Wastelands in Modern World History
The Laureate Centre for History and Population, 22 & 23 October 2025
Convenors
Dr Leo Chu
Dr Matthew Birchall
Contributing Scholars
Prof. Zoë Laidlaw, The University of Melbourne
Prof. Clare Monagle, Macquarie University
Asst. Prof. Michael Roellinghoff, University of Hong Kong
Dr Rohan Howitt, Monash University
Dr Michael G. Thompson, Independent Scholar
Dr Harry Wu, National Cheng Kung University
Synopsis
Wilderness and waste, desert and empty space. Across the modern world, empires and nation-states have mobilised the idea of “wastelands” to claim territory, manage populations, and fuel economic growth: from the Qing empire to nineteenth century Australasia, from Hokkaido to the Russian steppe, from Progressive Era America to postwar Taiwan. What explains the global resonance of this idea? And how did its meaning transform across the 19th and 20th centuries – from underused land awaiting improvement to overused land destroyed by it?
This two-day workshop brings together scholars of East Asia and the Anglo-world to work towards a history of modern wastelands. What does waste signify when attached to land? How does bringing East Asia and the Anglo-world into dialogue advance our understanding of global wastelands? What does the history of apparently empty spaces reveal about the modern territorial state? Where are wastelands in histories of global capitalism? And what about humans: the people who are pushed off, replaced, and confined to marginal spaces?
Drawing together intellectual history, imperial history, and environmental history, this workshop explores the possibilities that emerge when we place wastelands at the centre of modern world history.
Program
| 22 October 2025 | |
| 9.30am – 10am | Morning Coffee |
| 10am – 11am | Dr Matthew Birchall (UNSW): “Towards a Modern History of Wastelands” |
| 11am – 12pm | Prof. Zoë Laidlaw (The University of Melbourne) “Waste Lands and White Lands: Race, Land and Labour in the Era of British Emancipation” |
| 12pm – 1pm | Lunch |
| 1pm – 2pm | Prof. Clare Monagle (Macquarie University) & Dr Michael Thompson (Independent Scholar) “Theodore Roosevelt, Anglo-Saxonism, and the Progressive Era Redefinition of ‘Wasteland’ in the United States” |
| 2pm – 2.30pm | Coffee Break |
| 2.30pm – 3.30pm | Roundtable Wastelands and Empires |
| 6pm – 9pm | Dinner (Off-site location) |
| 23 October 2025 | |
| 9.30am – 10am | Morning Coffee |
| 10am – 11am | Asst. Prof. Michael Roellinghoff (University of Hong Kong) “Laid to Waste: Exploration as Dispossession in Japanese Hokkaido” |
| 11am – 12pm | Dr Harry Wu (National Cheng Kung University) “Enduring Care on the Wasteland: Relocation, Ritual, and Ethics of Attention in a Toxicity-Affected Rural Taiwan (1950s)” |
| 12pm – 1pm | Lunch |
| 1pm – 2pm | Dr Rohan Howitt (Monash University) – Online “Counting Sheep: Pastoral Development and Subantarctic Wastelands” |
| 2pm – 3pm | Dr Leo Chu (UNSW) “Marginal Lands for Marginalized Peoples: Indigenous Communities, Veterans, and the Development of Taiwan’s Wastelands, 1950-69” |
| 3pm – 3.30pm | Coffee Break |
| 3.30pm – 4.30pm | Roundtable Special issue proposal |
For more info contact Dr Leo Chu (leo.chu@unsw.edu.au) or Dr Matthew Birchall (matthew.birchall@unsw.edu.au)