WEEK 5 TUTORIAL: World War II

(5 April – )

NOTE: You must arrange a meeting to discuss your long essay by this week's tutorial.

Tutorial question

Would you agree that the most profound social effect of the second world war in Australia was on relations between men and women?

What did Australian women gain, and what did they lose during World War II? How permanent were these changes? What did soldiers learn from their experience of war? What was the impact of the American troops on Australia? Is there a myth of World War II comparable to that of World War I? How did the second war affect the Anzac legend? Popular memory often depicts the war nostalgically, as a time when Australians pulled together - did they? If so, why? If not, why the myth? Why did the Labor Party dominate government in the 1940s? How did young people react to the experience of war, and how have they remembered it? How does the memory of the second world war compare with the memory of the first?

Essential reading

**Lake M 'Female desires: the meaning of World War II' Australian Historical Studies 24(95) Oct 1990 ** reprinted in White and Russell (eds) Memories and Dreams
Sturma M 'Loving the alien: the underside of relations between American servicemen and Australian women in Queensland 1942-1945' Journal of Australian Studies 24 1989

Additional reading

Darian-Smith, Kate ‘Remembering Romance: Memory, Gender and World War II’ and Kay Saunders ‘In a cloud of lust: Black Gis and sex in World War II’ both in Joy Damousi and Marilyn Lake (eds) Gender and war : Australians at war in the twentieth century Cambridge, 1995 ch 6, 10
White R 'War and Australian Society' in M McKernan & M Browne Australia: Two Centuries of War and Peace Canberra 1988
Reekie G 'Women's responses to war work in WA 1942-46' Studies in WA History 7 1983
McKernan M All In! Australia During the Second World War Melbourne 1983 ch 7, 9

Other

General social impact:
*Barrett J 'Living in Australia 1939-45' Journal of Australian Studies 1(2) Nov 1977
*Bolton G The Middle Way Melbourne 1990, Ch 1
Connell D The War at Home, Australia 1939-1949 Crows Nest 1988
Connors, L et al Australia's Frontline: Remembering the 1939-45 War St Lucia 1992 ch 6-7
Day, David Chifley Sydney, 2001.
Day, David John Curtin : a life Sydney, 1999.
*Inglis K 'At War' in Australians 1939-88 Sydney 1988
*McDonald, Neil War Cameraman: the Damien Parer Story 1994
Robertson J Australia at War 1939-1945 Sydney 1984
Watts R The Foundation of the National Welfare State , Sydney 1987.

On men and war:

Barrett J We Were There: Australian Soldiers of World War II Ringwood 1987
Damousi, Joy and Marilyn Lake (eds) Gender and war : Australians at war in the twentieth century Cambridge, 1995
*Mandle B Going it Alone Ringwood ch.2
*Walker D 'The Getting of Manhood' in P Spearritt & D Walker (eds) Australian Popular Culture Sydney 1979

On women and work:

Adam-Smith P Australian Women at War Melbourne 1984
Beaton L 'The Importance of Women's Paid Labour: Women at Work in World War 2' in M Bevege et.al.(eds) Worth Her Salt Sydney 1982
Darian-Smith, Kate 'War Stories: Remembering the Australian Home Front during the Second World War' in Darian-Smith, Kate and Paula Hamilton (eds) Memory and History in Twentieth Century Australia Melbourne 1994
*Lake M 'The War Over Women's Work' in V Burgmann & J Lee (eds) A Most Valuable Acquisition Ringwood 1988
*Reekie G 'War, sexuality and feminism: Perth women's organisations 1938-45' Historical Studies 21 (85) October 1985

On sexual relations:

Allen J Sex and Secrets Melbourne 1990 ch 8
Campbell R Heroes and Lovers Sydney 1989
Cusack D & F James Come in Spinner Melbourne, 1957 (a particularly evocative novel)
Darian-Smith K On the Home Front: Melbourne in Wartime 1939-1945 Melbourne 1990 ch 6
Lake M 'The desire for a Yank: Sexual relations between Australian women and American servicemen during World War 2', in P. Grimshaw, R. Fincher and M. Campbell (eds) Studies in Gender: Essays in Honour of Norma Grieve University of Melbourne 1992
Matthews, JJ Good and Mad Women: The Historical Construction of Femininity in Twentieth Century Australia Sydney 1984
Moore JH Over-sexed, Over-paid and Over Here: Americans in Australia St Lucia 1981
Potts A & Ed Potts Yanks Down Under 1941-45 Melbourne 1984
Saunders K & H Taylor '"To combat the plague": the construction of moral alarm and state intervention in Queensland during World War II' Hecate 14 1988