Dr Michael Cathcart
Lecturer in Australian Studies
- Telephone:
- (+61 3) 8344 6865
- Email:
- cathcart@unimelb.edu.au
- Fax:
- (+61 3) 9347 7731
- Location:
- Room 209, 137 Barry St
Australian Centre, Carlton VIC 3053
Academic Profile (click on the link for more information)
Biography
- Qualifications:
- BA Hons (Melb), Dip. Ed. (Melb), MA (ANU), PhD (Melb)
Dr Michael Cathcart is a writer and broadcaster with a long association with the Australian Centre. As a historian, he is best-known for his acclaimed abridgment of Manning Clark's six-volume classic, A History of Australia (1993). He and Kate Darian-Smith produced the wide-ranging anthology, Stirring Australian Speeches (2004). Michael is also the author of Defending the National Tuckshop (1988), a study of conservative responses to the Great Depression notably the paramilitary movement, the White Army.
Michael returned to the Centre in 2005 after a secondment to the ABC. In 2000 and 2001, he presented the daily program Arts Today on ABC Radio National where he has also hosted other programs including Late Night Live, Bush Telegraph and the Famous Radio National Quiz.
On ABC TV he hosted the 15-part series Rewind, which presented little-known stories from Australian history. In 2009, he presented the two-part TV documentary Rogue Nation which dramatised conflicts in colonial Sydney including the Rum Rebellion. He appears in a forthcoming documentary on the life of the runaway convict William Buckley and has other TV projects in development.
His latest book is The Water Dreamers: The Remarkable History of Our Dry Continent (Text, August 2009). It tells the story of how settler Australians attempted to transform this dry continent and how it, in turn, changed them. It is, he says, ‘a story of how we learned to belong.’
Michael is also preparing a popular edition of the journals of David Collins. His great love is the theatre and he has directed several plays. He is married to the playwright Hannie Rayson.
Awards
- High Commendation, Bates Smart Media Award for Architecture in the Media, 2002 Victorian Architecture Awards (Royal Australian Institute of Architects) for "Moral Rights in Architecture" (a story broadcast on ABC Radio National)
- Joint-winner of the Bates Smart Media Award for Architecture in the Media, 2001 Victorian Architecture Awards (RAIA) for "The Shard: Federation Square (a story broadcast on ABC Radio National)
- Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers – Highly Commended 1993 for the index to Abridgement of Manning Clark’s History of Australia
- Short-listed for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, 1989 for Defending the National Tuckshop.
Research
Michael's research interests include the cultural history of water in Australia, perception of Australian landscapes, ideologies of sounds and silence in history, and Australian conservative political movements particularly the secret organisations of the inter-war years and the 1940s.
Publications
Books
- Michael Cathcart, The Water Dreamers: The Remarkable History of Our Dry Continent, Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2009
- Michael Cathcart and Kate Darian-Smith (eds), Stirring Australian Speeches, anthology MUP, Melbourne, 2004
- Michael Cathcart and Kate Darian-Smith (eds), Place Your Bets: Gambling in Victoria, The Australian Centre, University of Melbourne, 1996
- Michael Cathcart, Manning Clark’s History of Australia, one-volume abridgement of the 6-vol classic, MUP, Melbourne 1993. Also published by Penguin and in UK
- Michael Cathcart, David Goodman, Tom Griffiths (eds.), Mission to the South Seas: The Voyage of the Duff, History Department, University of Melbourne, 1990
- Michael Cathcart, Defending the National Tuckshop: Australia’s Secret Army Intrigue of 1931, McPhee Gribble/Penguin, 1988
Chapters
- Michael Cathcart, ‘Lemuria and Australian Dreams of an Inland Sea’, Lemuria, Winter 2006, vol.1 no.1, Dayanand (Post Graduate) College, Ajmer, India (available online at http://eprints.infodiv.unimelb.edu.au/archive/00003265/
- Michael Cathcart, ‘History’ in Australia, Lonely Planet, Melbourne, 2006, pp.38–48
- Michael Cathcart, ‘History’ in Queensland, Lonely Planet, Melbourne, 2006, pp. 27–33
- Michael Cathcart, ‘History’ in East Coast Australia, Lonely Planet, Melbourne, 2006, pp.26–32
- Michael Cathcart, ‘Uluru’ in Tim Bonyhady and Tom Griffiths (eds), Words for Country: Landscape and Language in Australia, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2002, pp.206–220
- Michael Cathcart, ‘The Geography of Silence,’ RePublica, issue 3, 1995, pp.177–87
- Michael Cathcart, ‘The Silent Continent’, Adam Shoemaker (ed.) A Sea Change: Australian Writing and Photography, SOCOG, Sydney, 1998, pp.91–106
- Michael Cathcart, ‘Eyes of the Beholders’, The Australian’s Review of Books, March 1997, pp.6–7 – a 3000-word review essay of Simon Ryan’s The Cartographic Eye
Teaching
Michael teaches 102-111 Australia Now, a subject which explores key themes in Australian history and contemporary society. The subject has special appeal to international students who wish to have a deeper understanding of the country they are visiting.