Leigh Boucher
Biographic Data
| ID | 3693037 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Leigh Boucher |
| GIVEN NAMES | Leigh |
| FAMILY NAME | Boucher |
| SIGNATURE | BOUCHER L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Macquarie University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2136-2791 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 10 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 17 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
The Lusher motion
The proliferation of men’s sheds in Australia
Men’s sheds emerged in Australia with a promise to restore men to health and happiness through the provision of a gender-exclusive communal space and access to ‘traditional’ masculine activities. This article traces their emergence in order to examine how anti-feminist claims about the rights and needs of men have been yoked together with ideas about health and wellbeing in late modernity. Deploying Foucault’s concept of governmentality, moreover…
Mechanics Institutes in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Victoria
In the second half of the nineteenth century, mechanics institutes proliferated across the Australian colonies at such a rate that, by 1900, they were more widespread, proportional to population, than in Britain. This article examines the first 30 years of their development in colonial Victoria to offer a new interpretation of their deep entanglement with settler colonial liberalism. As in Britain, the Victoria mechanics institutes largely failed…
Sexual Citizenship and the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras
Since its beginnings as a parade and protest in 1978, the annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras has become something of a national juggernaut of queer pride in Australia, as well as an international tourist destination. At the centre of this event is an annual parade through the queer heartland of Sydney, comprised of floats and marching groups of performers. This article will investigate the changing stories told about the Australian nation a…
The Men’s Shed Movement in Australia
This article explores the cultural and political history of the men’s shed movement in Australia. This movement, which is ongoing, gathered steam after the first men’s sheds were opened in the mid-1990s, propelling the development of the community men’s shed model over the next decade and its widespread expansion across Australian communities. This article situates this movement in the context of broader contests over men’s rights in Australia an…
Decriminalisation, Apology and Expungement
This article examines two instances when the relationship between homosexuality and the state was contested and redrawn in Victoria. It traces how the spectre of sex in public haunted the edges of public debate in both the moment when male homosex was ostensibly decriminalised at the beginning of the 1980s and during more recent moves to offer forms of redress to individuals convicted of sex crimes in the past that would now be considered legal a…
Sex, Soldiers and the South Pacific, 1939–45
Sex, Soldiers and the South Pacific, 1939–45: Queer Identities in Australia in the Second World War. By Yorick Smaal (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), pp.xxi + 250. £60.00 (cloth)
Victorian liberalism and the effect of sovereignty
Postcolonial thinking has offered ‘new imperial’ historians productive avenues to reconsider the relationship between nineteenth-century liberalism and the British Empire. Questions of territory and sovereignty have, however, often been seen as secondary in these new histories of the citizen-subject of liberalism. From an Antipodean perspective, this seems a remarkable elision. Through an examination of the ideas of liberals in colonial Victoria,…
Studying Modern History gives me the chance to say what I think’
This article critically interrogates university history students’ ‘learning narratives’ in relation to the rise of ideas about student-centred learning in Australian universities. Drawing on interviews with third-year students, it suggests that we need to more carefully consider how students make choices about their educational activities and the ways in which some transformations in student culture may inadvertently sustain the possibility for s…
Modern British history from the Antipodes
This article has been peer reviewed
Settler Colonial Governance in Nineteenth-Century Victoria
This collection represents a serious re-examination of existing work on the Aboriginal history of nineteenth-century Victoria, deploying the insights of postcolonial thought to wrench open the inner workings of territorial expropriation and its historically tenacious variability. Colonial historians have frequently asserted that the management and control of Aboriginal people
Manly Affections
Manly Affections: The Photographs of Robert Gant 1885–1915.." Australian Historical Studies, 46(1), pp. 138–139
Public Emotions and their Personal Consequences
This article examines the historical and emotional consequences of the Victorian Football League's decision to ‘go national’. Many saw the emergence of the Australian Football League (AFL) as a threat to the authentic attachments of supporters. As many localized social practices were ‘rationalized’, however, engagement with the League increased across Australia. This article suggests that this success can be explained, in part, by the ways in whi…
