Join us in person or online for a seminar with Associate Professor Carolyn Holbrook.
How Anzac evolved and why it endures: An interdisciplinary approach to understanding national communities
What lies behind the enduring power of group mythologies, such as the Anzac legend? In this presentation, I draw from sociology, anthropology and evolutionary psychology to argue that explanations that prioritise the propaganda efforts of the state are incomplete. The title of my talk echoes that of a recent book by the evolutionary psychologist, Robin Dunbar, How Religion Evolved and Why it Endures (2022), which claims that the fundamental purpose of religion—from which I extrapolate the Anzac legend—is group cohesion—in this case, the cohesion of the national community. In claiming that the purpose of mythologies, such as Anzac, lies in their capacity to foster social co-operation in the service of group unity, I also refer to the sociologist Émile Durkheim’s landmark book on The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912), which identifies social bonding as the fundamental purpose of religious practice. The talk also brings to Anzac the insights of the anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse on the bonding function of group ritual behaviour. In understanding the emergence of Anzac and the abiding power of its rituals through a framework that incorporates scientific and social-scientific understandings, we can perhaps gain greater insight into human social behaviour in a range of contexts, at a time when longstanding explanations appear to be redundant.
25 March 2026, 12pm AEST
Burwood: C2.05.01
Waurn Ponds: IC1.108
Zoom: Click here
Carolyn Holbrook is Associate Professor in History at Deakin University. A co-authored monograph with James Walter on the history of post-WW2 policy-making in Australia, Australia Fair?: Democracy, Bureaucracy and the Making of Modern Australia, will be published in 2026 by Melbourne University Publishing, as well as two co-edited books with NewSouth, Challenging Anzac: Stories that Don’t Fit the Legend and Gold Standard?: Remembering the Hawke Government. Carolyn is the Director of Australian Policy and History, which connects historical evidence to contemporary political and social issues, and the Australian Health & History digital archive.
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