When his film Gallipoli was released in 1981, director Peter Weir claimed that his ‘was the last generation where the battle was taught as sacred. Today, kids think of ANZAC as a joke.’
From today’s vantage point, its clear that nothing could be further from the truth. Anzac Day, and war commemoration more broadly, has returned to the centre of Australian national life and national identity.
Historians and commentators have long speculated on this resurgence. Was it created by our political leaders? Was it the product of deep emotional engagement with the landscapes of war? Was it the result of the largesse of the Department of Veteran’s Affairs? Did interest in this history conceal the sufferings of veterans of more recent conflicts? Has it displaced Indigenous conflict as a founding national story?
While historians have pondered these and other explanations for the resurgence of Anzac, fewer scholars have considered the public and popular meanings of Anzac. Anzac commemoration has not just found expression in our political sphere. It flourishes in family history, in everyday historical understandings, in consumer products, and on film and television.
So what do ordinary Australians think about Anzac? What sorts of stories about Anzac circulate in popular and consumer culture? This symposium will examine the many ways that popular culture and everyday Australians’ sense of the past have played a crucial role in shaping the meaning of Anzac today. Speakers include Dr Anna Clark, Australian Research Council Future Fellow in Public History at University of Technology Sydney, and Dr Carolyn Holbrook, author of Anzac: An Unauthorised Biography.
The symposium will also feature a panel discussion with those who have grappled with the challenges of depicting Anzac on screen, including screenwriters Christopher Lee (Gallipoli), Andrew Anastasios (The Water Diviner), producer Lisa Scott (Anzac Girls) and Rachel Landers and Kate Aubusson, the director and presenter of the documentary Lest We Forget What?
All are welcome to attend this symposium, which will be held 9am-5pm on Tuesday 8 September as part of History Week 2015, the History Council of NSW’s annual state-wide celebration of history.