Royal Australian Historical Society Special Event

Day Lecture, 1-2pm, Wednesday 21 October

Suburban Noir

Peter Doyle

Forensic records constitute a special class of material culture. As the by-products of detailed observation, as mappings of domestic relationships, and the often circuitous enactments of human desires they present as a kind of accidental historical ethnography. The researcher into the forensic past (in my case, the 1950s and 60s) is confronted with masses of extraordinarily revealing, but often ethically complicated material culture. The forensic archive seems to offer so much evidence, so many answers, the research problem becomes, at least in part, to find the question that the archive answers.

About the speaker: Peter Doyle has curated major exhibitions on forensic material culture, police photography and Australian pulp publishing. His books include City of Shadows, (2005) and Crooks Like Us, (2009), and the novel The Big Whatever (2015). He is an Associate Professor of Media at Macquarie University, Sydney.

Online via Zoom, Reserve tickets to receive webinar link: https://www.rahs.org.au/event/rahs-special-event-suburban-noir/