Old Questions and ‘New Biography’
The work of Patrick Joyce and Joan Scott asks scholars to rigorously historicise experience, identity and, as a consequence, subjectivity. This article suggests the combination of their insights with biographical techniques has the potential to offer new explanations for intransigent historiographic problems such as the explosion of racism in late nineteenth-century Australian labour politics. The practice of biography, moreover, provides an oppo…
Soliciting sixpences from township to township
(2012). ‘Soliciting sixpences from township to township’: moral dilemmas in mid-nineteenth-century Melbourne. Postcolonial Studies: Vol. 15, Making Indigenous place in the Australian city, pp. 149-165
Homophobias
Crossing Boundaries
Re-Orienting Whiteness
This book brings together historians from the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe to historicize constructions of whiteness as a colonial formation. Confronting the privilege inh
I Ain't Queer”
Ang Lee's big gay tragic historical love story, Brokeback Mountain, was released internationally in late 2005 and early 2006. Lee's film told the story of two cowboys who fell in love while shepherding on Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming in 1963. Although the film narrated a demonstrably American story, appeals to a socio-historical connection were widespread in Australia. Indeed, Brokeback Mountain's cinematic release in this country coincided with…
Soliciting sixpences from township to township
(2012). ‘Soliciting sixpences from township to township’: moral dilemmas in mid-nineteenth-century Melbourne. Postcolonial Studies: Vol. 15, Making Indigenous place in the Australian city, pp. 149-165
Decriminalisation, Apology and Expungement
This article examines two instances when the relationship between homosexuality and the state was contested and redrawn in Victoria. It traces how the spectre of sex in public haunted the edges of public debate in both the moment when male homosex was ostensibly decriminalised at the beginning of the 1980s and during more recent moves to offer forms of redress to individuals convicted of sex crimes in the past that would now be considered legal a…
The Men’s Shed Movement in Australia
This article explores the cultural and political history of the men’s shed movement in Australia. This movement, which is ongoing, gathered steam after the first men’s sheds were opened in the mid-1990s, propelling the development of the community men’s shed model over the next decade and its widespread expansion across Australian communities. This article situates this movement in the context of broader contests over men’s rights in Australia an…
Victorian liberalism and the effect of sovereignty
Postcolonial thinking has offered ‘new imperial’ historians productive avenues to reconsider the relationship between nineteenth-century liberalism and the British Empire. Questions of territory and sovereignty have, however, often been seen as secondary in these new histories of the citizen-subject of liberalism. From an Antipodean perspective, this seems a remarkable elision. Through an examination of the ideas of liberals in colonial Victoria,…
Public Emotions and their Personal Consequences
This article examines the historical and emotional consequences of the Victorian Football League's decision to ‘go national’. Many saw the emergence of the Australian Football League (AFL) as a threat to the authentic attachments of supporters. As many localized social practices were ‘rationalized’, however, engagement with the League increased across Australia. This article suggests that this success can be explained, in part, by the ways in whi…
Homophobias
I Ain't Queer”
Ang Lee's big gay tragic historical love story, Brokeback Mountain, was released internationally in late 2005 and early 2006. Lee's film told the story of two cowboys who fell in love while shepherding on Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming in 1963. Although the film narrated a demonstrably American story, appeals to a socio-historical connection were widespread in Australia. Indeed, Brokeback Mountain's cinematic release in this country coincided with…
I Ain't Queer”
Ang Lee's big gay tragic historical love story, Brokeback Mountain, was released internationally in late 2005 and early 2006. Lee's film told the story of two cowboys who fell in love while shepherding on Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming in 1963. Although the film narrated a demonstrably American story, appeals to a socio-historical connection were widespread in Australia. Indeed, Brokeback Mountain's cinematic release in this country coincided with…
Re-Orienting Whiteness
This book brings together historians from the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe to historicize constructions of whiteness as a colonial formation. Confronting the privilege inh
Crossing Boundaries
Homophobias
Old Questions and ‘New Biography’
The work of Patrick Joyce and Joan Scott asks scholars to rigorously historicise experience, identity and, as a consequence, subjectivity. This article suggests the combination of their insights with biographical techniques has the potential to offer new explanations for intransigent historiographic problems such as the explosion of racism in late nineteenth-century Australian labour politics. The practice of biography, moreover, provides an oppo…
Soliciting sixpences from township to township
