 1-5
'The Federal Council for Aboriginal advancement and constitutional change', The 1967 Referendum, Race, Power and the Australian Constitution, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 2007, pp. 14-16
'The 1962-3 Petition Campaign', The 1967 Referendum, Race, Power and the Australian Constitution, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 2007, pp. 27-34
'Reconciliation and Constitutional Change', The 1967 Referendum, Race, Power and the Australian Constitution, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 2007, pp. 71-75
'Race, rights and the constitution', The 1967 Referendum, Race, Power and the Australian Constitution, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 2007, pp. 76-85
'Rights, Racism and Aboriginality: Critics of Assimilation in the 1950s and 1960s', in Tim Rowse (ed.), Contesting Assimilation, API Network, Perth, 2005, pp. 271-84
'Anthropology, Aboriginality and Aboriginal Rights', in Bruce Rigsby and Nicolas Peterson (eds), 'Tons and Tons of Material': Donald Thomson, the Man and the Scholar, Australian Academy of the Social Sciences, Canberra, 2005, pp. 101-16
'"I Knew I Would Be Lonely for Them Always": Donald Thomson and Campaigns for Aboriginal Rights', in Joy Damousi and Robert Reynolds (eds), History on the Couch: Essays in History and Psychoanalysis, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2003, pp. 96-105
Bain Attwood and Stephen Foster, 'Introduction', in Bain Attwood and S.G. Foster (eds), Frontier Conflict: The Australian Experience, National Museum of Australia, Canberra, 2003, pp. 1-29
Bain Attwood, 'Historiography on the Australian Frontier', in Bain Attwood and S.G. Foster (eds), Frontier Conflict: The Australian Experience, National Museum of Australia, Canberra, 2003, pp. 169-84
Bain Attwood and Doreen Mellor, 'The Officers: "On the Ground"', in Doreen Mellor and Anna Haebich (eds), Many Voices: Reflections on Experiences of Indigenous Child Separation, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 2002, pp. 139-59
Bain Attwood and Fiona Magowan, 'Introduction', in Bain Attwood and Fiona Magowan (eds), Telling Stories: Indigenous History and Memory in Australia and New Zealand, Allen & Unwin/Bridget Williams Books, Sydney, 2001, pp. xi-xvii
'"Learning About the Truth": The Stolen Generations Narrative', in Bain Attwood and Fiona Magowan (eds), Telling Stories: Indigenous History and Memory in Australia and New Zealand, Allen & Unwin/Bridget Williams Books, Sydney, 2001, pp. 183-212
'Space and Time at Ramahyuck', in Peter Read (ed.), Settlement: A History of Australian Indigenous Housing, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 2000, pp. 41-54
'The Burden of the Past in the Present', in Michelle Grattan (ed.), Essays on Australian Reconciliation, Bookman Press, Melbourne, 2000, pp. 254-59.
Bain Attwood and Andrew Markus, 'The Fight for Aboriginal Rights', in Robert Manne (ed.), The Australian Century: Political Struggle in the Building of a Nation, Text Publishing, Melbourne, 1999, pp. 264-92
Bain Attwood and Andrew Markus, 'Representation Matters: The 1967 Referendum and Citizenship', in Nicolas Peterson and Will Sanders (eds), Citizenship and Indigenous Australians: Changing Conceptions and Possibilities, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1998, pp. 118-40
'Making History, Imagining Aborigines and Australia', in Tim Bonyhady and Tom Griffiths (eds), Prehistory to Politics: John Mulvaney, the Humanities and the Public Intellectual, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1996, pp. 98-116
'The Past as Future: Aborigines, Australia and the (Dis)Course of History', in Bain Attwood (ed.), In the Age of Mabo: History, Aborigines and Australia, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1996, pp. vii-xxxviii
'Mabo, Australia and the End of History', in Bain Attwood (ed.), In The Age of Mabo: History, Aborigines and Australia, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1996, pp. 100-16
'Introduction', in Bain Attwood and John Arnold (eds), Power, Knowledge and Aborigines, La Trobe University Press, Melbourne, 1992, pp. i-xvi

