Verity Burgmann

Last updated

Verity Burgmann
Born
Verity Nancy Burgmann

(1952-09-17) 17 September 1952 (age 71)
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Nationality Australian
Occupations
  • Academic
  • Author
Spouse
(m. 1977)
Children3
Parents
  • Victor Burgmann
  • Lorna Bradbury
Relatives
Academic background
Alma mater
Thesis Revolutionaries and Racists: Australian Socialism and the Problem of Racism, 1887–1917  (1980)

During the 1970s, Burgmann became actively involved in 'radical' politics, most notably the anti-apartheid campaign, and the campaign for aboriginal land rights. In 1971, along with her sister Meredith, she was ejected from the Sydney Cricket Ground after disrupting play during the controversial 1971 Springbok tour of Australia. [2] Burgmann's activism continued during her time in the United Kingdom, where she devoted her efforts to the International Socialists and the Socialist Workers Party (Britain).

She lived with Peter Hain, who was then leading the STST (Stop The Seventy Tour) campaign in Britain against the visits of racially selected sporting teams from South Africa. [3] After moving to Melbourne in the early 1980s, she became involved in People for Nuclear Disarmament. During the 1990 federal election campaign, opposition leader Andrew Peacock visited her sons' creche for a photo opportunity where Burgmann greeted him with her middle son on her hip, holding a children's blackboard reading: "I don't want Mr Peacock to kiss my baby." [4] The focus of Burgmann's recent activism has been the defence of public education (she is on the executive of the Public Education Group) and trade unionism.

Verity Burgmann married Andrew Milner, the British-Australian cultural theorist and literary critic, in 1977. They have three sons. [5]

Verity Burgmann began her academic career teaching British Government at South London College in 1975. Between 1978 and 1980 Burgmann worked at both the University of New South Wales and the University of Sydney, before moving to the Political Science Department at the University of Melbourne in 1981. In 2003, she was appointed Professor of Political Science. Burgmann was Deputy Dean of the Arts faculty at the University of Melbourne between 2004 and 2006. She retired in 2013, taught in Berlin for a semester and was then appointed Adjunct Professor at Monash University.

She was elected a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 1999. [6]

Burgmann's research interests are the history and politics of the Australian labour movement, radical political ideologies, contemporary protest movements, environmental politics, racism, anti-globalization and anti-corporate politics. [7] She has established a significant reputation both as a labour historian and as a political scientist of social movements and social change. [8]

Selected works

Writings

Edited works

Related Research Articles

Geoffrey Norman Blainey, is an Australian historian, academic, best selling author and commentator.

A green ban is a form of strike action, usually taken by a trade union or other organised labour group, which is conducted for environmentalist or conservationist purposes. They were mainly done in Australia in the 1970s, led by the Builders Labourers Federation (BLF) and used to protect parkland, low-income housing and buildings with historical significance. At times, industrial action was used in relation to other issues, such as when a 'pink ban' was placed on Macquarie University due to the expulsion of Jeremy Fisher, a gay man, from student housing.

Social movement unionism (SMU) is a trend of theory and practice in contemporary trade unionism. Strongly associated with the labour movements of developing countries, social movement unionism is distinct from many other models of trade unionism because it concerns itself with more than organizing workers around workplace issues, pay and terms and conditions. It engages in wider political struggles for human rights, social justice and democracy. Social movement unionism grew out of political struggles in developing countries and was theorized as a distinct industrial relations model in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Stuart Forbes Macintyre was an Australian historian, and Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne from 1999 to 2008. He was voted one of Australia's most influential historians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robyn Eckersley</span> Australian academic

Robyn Eckersley is a Professor and Head of Political Science in the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne, Australia.

Andrew John Milner is Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature at Monash University. From 2014 until 2019 he was also Honorary Professor of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick. In 2013 he was Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack Visiting Professor of Australian Studies at the Institut für Englische Philologie, Freie Universität Berlin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meredith Burgmann</span> Australian politician

Meredith Anne Burgmann is an Australian politician and Labor Party member and a former President of the New South Wales Legislative Council.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jenny Hocking</span> Australian political science writer and researcher

Jennifer Jane Hocking is an Australian historian, political scientist and biographer. She is the inaugural Distinguished Whitlam Fellow with the Whitlam Institute at Western Sydney University, Emeritus Professor at Monash University, and former Director of the National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash University. Her work is in two key areas, counter-terrorism and Australian political biography. In both areas she explores Australian democratic practice, the relationship between the arms of government, and aspects of Australian political history. Her research into the life of former Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam uncovered significant new material on the role of High Court justice Sir Anthony Mason in the dismissal of the Whitlam government. This has been described as "a discovery of historical importance". Since 2001 Hocking has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Lionel Murphy Foundation.

Hilary Jane McPhee is an Australian writer and editor. She was awarded an Order of Australia for service to the Arts in 2003.

Ponch Hawkes is an Australian photographer whose work explores intergenerational relationships, queer identity and LGBTQI+ rights, the female body, masculinity, and women at work, capturing key moments in Australia's cultural and social histories.

The Barbara Ramsden Award was administered by Fellowship of Australian Writers and awarded annually to an author and editor in recognition of the efforts of both parties to produce a quality fiction or non-fiction book. The winners receive a memorial plaque. It was established in 1971 and was awarded annually until 1992. It was reestablished in 2006 with sponsorship from Society of Editors (Victoria) Inc. The award was named after Australian editor Barbara Ramsden (1903–1971). It was cancelled in 2016.

Diane Joyce Austin-Broos is an anthropologist from Australia. She is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Sydney; her major research areas are Jamaica and Central Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ann Curthoys</span> Australian historian and academic

Ann Curthoys, is an Australian historian and academic.

Raelene Frances, is an Australian historian and academic at the Australian National University.

Lynette Wendy Russell, is an Australian historian, known for her work on the history of Indigenous Australians; in particular, anthropological history ; archaeology; gender and race, Indigenous oral history, and museum studies.

Marian Quartly is an Australian social historian. She is professor emeritus in history at Monash University.

Diane Elizabeth Kirkby, is an Australian historian. She is Professor of Law and Humanities at the University of Technology Sydney and professor emeritus of History at La Trobe University. Since 2016, Kirkby has been the editor of Labour History, the journal of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History.

Ann Margaret McGrath is an Australian historian and academic. As of 2023 she is the WK Hancock Chair of History at the Australian National University in Canberra.

Vera Mackie is an Australian academic who has specialised in Japanese feminism and gender history. As of 2021 she is Emeritus Senior Professor of Asian and International Studies at the University of Wollongong.

Lynette "Lyn" Syme (1948-2019) was an Australian political and labor activist, feminist and aboriginal land-rights advocate, recognized in her later years as a Wiradjuri elder of the Dabee people in what is current-day New South Wales.

References

  1. "Reason in Revolt".
  2. The Sydney Morning Herald, 7 July 1971.
  3. The Guardian, 22 August 1972.
  4. The Age, 27 February 1990.
  5. Who's Who in Australia 2009, ed. Leanne Sullivan, Crown Content, Melbourne, 2009, p. 1480.
  6. "Academy Fellow: Professor Verity Burgmann FASSA". Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. Retrieved 5 October 2020.
  7. Verity Burgmann, "Solving the Riddle of History" in Bain Attwood (ed.), Labour Histories, Monash University Publications in History No.17, Monash University, 1994, pp. 28–42
  8. Burgmann's University of Melbourne staff profile