Staff profile

Dr Sophie Couchman

Honorary Research Fellow

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

School of Social Sciences

SS 405, Melbourne (Bundoora)

 

Qualifications

MA (Monash), PhD (La Trobe)

Membership of professional associations

Secretary of the Chinese-Australian Family Historians of Australia, 2009-present. Editor of the Journal of Chinese Australia, 2005-present.

Area of study

Asian Studies

Brief profile

Sophie Couchman worked on the Chinese Heritage of Australian Federation project, a joint initiative between La Trobe University, the Museum of Chinese Australian History and the East China Normal University after completing a Master of Arts in public history at Monash University in 2000. She was appointed the doctoral candidate on an ARC Industry Linkage project between La Trobe University and the Museum of Chinese Australian history in 2002 and completed her PhD thesis, 'In and Out of Focus: Chinese and Photography in Australia, 1870s-1940s' in 2009. She works part-time as curator of the Museum of Chinese Australian History and continues to maintain the Chinese Heritage of Australian Federation website, renamed the Chinese Australia website (http://www.chaf.lib.latrobe.edu.au), the Chinese-Australian Historical Images in Australia website (http://www.chia.chinesemuseum.com.au) and the Journal of Chinese Australia (http://www.purl.org/jca/).

Sophie is currently organising Dragon Tails 2011: Sources, Language, Approaches: 2nd Australasian Conference on Overseas Chinese History and Heritage (http://www.dragontailsconference.com.au) with co-convenor Dr Kate Bagnall. The conference is jointly sponsored by La Trobe University and the Museum of Chinese Australian History. It will be held at the Museum of Chinese Australian History, Friday 11 – Sunday 13 November 2011.

Research interests

Asian History

- The social history of Melbourne's Chinatown

- The visual representation of Chinese in Australia, 1850s-1950s

Recent publications

Books

  • S.Couchman (ed.) (2005) Secrets, Silences and Sources: Five Chinese-Australian family Histories, La Trobe Asian Studies Papers, Asian Studies, La Trobe University, Melbourne.
  • S.Couchman, J .Fitzgerald, P. Macgregor (eds) (2004) After the Rush: Regulation, Participation and Chinese Communities in Australia 1860-1940, Special edition of Otherland, vol.9, December.  

Refereed Articles and Book Chapters

  • S. Couchman (2011) 'Making the "Last Chinaman": Photography and Chinese as a "vanishing" people in Australia's rural histories', Australian Historical Studies, vol.42, No.1, pp.78-91.
  • S.Couchman (2006) 'Riding with the best of them: Chinese Australians and cycling in Australia', Scorchers, Ramblers and Rovers: Australasian Cycling Histories, Australian Society for Sports History Studies Series, No.21.
  • S.Couchman (2006) '"And then in the distance Quong Tart did we see": Quong Tart, celebrity and photography', Journal of Colonial Australian History, vol.8, pp.159-182.
  • S.Couchman (2004) 'Oh I would like to see Maggie Moore again: Selected women of Melbourne's Chinatown' in S.Couchman, J.Fitzgerald, P.Macgregor (eds) After the Rush: Regulation, Participation and Chinese Communities in Australia 1860-1940, Special edition of Otherland, vol.9, December.
  • S.Couchman (2004) 'Not so mug mugshots: Behind the portraits of series B6443', Crossings, vol.9, no.3, at http://www.inasa.org/crossings/9_3/index.php?apply=couchman.

Other Articles and Chapters

  • S.Couchman (2008) 'Chinese heritage resources on-line in Australia', Chinese Southern Diaspora Studies, vol.2, pp.140-145.
  • S.Couchman, Review of Stokes, Edward (ed.) (2008) ‘Hedda Morrison’s Hong Kong: Photographs and Impressions 19 (2008) 46-1947’, in Asian Studies Review, vol.31, issue 2, June, pp.192-193. [invited]
  • S.Couchman (2005) 'Tong family networks revealed through the camera's lens' in S.Couchman (ed.) Secrets, Silences and Sources: Five Chinese-Australian family Histories, La Trobe Asian Studies Papers, Asian Studies, La Trobe University, Melbourne.
  • S.Couchman (2005) 'Nature strips', (jointly authored with Eddie Butler-Bowden), in Andrew Brown-May & Shurlee Swain (eds) The Encyclopedia of Melbourne, Cambridge University Press.
  • S.Couchman (2004) Review of Ip, Manying (ed) 'Unfolding History' in Australian Historical Studies, no.124, October. [invited]
  • S.Couchman (2001) ‘From Mrs Lup Mun, Chinese Herbalist to Yee Joon, Respectable Scholar: A social history of Melbourne’ Chinatown, 1900-1920’, The Overseas Chinese in Australasia: History, Settlement and Interactions, Proceedings from the Symposium held in Taipei, 6-7 January 2001, National Taiwan University and Australian National University.
  • S.Couchman, ‘Melbourne Chinatown Streets Database’, published on the Chinese Heritage of Australian Federation Project website on their resources page at: http://www.chaf.lib.latrobe.edu.au/resources.htm.
  • S.Couchman, Assorted family history profiles on stories page of Chinese Heritage of Australian Federation Project website at: http://www.chaf.lib.latrobe.edu.au/stories.htm.
  • S.Couchman (2000) 'Using database technology to research individuals with Chinese names: A case study of Little Bourke Street, Melbourne’, Locality, vol.11, no.2.
  • S.Couchman (1995) 'The banana trade: its importance to Melbourne's Chinese in Little Bourke Street, 1880s - 1930s', Histories of the Chinese in Australasia and the South Pacific, Proceedings of an International Public Conference, Museum of Chinese Australian History, Melbourne, pp.75-87.

