History Lab

Feminist history in Australia grew out of the women’s liberation movement and the theoretical challenge it posed to what counted as a proper subject for historical inquiry. Marilyn Lake and Clare Corbould trace that history from Kay Daniels’s 1975 national archival survey through the shift from women’s history to gender history, the writing of Creating a Nation (1994), the history wars of the 1990...

What does decolonisation mean as a field of historical inquiry — and what does it demand of the historians who work in it? Jon Piccini and Angela Woollacott approach these questions from different generations and starting points. Woollacott came to postcolonial thinking through the new imperial history in 1990s American universities, where the field felt genuinely revolutionary. Piccini came throu...

Before social media, before streaming, before algorithms decided what you'd hear next, Sydney had the street press — and the street press had the Hopetoun Hotel. In this episode, State Library Fellow Dr Liz Giuffre takes us inside her archival forays into On the Street and Drum Media , two free weekly publications held in the State Library of NSW's collection that served as the first draft of Sydn...

What made Australia's fringe cultural scene so generative in the 1980s — and what can it teach us about sustaining creative industries today? Tony Moore and Mark Gibson, co-authors with Chris McAuliffe and Maura Edmond) join Reg Mombassa (of Mental as Anything and Mambo fame) to launch their book Fringe to Famous: Cultural Production in Australia After the Creative Industries . In a wide-ranging d...

What happens to women's art when the world stops looking? That's the question at the heart of A Woman's Eye: Her Art , Drusilla Modjeska's book about a century of women artists who made radical, visionary work — and were then, largely, forgotten. Recorded live at Gleebooks before a packed house, this is a conversation about art history as a political act: who gets remembered, who gets written out,...

In this episode of History Lab Live , we revisit a remarkable moment in Australian history: the 1960 visit of Paul Robeson and his wife, Eslanda Robeson . Paul Robeson was one of the most famous voices in the world — a singer who could fill concert halls, but also a lawyer, actor, athlete, and one of the most outspoken civil rights activists of the 20th century. Alongside him was Eslanda, an anthr...

In this episode from History Lab's archive, we stay in Darlinghurst with the award winning Red Light Green Light story from our Listen to Darlinghurst series. Going back to the street corners and safe houses where sex workers competed for customers in Darlinghurst in the 1980s, you will hear the stories of members of the community who fought for law reform and sex worker's rights. The last time we...

In this bonus episode, History Lab's Tamson Pietsch speaks with historian Leigh Boucher about the making of Darlinghurst's AIDS Crisis — our three-part History Lab series exploring one of the most intense and concentrated episodes of loss, activism, and community life in Australian history (if you haven't listened yet, go to episodes 42-44 of History Lab). Leigh is an historian based at Macquarie...

By the early 1990s, AIDS had reached its devastating peak in Darlinghurst. Obituaries filled the pages of the Star Observer , funerals became routine. Sickness and loss touched almost every friendship and street in the neighbourhood. In this episode, we move inside the hospitals, hospices and homes where nurses, carers and volunteers supported a generation of young men facing terminal illness. Bey...

By the mid-1980s, the epidemic had taken hold in Darlinghurst. Fear was rising, homophobia was intensifying, and uncertainty shaped everyday life. Who had the virus? What did a positive test mean? And could the state be trusted with that information? In this episode, historian Leigh Boucher moves into the heart of the crisis as the neighbourhood marshals every last drop of queer energy, love, crea...

In the late 1970s and early 80s, Sydney’s Darlinghurst was the place to be for queer fun, sex and joy – all bubbling alongside a measure of danger. Packed bars, late-night gyms, house music, new friendships and the thrill of seeing and being seen. For many, this was the place to connect, to belong, to “grow up under the mirror ball.” In the first episode of this three-part series, historian Leigh...

Australia’s response to HIV and AIDS is often remembered as a national success story — one shaped by public health policy, activism and community action. But how does that history change when you zoom in close? Darlinghurst’s AIDS Crisis is a three-part History Lab Original series with historian Leigh Boucher. Focusing on the Sydney neighbourhood at the centre of the epidemic, the series traces ho...

Professor Heather Goodall was a pioneering historian whose research transformed understandings of Indigenous history, both in her field and in the broader community. Her work demonstrated a deep personal and professional commitment to social and environmental justice. In this episode we pay tribute to her and celebrate her legacy. Heather died peacefully on 29 January 2026, aged 75. In this specia...

