Joy Damousi is Professor of History at the University of Melbourne.
She has had a long-standing interest in Australian political history,
beginning with her first book published twenty years ago on women
in left-wing movements, Women Come Rally: Socialism, communism
and gender in Australia 1890-1955 (1994). Since then she has written
on various aspects of the politics and impact of war, migration
and internationalism throughout the Cold War period. Her books
include Living with the Aftermath: Trauma, Nostalgia and Grief in
Post-war Australia (2001), Freud in the Antipodes: A Cultural History
of Psychoanalysis in Australia (2005) and Colonial Voices: A Cultural
History of English in Australia 1840-1940 (2010). She is co-editor of
Diversity in Leadership: Australian Women, Past and Present (2014).

Innovative study of the role of language in the 'civilising' project of the British Empire in colonial Australia.

Introduction; Prologue: from England to empire; Part I. Colonial Experience: 1. Civilising speech; 2. Eloquence and voice culture; 3. Elocution theory and practice; Part II. Language Education: 4. Etiquette and everyday life; 5. Education; 6. Teachers and pupils; Part III. Social Reform and Oratory: 7. Social reform and eloquence; 8. Speech in war, 1914-18; Part IV. Australian English: 9. The colonies speak: speech and accent in the empire, 1920s and 1930s; 10. Broadcasting the radio voice; 11. The advent of the 'talkies' and imagined communities; Epilogue.