Guide to the Papers of Neville Meaney

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MS 7330

National Library of Australia View Catalogue Record

Collection Summary

Creator
Neville Meaney
Title
Papers of Neville Meaney
Date Range
1977-1999
Collection Number
MS 7330
Extent
3.26 metres (18 boxes, 2 folio boxes)
Language of Materials
English
Repository
National Library of Australia

Introduction

Scope and Contents

Papers relating to the exhibition 'Towards a New Vision: Australia & Japan, a Hundred Years of Photographs', which was held in 1997 to commemorate the centenary of relationships between Australia and Japan, form the major part of the 1999 donation. Included also are papers relating to Meaney's book Towards a new vision: Australia and Japan through 100 years (1999) which was based on the exhibition.

Conditions Governing Access

Please refer to the collection's catalogue record for the access conditions (http://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn1089484).

Conditions Governing Use

Copying and publishing of unpublished manuscript material is subject to copyright restrictions.For such material, written permission to publish must be obtained from the copyright holder(s).Copying of unpublished material for research purposes is permissible 50 years after the death of the creator of the material.

Preferred Citation

Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], MS 7330, National Library of Australia, Papers of Neville Meaney, [box number and series and/or file number]'.

Provenance

Papers associated with 'A survey of Australian leaders' attitudes towards Japan', a project conducted by Professors Neville Meaney, Trevor Matthews and Sol Encel in 1982, were purchased from Neville Meaney in 1987. In 1999 Professor Meaney donated the papers relating to the book The Japanese Connection (1988), a work that was an outcome of this survey. A small percentage of the material was obtained from Japanese sources and is in Japanese.

Arrangement

Library staff have imposed the overall arrangement of the papers but the files maintained by Meaney have been kept intact. Exceptions are Series 1, folders 1-4, and Series 3, folders 1-2, which are correspondence files that have been arranged in chronological order.

Separated Materials

A significant part of the original consignment were the 169 audio tapes, of 90 minutes each, containing interviews with 163 of the 200 Australian leaders interviewed for the survey. They are held in the Oral History Section (ORAL TRC 2204), and access is restricted.

Biographical Note

Professor Neville Kingsley Meaney was educated at the University of Adelaide (MA) and Duke University (PhD). He went on to join the History Department of the University of Sydney, where he is an Associate Professor of History.

Meaney has won a number of awards, including the State Department Distinguished International Visitor Award (1976); the Australia-Japan Foundation Research Award (1982); and a National Library of Australia Harold White Fellowship (1984).

A member of the International Commission on International History in 1984; Visiting Professor of History and Australian Studies, University of Texas in 1990; and a lecturer in the Australian Senate's Occasional lecture series in 1995, Meaney has also been a member of the Advisory Panel to the Japan Foundation's Asia Centre. In 1997 he was Chair of the Australia-Japan Centenary Committee.

Meaney's main interests are in the field of international relations and foreign policy, especially Australia's relations with Asia.

Apart from his works The Japanese connection (1988) and Towards a New vision: Australia & Japan through 100 years (1999), Meaney has published books and articles on Australia's relations with the world. These include A history of Australian defence and foreign policy, 1901-23: volume 1, The search for security in the Pacific, 1901-1914 (1976); Australia and the world: a documentary history from the 1870s to the 1970s (1985); Under new heavens: cultural transmission and the making of Australia (1989) and Fears and phobias: E. L. Piesse and the problem with Japan, 1909 - 1939 (1996).

Meaney has also participated in oral history projects. The National Library holds the Neville Meaney collection of interviews with Australian historians (ORAL TRC 2053), with 23 interviews held during 1986 and 1987.

Item Descriptions

Series 1. A Survey of Australian leader's attitudes towards Japan: working papers, 1977-84

In 1982, Neville Meaney, in association with Trevor Matthews (Department of Government, University of Sydney) and Professor Sol Encel (Sociology School, University of New South Wales), began an investigation of Australian leaders' attitudes towards Japan and the Australian-Japanese relationship. Simultaneously, Japanese academics carried out a similar survey of Japanese leaders' attitudes towards Australia and the Japanese-Australian relationship. Working Groups in both Australia and Japan assisted in the process.