In this episode of History Lab Live, historians and political analysts step back from the daily churn to review the May 2025 Australian federal election through a long lens: a decisive Labor victory built on an historically low primary vote , a further erosion of the major-party duopoly , and a growing sense that Australian politics is both shifting, and hollowing out. Is this a genuine realignmen...

In this episode of History Lab Live , we bring you a conversation about the joys and challenges of translating Australian history to television. Writer and academic Julianne Schultz joins director Benjamin Jones and producer Darren Dale to discuss the process of adapting her book, The Idea of Australia , into a four‑part documentary series for SBS. Their exchange highlights the creative decisions,...

History Lab Live presents the 2025 David Scott Mitchell Oration, delivered by Kim Williams at the State Library of New South Wales. A passionate advocate for the arts, media, and public institutions, Williams—currently Chair of the ABC—offers a sweeping and deeply personal reflection on the role of libraries and memory institutions in preserving truth, fostering democracy, and inspiring creativity...

Caribbean Convicts weaves together the story of the Caribbean men who arrived in Sydney onboard the convict ship the Moffatt on August 30, 1836. Most had been enslaved, including William Buchanan, a Jamaican man transported for participating in the Christmas Day slave uprising in Jamaica in 1831-32. Join historical novelist Sienna Brown as she explores the diverse fates of Buchanan...

In this special episode of Caribbean Echoes, series producers Ben Etherington and Sienna Brown are in conversation with star Jamaican-Australian actress Zahra Newman and acclaimed playwright Alana Valentine. They discuss the making of the series and how performance emerged as a key theme across it. Zahra reflects on being a Black Caribbean-Australian actor today, and the persistence of the racial...

Hear author and historian Katherine Biber tell the story of Jimmy and Joe Governor, Wiradjuri and Wonnarua brothers, who in 1900 went on a murder spree that killed nine people and terrified countless others. The men were pursued for three months across 3000 kilometres, taunting their hunters with clues, letters and tricks. The last men in the state to be proclaimed outlaws, their pursuit and captu...

What connects a VFL “Champion of the Colony” to a woman born enslaved in Jamaica? In 1919, Richmond footballer Vic Thorp won the league’s highest honour for the second time — the equivalent of today’s Brownlow Medal . But just a century earlier, his great-grandmother Susannah Andrews was enslaved in Jamaica, before gaining her freedom. This episode uncovers Susannah’s remarkable journey: from ensl...

Who was the Caribbean-Australian cabaret star who could bring down the house — and come back at racism with a joke? "Come sit by me, we don’t eat people anymore." Nellie Small was born in Sydney in 1900, just before the White Australia policy was introduced. She became one of the country’s most beloved performers, famous for wearing men’s suits on stage and off, and for her sharp comebacks. In sho...

What does boxing have to do with anticolonial politics? How did the sport become a space where Black and Indigenous fighters in Australia pushed back against racism and empire? From Peter Jackson to Jack Johnson, Marcus Garvey to Les “Ranji” Moody, this episode explores how Black and Indigenous fighters turned the ring into a stage for resistance and anticolonialism. Worimi historian Professor Joh...

Did you know that the most famous Australian in the world in 1890 was from the Caribbean? Peter Jackson was born in St Croix in the Caribbean in the years after slavery was abolished. He arrived in Sydney as a teenager and got noticed when he single-handedly fought off seven in a brawl at Wynyard Square. He soon stepped into Sydney’s boxing rings and, by 1890, he was Australia’s heavyweight champi...

History Lab is back—refreshed and reimagined. From now on, you’ll hear us in regular seasonal runs , dropping new episodes once or twice a fortnight over six to eight weeks . Each run will showcase a mix of formats: History Lab Originals – our signature investigative storytelling that digs into the gaps between us and the past. History Lab Studio – interviews and discussions with historians. Histo...

What is the work of truth-telling? How is evidence collected? What happens next? What role should schools play in teaching Australia’s full history? Australia has completed its first, formal truth-telling process — the Yoorrook Justice Commission of Victoria. We joined Commissioner Travis Lovett on his 500-kilometre Walk for Truth from Portland on Gunditjmara Country, to Parliament House on Wurund...