Refereed Journal Articles
'Thieves like us', Meanjin, Meanjin Company Ltd, Melbourne, 2007, pp. 99-104
'History, memory and narrative in a national museum', reCollections: Journal of the National Museum of Australia, National Museum of Australia Canberra, 2006, pp. 103-114
'Contesting Frontiers: History, Memory and Narrative in a National Museum',Recollections, vol. 1, no. 2, 2006
'Unsettling Pasts: Reconciliation and History in Settler Australia',Postcolonial Studies, vol. 8, no. 3, 2005, pp. 1-17
'Whose Dreaming?: Reviewing the Review of the National Museum of Australia',History Australia, vol. 1, no. 2, 2004, pp. 279-94
'The Law of the Land or the Law of the Land?: History, Law and Narrative in a Settler Society', History Compass, vol. 2, 2004, pp. 1-30
'The Stolen Generations and Genocide: Robert Manne's In Denial: The Stolen Generations and the Right', Aboriginal History, vol. 25, 2001, pp. 163-72
'The Articulation of "Land Rights" in Australia: The Case of Wave Hill',Social Analysis, no. 44, 2000, pp. 3-39
Bain Attwood and Andrew Markus, '(The) 1967 (Referendum) and All That: Narrative and Myth, Aborigines and Australia', Australian Historical Studies, vol. 29, no. 111, 1998, pp. 267-88
'Aboriginal History', in John A. Moses (ed.), Historical Disciplines in Australasia: Themes, Problems and Debates, a special issue of Australian Journal of Politics and History, vol. 41, 1995, pp. 33-47
'The Paradox of Australian Aboriginal History', Thesis Eleven, no. 38, 1994, pp. 118-37
'Portrait of an Aboriginal as an Artist: Sally Morgan and the Construction of Aboriginality', Australian Historical Studies, vol. 25, no. 99, 1992, pp. 302-18
'Aborigines and Academic Historians: Some Recent Encounters', Australian Historical Studies, vol. 24, no. 94, 1990, pp. 123-35
'Understandings of the Aboriginal Past: History or Myth?' Australian Journal of Politics and History, vol. 34, no. 2, 1988, pp. 265-71
'Tarra Bobby: A Life-history of a Bratauolung Man', Aboriginal History, vol. 11, no. 1, 1987, pp. 41-57
'Off the Mission Stations: Aborigines in Gippsland 1860-1890', Aboriginal History, vol. 10, pt. 2, 1986, pp. 131-51
'"In the Name of All My Coloured Brethren and Sisters": A Biography of Bessy Cameron', Hecate, vol. XII, nos. 1-2, 1986, pp. 9-53

Monographs
Telling the Truth about Aboriginal History, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2005 (viii + 264 pages)
Rights for Aborigines, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2003 (xiv + 410 pages)
Bain Attwood and Andrew Markus, The 1967 Referendum, Or When Aborigines Didn't Get the Vote, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 1997 (xi + 155 pages)
revised edn, The 1967 Referendum: Race, Power and the Australian Constitution, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 2007 (viii + 188 pages)
A Life Together, a Life Apart: A History of Relations Between Europeans and Aborigines, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1994 (xiv + 232 pages)
The Making of the Aborigines, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1989 (xii + 181 pages)

Documentary Collections
Bain Attwood and Andrew Markus, Thinking Black: William Cooper and the Australian Aborigines' League, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 2004 (x + 144 pages)
Bain Attwood and Andrew Markus, The Struggle for Rights for Aborigines: A Documentary Collection, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1999 (xxii + 375 pages)

Collections of Essays
Bain Attwood and S.G. Foster (eds), Frontier Conflict: The Australian Experience, National Museum of Australia, Canberra, 2003 (xiii + 218 pages)
Bain Attwood and Fiona Magowan (eds), Telling Stories: Indigenous History and Memory in Australia and New Zealand, Allen & Unwin/Bridget Williams Books, Sydney/Wellington, 2001 (xvii + 269 pages)
Bain Attwood (ed.), In the Age of Mabo: History, Aborigines and Australia, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1996 (xxxviii + 193 pages)
Bain Attwood and John Arnold (eds), Power, Knowledge and Aborigines, La Trobe University Press, Melbourne, 1992 (xvi + 150 pages)

Areas of Research & Supervision

Australian and New Zealand indigenous history; cross-cultural history; public history; history and theory; oral history and history and memory.

Teaching

HSY2/3260 - Australian Aboriginal History
HSY2/3225 - History and Film
HSY4210 - History and Memory