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A/PROF JOHN MURPHY



Contact Details

Organization: Social and Political Sciences, Social and Political Sciences
Position: ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Email:
Work: 8344 3670

Biography

John Murphy is Assistant Dean (Research Training / PhD coursework) and was previously Associate Dean (Research & Research Training) in the Faculty of Arts.

BA (Hons), Melbourne
MA (research), politics, Monash
PhD, history, Melbourne.

He previously taught at RMIT University and was Director of the Centre for Applied Social Research. His research focuses on Australian social, political and policy history, public narratives about welfare, masculinity and nation, and memory, historiography and biography.

Recent publications:

A Decent Provision: Australian welfare policy, 1870 to 1949, (Ashgate, UK, 2011). 
www.ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=637&calcTitle=1&title_id=9802&edition_id=13231

Half a Citizen: Life on welfare in Australia, with Suellen Murray, Jenny Chalmers, Sonia Martin & Greg Marston, (Allen & Unwin, 2011), won an Australian Human Rights Commission 2011 Award. www.musse.unimelb.edu.au/january-12-78/university-researcher-wins-human-rights-award-literature
 and www.allenandunwin.com/default.aspx?page=94&book=9781742376059

- (2011) “Church and State in the history of Australia welfare”, Hilary Carey & John Gascoigne (eds), Church and State in Old and New Worlds, Brill, Leiden/Boston, pp. 261-285.
- (2010) "Path Dependence and the Stagnation of Australian Social Policy between the Wars", The Journal of Policy History, 22, 4, Oct., pp. 450-473.
- (2010) "Memory, identity and public narrative: Composing a life-story after leaving institutional care, Victoria, 1945-1983", Cultural and Social History, 7, 3, Sept., pp. 297-314
- (2010) "Welfare Regimes and Risky Speculations", Greg Marston, Jeremy Moss & John Quiggan (eds), Risk, Welfare and Work, pp. 24-47, (MUP)

Previous books:

- Imagining the Fifties: Private Sentiment and Political Culture in Menzies' Australia (UNSW Press, 2000),
- Harvest of Fear: a History of Australia's Vietnam War (Allen and Unwin, Sydney and Westview Press, USA, 1993),
- with Suellen Murray, Elizabeth Branigan and Jenny Malone, After the Orphanage: Life beyond the children's home; (UNSW Press, 2009) www.newsouthbooks.com.au/isbn/9781921410901.htm

< Teaching:
A Century of Australian Social Policy
Australia and Asia in war and peace
Memory, Identity, Narrative, Biography [PhD coursework elective]

Current RHD supervision:
• Stephen Bain, The Port Phillip Protectorate, PhD
• Penny Duckworth, Constructing Community: The state in everyday life, PhD
• Karolina Kurzak, The face of the poor: A history of charity and poverty in Victoria PhD
• Gareth Sobey, 'Putting the Family First': The Christian Right in Australia, PhD

Recent RHD completions
• Sybil Nolan, The young Robert Menzies and the Age: A relationship in liberalism, PhD, 2011
• Bill Garner, The ephemeral settlement of Australia: a history of camping, PhD, 2010
• Bob Marmion, Gibraltar of the South: Colonial Defence in Victoria, 1851-1901, PhD, 2009
• Terry McDonnell, The 1922 election, MA, 2009
• Peter Stell, The Sydney Dance Company, 2009

Research Expertise and International Linkages

Research Expertise

Research Interest Key Words Country of Expertise
Australian history, primarily since the second world war. Politics, social history Australia
Biography, memory, narrative and historiography Gender, culture Australia
The history of Australian social policy; contemporary social policy and welfare to work Civil society; religion and welfare Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom

Qualifications, Honours, Fellowships and Other Awards

Qualifications

Title Institution Date Awarded Abbreviation
BA (Hons) University of Melbourne 31-Dec-1978
MA Monash University 31-Dec-1984
PhD University of Melbourne 31-Dec-1992

Memberships

Membership Type Membership Body Description Start Date End Date
Member Australian Historical Association Member 01-Jan-1992

Other Awards

Award Type Awarding Body Comments Date Awarded
Prize RMIT University The Centre for Applied Social Research, of which I was Director, won the RMIT Research Team Award in 2003 01-Jul-2003
Other (Award) Australian Human Rights Commission Literature / non-fiction Award Awarded for Half a Citizen: Life on Welfare in Australia (Allen and Unwin, 2011); joint author 09-Dec-2011

Government Research Classifications

Research Fields, Courses and Discipline Classifications

Socio-Economic Objective Classifications

Grants and Contracts

Research Grants, Contracts and Consultancies awarded to the University of Melbourne as the administering institution (since 2003) as recorded in Themis Agreements.

