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Joy Damousi: ‘Compulsion, Censorship & the Price of Freedom’ How WW1’s Conscription Debate was Fought Out at the University of Melbourne

When Robert Menzies was a student at the University of Melbourne from 1913-1918 political issues were debated as fiercely as on any modern-day campus. The central issue of the time was conscription; a debate which drew in academics, brought forth bold proclamations from the University Council, and tore the student body asunder, raising issues of compulsion, censorship, and the true price of freedom.

As a special o-week event in February 2022, the Robert Menzies Institute proudly hosted University of Melbourne Professor Joy Damousi for a talk exploring the intricacies and impact of the conscription debate for the University. We now present you with a recording of that talk, which shines a light on one of the earliest political controversies of Menzies’s life and reveals much about the struggles and continuities of the university experience over more than a century.

Joy is Professor of History in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne, and an expert on the sociological impact of war. She is the author of numerous books which include The Labour of Loss: Mourning, Memory and Wartime Bereavement in Australia (Cambridge, 1999); Living with the Aftermath: Trauma, Nostalgia and Grief in Post-war Australia (Cambridge, 2001); Freud in the Antipodes: A Cultural History of Psychoanalysis in Australia (UNSW Press, 2005; winner of the Ernest Scott Prize) and Colonial Voices: A Cultural History of English in Australia 1840-1940 (Cambridge 2010).