https://www.phansw.org.au/member-profile-jennifer-debenham/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=member-profile-jennifer-debenham Thu, 10 Dec 2020 09:43:33 +0000 hourly 1 https://www.phansw.org.au/member-profile-jennifer-debenham/#comment-232255 Thu, 06 Aug 2015 07:25:42 +0000 http://www.phansw.org.au/?p=2179#comment-232255 Hi Pauline, thanks for your encouraging remarks. Yes maybe I was a bit flagrant with my time line I’m forgetting to add more years as I get older! I was thinking about the hidden violence done to soldiers and their “duty” to look like they had weathered the war well. This feeds into the ‘heroic’ mythology that surrounds Anzac. It is an area that is attracting more attention as we critique the Anzac legend in more ways. This is seen as an unpatriotic slur by some commentators but we need to be continually questioning the construction of the legend and the purposes it is used.

]]> https://www.phansw.org.au/member-profile-jennifer-debenham/#comment-232242 Tue, 04 Aug 2015 22:56:47 +0000 http://www.phansw.org.au/?p=2179#comment-232242 What an interesting profile demonstrating once again the exciting range of work our members do Jennifer, next time we meet let’s debate your comment ‘fifty years ago the valour of Anzacs was ‘common sense’ and was rarely questioned by historians or the public’ which I question. It is 50 years since Australia first started our disastrous escapade in Vietnam and as a result many Australians robustly questioned our participation in not just this but in earlier wars as well – with the exception of the fight against the Japanese in WWII. Also I haven’t researched attitudes to WWI veterans in the inter-war years but I suspect there was scant veneration for them at that time. My perception is that no one cared too much about them until they were nearly all dead! Then few listened to the words of the last survivors which were generally along the theme of ‘war is hell, don’t glorify it’. Just some random thoughts.

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