Rowan J Cahill
Rowan Cahill (b.1945) has worked as a farmhand, teacher, freelance writer, and for the trade union movement as a publicist, historian, and rank and file activist.
In 1967 Cahill was a founder of the radical and innovative Sydney Free University (1967-1972); between 1969-1973, he was a member of the editorial board of 'Australian Left Review' (ALR), a bi-monthly journal of theory and practice published by the Communist Party of Australia. During this period, ALR had a pioneering role in introducing the work of Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) to Australian intellectual and political audiences. From 1970 to 1972, Cahill was employed by the militant Seamen's Union of Australia (SUA) as a journalist and historian.
A graduate of the universities of Sydney, New England (NSW, Australia), and the University of Wollongong, Cahill has published extensively in labour movement, radical, and academic publications. As a classroom teacher, he was a prolific contributor to education debate via contributions to non-academic publications, particularly 'Education', journal of the NSW Teachers Federation. Between 2001 and its final issue in December 2006, Cahill was a regular contributor to, and Picket Line Correspondent for, the internationally acclaimed Sydney based labour movement online journal 'Workers Online'.
In 2013 he was awarded a doctorate by the University of Wollongong (NSW) for his dissertation "Rupert Lockwood (1908-1997): Journalist, Communist, Intellectual". In 2014, Cahill was awarded the 'Professor Jim Hagan Memorial Prize' by the University of Wollongong for this dissertation. Currently he is an Honorary Fellow with the Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts, University of Wollongong.
Professional website: rowancahill.net
[Rowan has also published as Rowan J. Cahill and R. J. Cahill]
In 1967 Cahill was a founder of the radical and innovative Sydney Free University (1967-1972); between 1969-1973, he was a member of the editorial board of 'Australian Left Review' (ALR), a bi-monthly journal of theory and practice published by the Communist Party of Australia. During this period, ALR had a pioneering role in introducing the work of Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) to Australian intellectual and political audiences. From 1970 to 1972, Cahill was employed by the militant Seamen's Union of Australia (SUA) as a journalist and historian.
A graduate of the universities of Sydney, New England (NSW, Australia), and the University of Wollongong, Cahill has published extensively in labour movement, radical, and academic publications. As a classroom teacher, he was a prolific contributor to education debate via contributions to non-academic publications, particularly 'Education', journal of the NSW Teachers Federation. Between 2001 and its final issue in December 2006, Cahill was a regular contributor to, and Picket Line Correspondent for, the internationally acclaimed Sydney based labour movement online journal 'Workers Online'.
In 2013 he was awarded a doctorate by the University of Wollongong (NSW) for his dissertation "Rupert Lockwood (1908-1997): Journalist, Communist, Intellectual". In 2014, Cahill was awarded the 'Professor Jim Hagan Memorial Prize' by the University of Wollongong for this dissertation. Currently he is an Honorary Fellow with the Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts, University of Wollongong.
Professional website: rowancahill.net
[Rowan has also published as Rowan J. Cahill and R. J. Cahill]
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Books and Monographs by Rowan J Cahill
But there has always been another Sydney not viewed so fondly by the city’s rulers, a radical Sydney they are intent on ‘disappearing’ beneath concrete and glass. In the arc of working-class suburbs to the south and west, menace and disaffection developed. From the early nineteenth century through to the late twentieth century these suburbs were large and explosive places of marginalised ideas, bohemian neighbourhoods, dissident politics and contentious action.
Through a series of snapshots of people, episodes, and places, Radical Sydney captures aspects of this ‘other’ Sydney, from the days of early settlement through to the late 1970s, from Governor Phillip’s head-hunting expedition to freeing protestors in the anti-conscription movement during the Vietnam War; and in between, resident action movements in Kings Cross, anarchists in Glebe, Gay Rights activism on Oxford Street, Black Power in Redfern.
In the mainstream of white masculine and middle-class history, the voices of Aboriginal fighters, convict poets, feminist journalists, democratic agitators, bohemian dreamers and revolutionaries are rarely heard. This book restores some of that clamour and disturbance to the history of the city.
While the subject of the book is Sydney, authors Irving and Cahill make clear in their ‘Introduction’ that the book has been written as a challenge to the mainstream consensus version of Australian history. The consensus version tends to sanitise the past to present a view of Australian history and society proceeding on the basis of cooperation and consensus, a past in which there is little significant political and/or social turbulence. The authors’ view of the Australian past, on the contrary, is one in which significant political and social ferment, dissent, turbulence are not strangers, nor occasional.
Contributions to Books by Rowan J Cahill
Articles and Papers by Rowan J Cahill
But there has always been another Sydney not viewed so fondly by the city’s rulers, a radical Sydney they are intent on ‘disappearing’ beneath concrete and glass. In the arc of working-class suburbs to the south and west, menace and disaffection developed. From the early nineteenth century through to the late twentieth century these suburbs were large and explosive places of marginalised ideas, bohemian neighbourhoods, dissident politics and contentious action.
Through a series of snapshots of people, episodes, and places, Radical Sydney captures aspects of this ‘other’ Sydney, from the days of early settlement through to the late 1970s, from Governor Phillip’s head-hunting expedition to freeing protestors in the anti-conscription movement during the Vietnam War; and in between, resident action movements in Kings Cross, anarchists in Glebe, Gay Rights activism on Oxford Street, Black Power in Redfern.
In the mainstream of white masculine and middle-class history, the voices of Aboriginal fighters, convict poets, feminist journalists, democratic agitators, bohemian dreamers and revolutionaries are rarely heard. This book restores some of that clamour and disturbance to the history of the city.
While the subject of the book is Sydney, authors Irving and Cahill make clear in their ‘Introduction’ that the book has been written as a challenge to the mainstream consensus version of Australian history. The consensus version tends to sanitise the past to present a view of Australian history and society proceeding on the basis of cooperation and consensus, a past in which there is little significant political and/or social turbulence. The authors’ view of the Australian past, on the contrary, is one in which significant political and social ferment, dissent, turbulence are not strangers, nor occasional.
In histories and commentaries Lockwood is generally referred to, often in a pejorative way, as “the communist journalist”. This thesis is an exploration of the life and the sixty-year career of Lockwood as a journalist and writer, in which membership of the CPA was but part (1939-1969).
A general chronological framework is adopted, and the account developed with regard to three aspects of his life and career– as a journalist, as a communist, and as an intellectual.
By contextualising the communist period of Lockwood’s life in his overall life and times, the portrait of a significant Australian journalist emerges, one who chose to leave the capitalist press for the adversarial and counter sphere of labour movement journalism, the latter the site of his work from 1940 until retirement in 1985.
The thesis also explores Lockwood’s considerable intellectual activity, and mounts a case for recognition of the originality and sophistication of his largely unacknowledged research and writings in the areas of Australian history, politics, and political economy.
Overall, this thesis contributes empirical knowledge and understandings to a number of aspects of Australian history: to labour movement history generally, and specifically to communist and labour biography; to journalism history; and to intellectual history. In so doing, it also contributes to the understanding of Australia between the two World Wars, and during the Cold War.