Grants

Title Role Funding Source Scheme Award Date
150 low income Australians: a group biography over time Chief Investigator AUST RESEARCH COUNCIL Linkage Projects 01/01/2007
The face of the poor: a history of poverty through the eyes of the St Vincent de Paul Society Chief Investigator AUST RESEARCH COUNCIL Linkage Projects 01/02/2007
Evatt: A Biography Chief Investigator AUST RESEARCH COUNCIL Discovery Projects 01/01/2012

Additional Grant and Contract Information

Current ARC-funded research projects: 

• ARC Linkage grant (2007-10): "The face of the poor: a history of poverty through the eyes of the St Vincent de Paul Society." This PhD project is conducting research in a unique collection of minute books of parish level groups of the St Vincent de Paul Society in Victoria over the 20th century, to write a social history of poverty and contribute to understanding how one Christian denomination imagined poverty and social exclusion. The PhD student on this project is Karolina Kurzak.

Recently completed ARC-Funded research projects:
• ARC Linkage grant (2007-10): "150 low-income Australians: a group biography over time". With Suellen Murray at RMIT, Greg Marston at University of Queensland and Jenny Chalmers at UNSW. This project consisted of life-history interviews with 150 low-income Australians. The Industry Partner was Jobs Australia.
• ARC Linkage grant (2005-8): "Life after care: the life-histories of those who left institutional care, 1945-1989". With Suellen Murray of RMIT University. The Industry Partner was MacKillop Family Services. Outcomes included After the Orphanage: Memory, identity and personal history in post-war Australia.
• ARC Discovery project (2006-8): "Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds: Designing Everyday Modernism for Australian Communities 1920-1970." With Kate Darian-Smith and Philip Goad, Hannah Lewi and Julie Willis (Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning).

Publications

Publications produced at the University of Melbourne and reported in the Annual Publications Collection and 'Research Report' since 2001. The Themis Publications module, released in November 2006, allows additional publications from previous institutions and publications from past years to be entered.

Publications in 2011

Books

  • A Decent Provision: Australian Welfare Policy, 1870-1949
    Year: 2011
    Publisher: Ashgate(Aldershot)
    Authors(s):
  • Half a Citizen: Life on welfare in Australia
    Year: 2011
    Publisher: Allen & Unwin(Sydney)
    Authors(s):

Book Chapters

  • Church and State in the history of Australia welfare


    Year: 2011
    Book: Church and State in Old and New Worlds
    Publisher: Brill Academic Publishers(Leiden)
    Authors(s):
    Editors(s):

Publications in 2010

Book Chapters

  •  Welfare Regimes and Risky Speculations
    Year: 2010
    Book: Risk, Welfare and Work
    Publisher: Melbourne University Publishing(Parkville)
    Authors(s):
    Editors(s):

Journal Articles

  • Path Dependence and the Stagnation of Australian Social Policy between the Wars


    Year: 2010
    Journal: Journal of Policy History
    Volume: 22
    Issue: 4
    Page numbers: 450-473
    Author(s):
    Super Search Source this item in the University's Catalouge locate this resource.
  • Memory, identity and public narrative: Composing a life-story after leaving institutional care, Victoria, 1945-1983
    Year: 2010
    Journal: Cultural & Social History
    Volume: 7
    Issue: 3
    Page numbers: 297-314
    Author(s):
    Super Search Source this item in the University's Catalouge locate this resource.

Publications in 2009

Books

Publications in 2008

Book Chapters

  • Agenda Setting piece (Re-published section from Imagining the Fifties)
    Year: 2008
    Book: Making Australian History: Perspectives on the past since 1788
    Publisher: Thompson Legal & Regulatory(Pyrmont)
    Authors(s):

Journal Articles

  • The poverty of liberalism: the first Old Age Pensions in Australia
    Year: 2008
    Journal: Thesis Eleven
    Volume: 95
    Page numbers: 33-47
    Author(s):
    Super Search Source this item in the University's Catalouge locate this resource.

