What is it about?
Many scholars have reported on the difficulties of teaching Anzac and Australia's history of war. This paper discusses non-confrontational teaching strategies for getting university students to think carefully about the historical accuracy of the popular Anzac narrative and the purposes it serves.
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Why is it important?
The Anzac legend is an important entry point into Australian history. Yet, it is a combustible topic that connects to national identity and personal histories in ways that can be intimidating for the university educator who is increasingly beholden to student feedback on teaching. We argue students' connections to Anzac can still be respected in classroom discussions that prioritise modern scholarship and professional history ethics and methods.
Perspectives
Writing this article was a great pleasure as it has co-authors with whom I have had long standing collaborations. I am particularly proud of the literature review, which presents a condensed overview of Anzac from an interdisciplinary perspective at a timely moment. I hope the paper fires a wider conversation on how to teach contentious topics in history, particularly to students who are non-history specialists.
Michael Kilmister
University of Newcastle
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Treading on sacred ground? Confronting the Anzac myth in higher education, History Compass, August 2017, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/hic3.12395.
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