As part of the survey, 200 interviews with Australian leaders were conducted, based on a standard questionnaire sheet. Federal and state government ministers, shadow ministers and heads of government departments, business, financial institutions, trade unions and lobby groups were among those interviewed. Leaders from the media, voluntary organisations and primary production organisations, as well as academics, were also represented.

In this series there are an application for Australia-Japan Foundation assistance, papers of the Australian Working Group and general correspondence about the survey. There are also papers relating to the selection of the leaders to be interviewed, drafts of the letter to be sent to the leaders selected, and drafts and correspondence on the questionnaire used by the interviewer when conducting the interviews.

Copies of background articles by Professor Yasumasa Tanaka and others, a paper by Meaney entitled 'A survey of Australian leaders' attitudes towards Japan: provenance, problems, procedures and prolegomenon to the conclusions' (1984), correspondence with Tanaka and others, and photographs of his visit in 1982, a reel of data from the Japanese survey of Japanese leaders' attitudes to Japan and handwritten notes analysing the data resulting from the survey and outlining the chapters for The Japanese connection complete this series.

A Survey of Australian leader's attitudes towards Japan: working papers (File 1-7) - Box 1

A Survey of Australian leader's attitudes towards Japan: working papers (File 8-12) - Box 2

A Survey of Australian leader's attitudes towards Japan: working papers (File 13-19) - Box 3

A Survey of Australian leader's attitudes towards Japan: working papers (File 20-25) - Box 4

Series 2. A Survey of Australian leaders' attitudes towards Japan: interview data and results summaries, 1982-83

This series consists of the basic data resulting from the survey. There are completed questionnaires (1982-83); transcripts of the interviews with the leaders; a copy of the index to the interviews; some draft interview schedules for the Australian leaders, and an outline of the survey and comparisons between the results of the Australian and Japanese surveys (1983). Computer printouts of the data and summarised results of Japanese leaders' views for various categories, with some comparisons with those of the Australian leaders are also in this series. Examples of the topic summaries are: 'Interests of the participants', 'Grouping of respondents according to level of international contact' and 'The course Japan should take in international society'. One reel of tape containing the data from the survey of Japanese leaders is also held.

Tapes of the interviews undertaken for this Survey are held in the Library's Oral History collection (ORAL TRC 2204) and access to them is determined on application.

Files 1-13 of this series, containing the completed questionnaires and the transcribed extracts from the tapes of the interviews with Australian leaders are restricted, with the remainder of the series being available for reference.

A Survey of Australian leaders' attitudes towards Japan: interview data and results summaries (File 1-7) - Box 5

A Survey of Australian leaders' attitudes towards Japan: interview data and results summaries (File 8-13) - Box 6

A Survey of Australian leaders' attitudes towards Japan: interview data and results summaries (File 14-20) - Box 7

A Survey of Australian leaders' attitudes towards Japan: interview data and results summaries (File 21) - Folio-Box 1

A Survey of Australian leaders' attitudes towards Japan: interview data and results summaries (File 22) - Folio-Box 2

Series 3. The Japanese Connection, 1983-88

The Japanese connection: a survey of Australian leaders' attitudes towards Japan and the Australia-Japan relationship, by Neville Meaney, Trevor Matthews and Sol Encel (Longman Cheshire, 1988) is based on the survey described in 1 and 2.

Correspondence relating to the book, the main correspondents being the Australia-Japan Foundation in connection with a grant for publishing the survey results, Longman-Cheshire, the publishers, and the authors form the first part of the series.

The bulk of the series consists of draft manuscripts of the book, including the final, corrected copy, readers' comments and suggested revisions.

The Japanese Connection (File 1-8) - Box 8

The Japanese Connection (File 9-15) - Box 9

The Japanese Connection (File 16-20) - Box 10

Series 4. Exhibition: 'Towards a New Vision: Australia Japan: a Hundred Years of Photographs', 1990-99

The series consists of papers relating to the creation and organisation of the exhibition 'Towards a New Vision: Australia & Japan: a Hundred Years of Photographs' that commemorated the centenary of the establishment of the Japanese consulate in Sydney in 1897. It also commemorated the fortieth anniversary of the Australia-Japan Commercial Treaty and the twentieth anniversary of the Nara Treaty of Friendship and Co-operation. The Exhibition was held from 11 June until 4 July 1997 in the Parliament House of New South Wales. The Exhibition was subsequently displayed at the Queensland Parliament House and at the University of Sydney.