Heritage Projects

  • (2008-ongoing) Project manager of the digital cataloguing, with digital photographs, of over 11,000 memorial tablets located at the See Yup temple in Raglan St, South Melbourne. The catalogue is in traditional and simplified Chinese, mandarin pinyin and Cantonese pinyin.
  • S. Couchman (2008) ‘Remembering Chinatown: A walking tour of Little Bourke Street in the 1930s and 40s’, self-guided oral history based walking tour (involvement: project concept, research, oral history interviews, script preparation, text for booklet, narration) - http://www.chinesemuseum.com.au/whatson_heritage_tours.html [Received a commendation in the multimedia section of Victorian Local History Awards in 2009]
  • S. Couchman (2000) ‘A Chinese Reformer at the Birth of a Nation: Liang Qichao and the Chinese Heritage of Australian Federation’ (2000), travelling exhibition (involvement: picture permissions and sourcing).
  • S. Couchman (2000-ongoing) ‘Melbourne Chinatown Streets Database, 1900-1920, 1940’, online database of Sands and McDougall Street directory information covering Little Bourke Street between Swanston and Russell streets and its lanes (http://www.chaf.lib.latrobe.edu.au/chinatown.htm).

Media Appearances

  • Featured in Episode 1 of the documentary 'Immigration Nation: The Secret History of Us' which aired on SBS on 9 January 2011.
  • Talkback guest on 'ABC Overnight' with Trevor Chappell, 774 ABC Melbourne (broadcast nationally), 10 August 2009.
  • Guest on 'Conversation hour' with Ali Moore, 774 ABC Melbourne (broadcast Victoria-wide), 30 July 2008.
  • Paper presented at the Burke Memorial Museum written up in the Ovens & Murray Advertiser, 10 May 2006.
  • Interviewed by Clementine Johnson, 'Chinese bring bananas to NSW', ABC radio (Rural Mid North Coast) (8 July 2007) - http://www.abc.net.au/rural/regions/content/2007/s2297460.htm (accessed 30 July 2008).

Research projects

Research Grants

  • Australian Postgraduate Award Industry: (2002-2004) Fitzgerald, Lydon, Macgregor, Images of Chinese in Australia, New Zealand, China and Southeast Asia, 1850-1950, ARC (Linkage-Projects).
  • Research Assistant: (2000) Fitzgerald, Macgregor, Chinese Heritage of Australian Federation Project, National Council for the Centenary of Federation (History & Education).

Research Projects

My current research focuses on:  

  • the visual representation of Chinese in Australia, 1850s-1950s
  • the social history of Melbourne's Chinatown

Heritage Projects

  • (2008-ongoing) Project manager of the digital cataloguing, with digital photographs, of over 11,000 memorial tablets located at the See Yup temple in Raglan St, South Melbourne. The catalogue is in traditional and simplified Chinese, mandarin pinyin and Cantonese pinyin.
  • S. Couchman (2008) ‘Remembering Chinatown: A walking tour of Little Bourke Street in the 1930s and 40s’, self-guided oral history based walking tour (involvement: project concept, research, oral history interviews, script preparation, text for booklet, narration) - http://www.chinesemuseum.com.au/whatson_heritage_tours.html [Received a commendation in the multimedia section of Victorian Local History Awards in 2009]
  • S. Couchman (2000) ‘A Chinese Reformer at the Birth of a Nation: Liang Qichao and the Chinese Heritage of Australian Federation’ (2000), travelling exhibition (involvement: picture permissions and sourcing).
  • S. Couchman (2000-ongoing) ‘Melbourne Chinatown Streets Database, 1900-1920, 1940’, online database of Sands and McDougall Street directory information covering Little Bourke Street between Swanston and Russell streets and its lanes (http://www.chaf.lib.latrobe.edu.au/chinatown.htm).