So the Australian Historical Association conference is next week. My slot is on the Thursday, the session before lunch. I've written the article and as I predicted it was a tight squeeze. In fact I'm not sure if it's trying to be too much and consequently is not enough. But the good thing about this AHA/CAL bursary is that I'll have a writing mentor and two writing workshops during the conference to help me figure that out.
Now it's time to put the talk itself together. In fact I'm going to be boring and use the same plan for the talk:
- The scare
- The threat
- The other scares
That is, first explain about mystery aeroplanes, when they were seen, where they were seen, who saw them. Then explain them with reference to the context of 1918: the idea that a German seaplane had flown over Sydney in 1917, and the fear of an Allied collapse on the Western Front. And finally to show that what happened in Australia in 1918 was not unique to that time or that place, but was part of a Scareship Age.
Or maybe I'll swap 1 and 2 around. I don't know.
Incidentally, I've just put up a page listing my posts about mystery aircraft scares. I had intended this to accompany a post comparing the Australian 1918 scare to others, but was too busy writing the article. Numerous entries actually have no links; I'll try to fill some of those blanks in in future.
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