Meaney was the chair of the Australia-Japan Centenary Committee established by the Japanese Government in 1996 to organise the photographic exhibition.

The Australia-Japan Foundation and the Japan-Australia Business Co-operation Committee were also involved in the organisation of the exhibition. The Consulate- General of Japan in Sydney was the patron.

The series includes correspondence, drafts and comments on the wording of panels, together with the final wording, and papers (including many photocopies of photographs) involved in the selection and reproduction of the photographs chosen for the exhibition. Approximately 500 photographs were originally chosen by the researcher, Alix Conybeare, with approximately one hundred photographs being selected for the Exhibition. Also included are various Australia-Japan Centenary Committee papers, such as minutes and budget requests, the Exhibition launch papers and unused images.

A one-day symposium was held on 4 July 1997 in conjunction with the exhibition, with Australian and Japanese scholars giving papers on themes that underpinned the exhibition. In particular, the symposium aimed to reflect on the history of relations between Australia and Japan and to discuss the future of the two nations. Papers relating to the Symposium, including papers to be presented, correspondence with speakers, a press release and a list of attendees, are included in this series.

The Exhibition was also staged at the Seymour Centre Gallery by the Department of History, University of Sydney, from 16 November to 13 November 1997 and the related papers are held.

This material was added to the collection in October 1999, and is restricted until 2009.

Exhibition: 'Towards a New Vision: Australia Japan: a Hundred Years of Photographs' (File 1-6) - Box 11

Exhibition: 'Towards a New Vision: Australia Japan: a Hundred Years of Photographs' (File 7-10) - Box 12

Exhibition: 'Towards a New Vision: Australia Japan: a Hundred Years of Photographs' (File 11-15) - Box 13

Exhibition: 'Towards a New Vision: Australia Japan: a Hundred Years of Photographs' (File 16) - Folio-Box 2

Series 5. Towards a new vision: Australian Japan through a hundred years, 1996-99

Papers relating to Meaney's Towards a new vision: Australia & Japan through a hundred years (Kangaroo Press, 1999), based on the Exhibition described in series 4, are held in this series.

Background papers for the work, mainly photocopied articles and copies of panel texts from the Exhibition, comprise a significant part of the series. There are also papers related to the publishing of the work, for example, notes regarding references sources, permissions for the more than 200 photographs used to illustrate it, and Japan Foundation subsidy papers and grant application. Correspondence, including the Memorandum of Agreement for publication, between Meaney and the publisher, Kangaroo Press/Simon & Schuster Australia and papers relating to the book launch are also held.

Manuscripts of the book held in the papers are a full version of the manuscript, with corrections incorporated, dated 13 October 1998, corrected proofs dated 6 December 1998 and the final copy of the page proofs sent to the printers.

This series was added to the collection in October 1999 and is restricted until 2009.

Towards a new vision: Australian Japan through a hundred years (File 1-7) - Box 14

Towards a new vision: Australian Japan through a hundred years (File 8-15) - Box 15

Towards a new vision: Australian Japan through a hundred years (File 16-23) - Box 16

Towards a new vision: Australian Japan through a hundred years (File 24-30) - Box 17

Series 6. Miscellaneous papers, 1982-99

This series comprises a small number of miscellaneous papers.

Firstly, there is an article entitled 'Australia's first Professor of Japanese, James Murdoch (1856 - 1921)' by D. C. S Sissons, together with four letters from Sissons to Meaney regarding the article (1982-86)

The second item is a 1999 letter from the Japan Festival and the last item is a copy of NichigĂ´ Press, (January 1998) containing an article by Meaney on the Australian Japanese relationship.

Miscellaneous papers (File 1-2) - Box 18

Miscellaneous papers (File 4) - Folio-Box 2


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