(2012). ‘Soliciting sixpences from township to township’: moral dilemmas in mid-nineteenth-century Melbourne. Postcolonial Studies: Vol. 15, Making Indigenous place in the Australian city, pp. 149-165
Settler Colonial Governance in Nineteenth-Century Victoria
This collection represents a serious re-examination of existing work on the Aboriginal history of nineteenth-century Victoria, deploying the insights of postcolonial thought to wrench open the inner workings of territorial expropriation and its historically tenacious variability. Colonial historians have frequently asserted that the management and control of Aboriginal people
Manly Affections
Manly Affections: The Photographs of Robert Gant 1885–1915.." Australian Historical Studies, 46(1), pp. 138–139
Public Emotions and their Personal Consequences
This article examines the historical and emotional consequences of the Victorian Football League's decision to ‘go national’. Many saw the emergence of the Australian Football League (AFL) as a threat to the authentic attachments of supporters. As many localized social practices were ‘rationalized’, however, engagement with the League increased across Australia. This article suggests that this success can be explained, in part, by the ways in whi…
Victorian liberalism and the effect of sovereignty
Postcolonial thinking has offered ‘new imperial’ historians productive avenues to reconsider the relationship between nineteenth-century liberalism and the British Empire. Questions of territory and sovereignty have, however, often been seen as secondary in these new histories of the citizen-subject of liberalism. From an Antipodean perspective, this seems a remarkable elision. Through an examination of the ideas of liberals in colonial Victoria,…
Studying Modern History gives me the chance to say what I think’
This article critically interrogates university history students’ ‘learning narratives’ in relation to the rise of ideas about student-centred learning in Australian universities. Drawing on interviews with third-year students, it suggests that we need to more carefully consider how students make choices about their educational activities and the ways in which some transformations in student culture may inadvertently sustain the possibility for s…
Modern British history from the Antipodes
This article has been peer reviewed
Sex, Soldiers and the South Pacific, 1939–45
Sex, Soldiers and the South Pacific, 1939–45: Queer Identities in Australia in the Second World War. By Yorick Smaal (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), pp.xxi + 250. £60.00 (cloth)
Decriminalisation, Apology and Expungement
This article examines two instances when the relationship between homosexuality and the state was contested and redrawn in Victoria. It traces how the spectre of sex in public haunted the edges of public debate in both the moment when male homosex was ostensibly decriminalised at the beginning of the 1980s and during more recent moves to offer forms of redress to individuals convicted of sex crimes in the past that would now be considered legal a…
The Men’s Shed Movement in Australia
This article explores the cultural and political history of the men’s shed movement in Australia. This movement, which is ongoing, gathered steam after the first men’s sheds were opened in the mid-1990s, propelling the development of the community men’s shed model over the next decade and its widespread expansion across Australian communities. This article situates this movement in the context of broader contests over men’s rights in Australia an…
Sexual Citizenship and the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras
Since its beginnings as a parade and protest in 1978, the annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras has become something of a national juggernaut of queer pride in Australia, as well as an international tourist destination. At the centre of this event is an annual parade through the queer heartland of Sydney, comprised of floats and marching groups of performers. This article will investigate the changing stories told about the Australian nation a…
The proliferation of men’s sheds in Australia
Men’s sheds emerged in Australia with a promise to restore men to health and happiness through the provision of a gender-exclusive communal space and access to ‘traditional’ masculine activities. This article traces their emergence in order to examine how anti-feminist claims about the rights and needs of men have been yoked together with ideas about health and wellbeing in late modernity. Deploying Foucault’s concept of governmentality, moreover…
Mechanics Institutes in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Victoria
In the second half of the nineteenth century, mechanics institutes proliferated across the Australian colonies at such a rate that, by 1900, they were more widespread, proportional to population, than in Britain. This article examines the first 30 years of their development in colonial Victoria to offer a new interpretation of their deep entanglement with settler colonial liberalism. As in Britain, the Victoria mechanics institutes largely failed…
The Lusher motion
Sociology (14 works) · Political science (12 works) · Australian History and Society (11 works) · History (10 works) · Law (10 works) · Politics (10 works) · Gender Studies (9 works) · History (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Art (6 works)