Greg Dening
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Gregory Moore Dening[1] (29 March 1931 – 13 March 2008)[2] was an Australian historian of the Pacific.
Dening was born in
As Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Melbourne, he was one of Australia's most eminent historians, and one of the preeminent historians and anthropologists of the South Pacific. From 1998 to 2004 he taught ten-day graduate workshops at the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research at the Australian National University, Canberra. He died on 13 March 2008 in Hobart. Vanessa Smith of the University of Sydney spoke of "...his unique gift as a historian, unobtrusively demonstrating that the most acute critical perception is not incommensurate with the deepest appreciation of his subjects' human circumstances."[3]
Personal life
He entered the
Quotes
- "...the abiding grace of history...[is that] it is the theatre in which we experience truth". (Performances, 1996)
- "In the theater of my history, I want the reader to go where I haven't been. It is not for me to say whether I have succeeded in doing that. I know I try to give my readers freedom by being mysterious". ("Enigma Variations on History in Three Keys: A Conversational Essay")
- "I cannot cope with an anthropology of natives and a history of strangers. I have ambitions to do an anthrohistory of them both. I have a passionate belief as well that I am a story-teller. Story is my theatre. Story is my art". ("Writing, Rewriting the Beach", Rethinking History, 2(2), p. 170)
Bibliography
- Dening, Greg (1973). "History as a social system". Historical Studies. 15: 673–685. .
- — (1978). Xavier : a centenary portrait. Kew, Vic.: Old Xavierians' Association.
- — (1980). Islands and beaches : discourse on a silent land, Marquesas, 1774–1880. Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press.
- The Death of ISBN 978-0-522-84692-8. 1991
- ISBN 978-0-521-38370-7. 1992
- Xavier Portraits ISBN 978-0-9595926-1-0. 1993
- Performances ISBN 978-0-226-14298-2. 1996
- — (1997). "Beside the seaside". Eureka Street. 7 (8): 39.
- Readings/Writings ISBN 978-0-522-84841-0. 1998
- 'Writing, Rewriting the Beach', Rethinking History 2: 2, 1998, p. 170.
- "Enigma Variations on History in Three Keys: A Conversational Essay", History and Theory, 39, Issue 2, May 2000, 210 – 217. © Wesleyan University.
- Beach Crossings: Voyaging Across Times, Cultures and Self ISBN 978-0-522-84886-1. 2004
- Church Alive!: Pilgrimages in Faith, 1956–2006 ISBN 978-0-86840-843-9. 2006
- Wallumetta: The Other Side: Faith, Life and Worship on the North Shore 1856–2006 ISBN 978-0-86840-907-8. 2006
- ISBN 2-904171-66-2, 2007
- — (2007–2008). "James Joyce and the soul of Irish Jesuitry". Australasian Journal of Irish Studies. 7: 10–19.
- Challenges to Perform: History, Passion and the Imagination
- 'Wayfinding: Dancing on the Beaches of the Mind' in Gert Reifhart & Philip Morrissey, eds, Aesopic Voices: Re-framing Truth through Concealed Ways of Presentation in the 20th and 21st Centuries, Cambridge Scholars Press, 2011, pages 338–357.
References
- ^ University of Melbourne Archives. "Dening, Gregory M." Recollect CMS. Retrieved 10 June 2024.
- ^ Chakrabarty, Dipesh (9 April 2008). "An imaginative and original historian". The Age. Retrieved 10 June 2024.
- S2CID 162312112
Further reading
- Douglas, Bronwen (2008), "Greg Dening: Wayfinder in the Presents of the Past", Journal of Pacific History, 43 (3): 359–366, S2CID 143918444
- Chakrabarty, Dipesh (9 April 2008), "An Imaginative and Original Historian", The Age
- Merwick, Donna, ed. (1994), Dangerous Liaisons: Essays in Honour of Greg Dening, History Department, University of Melbourne, ISBN 0-7325-0607-7