Publications in 2007

Book Chapters

  • The Voice of Memory: History, Autobiography and Oral Memory
    Year: 2007
    Book: Autobiography: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies: Vol III
    Publisher: Routledge(London)
    Authors(s):

Journal Articles

  • Suffering, vice and justice: religious imaginaries and welfare agencies in postwar Melbourne
    Year: 2007
    Journal: Journal of Religious History
    Volume: 31
    Issue: 3
    Page numbers: 287-304
    Author(s):
    Super Search Source this item in the University's Catalouge locate this resource.

Publications in 2006

Book Chapters

  • The fifties
    Year: 2006
    Book: Sociology: Time, Place and Division
    Publisher: Oxford University Press(South Melbourne)
    Authors(s):

Journal Articles

  • Funding the Non-profit Welfare Sector: Explaining Changing Funding Sources 1960-1999
    Year: 2006
    Journal: Economic Papers
    Volume: 25
    Issue: 1
    Page numbers: 83-99
    Author(s):
    Super Search Source this item in the University's Catalouge locate this resource.
  • The Other Welfare State: non-government agencies and the mixed economy of welfare in Australia
    Year: 2006
    Journal: History Australia
    Volume: 3
    Issue: 2
    Page numbers: 44.01-44.15
    Author(s):
    Super Search Source this item in the University's Catalouge locate this resource.

Reports

  • Winners and losers: regional futures and local profiles (non-refereed report - 120 pages - published by Centre for Applied Social Research, RMIT)
    Year: 2006
    Publisher: RMIT University(Melbourne)
    Authors:

Publications in 2005

Books

  • Double Shift: Working mothers and social change in Australia
    Year: 2005
    Publisher: Melbourne Publishing Group/Circa(Armadale)
    Authors(s):

Book Chapters

  • Never Done: the Working Mothers of the 1950s
    Year: 2005
    Book: Double Shift: Working Mothers and Social Change in Australia
    Publisher: Melbourne Publishing Group/Circa(Armadale)
    Authors(s):
    URL - open access http://eprints.infodiv.unimelb.edu.au/archive/00001730/
  • The other welfare state: the non-government welfare sector in Victoria
    Year: 2005
    Book: History in Global Perspective; Proceedings of the 20th International Congress of Historical Sciences, Sydney 2005
    Publisher: University of New South Wales Press(Sydney)
    Authors(s):

Journal Articles

Publications in 2004

Journal Articles

  • 'Anything for the house’: recollections of post-war suburban dreaming

    Year: 2004
    Journal: Australian Historical Studies
    Volume: 36
    Issue: 124
    Page numbers: 275-293
    Author(s):
    Super Search Source this item in the University's Catalouge locate this resource.

Reports

  • Report on Interviews: Research into Poverty in Hume City (non-refereed report - 36 pages - published by Hume City Council)
    Year: 2004
    Publisher: Hume City Council(Melbourne)
    Authors:
  • Seeing poverty: A literature review: (non-refereed report - 23 pages - published by Hume City Council)
    Year: 2004
    Publisher: Hume City Council(Melbourne)
    Authors:

Publications in 2003

Reports

  • Human Service Gaps at the Interface between urban and rural (non-refereed report  - 104 pages - published by Centre for Applied Social Research)
    Year: 2003
    Publisher: RMIT University(Melbourne)
    Authors:

Publications in 2002

Journal Articles

  • Breadwinning: accounts of work and family life in the 1950s
    Year: 2002
    Journal: Labour & Industry
    Volume: 12
    Issue: 3
    Page numbers: 59-75
    Author(s):
    Super Search Source this item in the University's Catalouge locate this resource.

Publications in 2001

Journal Articles

  • Majority opinion or divided selves?: researching work and family issues
    Year: 2001
    Journal: People and Place
    Volume: 9
    Issue: 4
    Page numbers: 25-34
    Author(s):
    Super Search Source this item in the University's Catalouge locate this resource.
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