Extract: Nation, Memory, Myth by Steve Vizard
Posted on 11 Jun 2025
How does myth generate meaning for a nation and its citizens? How does a national myth transform into symbolic performances of cultural memory and kinship?
John Murphy
John Murphy is an emeritus professor in politics at the University of Melbourne. For almost forty years he has taught generations of students about Australian history, politics and social welfare. He has published widely on Australian political history, including on the Vietnam war, the politics of the 1950s, and Australian welfare policy up to 1949. His biography of the Labor leader Bert Evatt was shortlisted in 2017 for the Prime Minister's prize for Australian history, and the National Biography Award.
In 2011, Half a Citizen, his book based on interviews with welfare recipients and co-written with Suellen Murray, Jenny Chalmers, Sonia Martin and Greg Marston, won the Australian Human Rights Commission Award for non-fiction. His most recent book, with Andrew Rosser, was about social welfare policies in Southeast Asia.
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