Lumen Summer 2018 - Flipbook - Page 34
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AND FAR LEFT
Emma McEwin in Tate
Museum, Mawson Labs,
North Terrace campus
LEFT
Sir Douglas Mawson
F
inding threads in the form
of objects and artefacts and
sewing them together to tell
the untold stories of
people’s lives is what inspires writer
and alumna Dr Emma McEwin, the
great granddaughter of explorer
Sir Douglas Mawson.
For Emma, who has a PhD in
Creative Writing, these objects serve
as creative triggers.
“I am interested in what things tell
us about a person, how when
someone dies they leave behind a
legacy, and the material traces of
their life somehow come to define
them,” she said.
“I like to look at those objects from a
larger context, to see what they can
tell us, what lesser known stories they
tell, what myths they perpetuate whatever they do, objects shed light
on people’s lives.”
Emma’s two published books,
An Antarctic Affair and the more
recent The many lives of Douglas
Mawson, delve into the many stories
of the Mawson family behind and
beyond the famous 1911–1914
Australasian Antarctic Expedition.
In The many lives of Douglas Mawson,
Emma examines public and private
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THE UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE
artefacts and objects such as letters,
portraits and things passed down in
the Mawson family, including
household items and anecdotes, to
piece together not only the many
untold stories of Mawson’s life, but
those surrounding him.
“There are also the lives of his wife
Paquita, and his daughters Pat and
Jessica, which have been obscured by
Mawson’s fame,” Emma said.
“Paquita Mawson, for example, had
quite a role in supporting Mawson
and furthering his name – she was
his first biographer, she stayed in
touch with members of his
expeditions, and when she went
abroad, she would go and visit
museums on his behalf and deliver
specimens. She also helped with the
expeditions on both occasions,”
she said.
According to Emma, Paquita played
a role in Mawson’s survival during
his famous expedition.
“There were very few men on the
expedition who were engaged or
married and that was quite
deliberate. Because of the need to
support a person’s family, it could
get complicated if someone died
along the way.
“Mawson was one of the few on the
expedition who did have a fiancé,
and I think that did help him and
gave him another incentive to
survive,” she said.
Emma attributes her love of writing
to her love of books, but her early
interest in the family history came
from her grandmother, Mawson’s
younger daughter Jessica.
“I loved hearing her talk about her
family. They were educated and
achieved a lot and that really
appealed to me. I also learned there
was a writing tradition in the
family, in that Jessica’s mother,
Paquita, wrote about Mawson’s life
and Mawson of course wrote about
his expeditions, so you could say I
am continuing the tradition,” she said.
In addition to her writing career,
Emma works as a tutor at the
University of Adelaide in the
Department of English and
Creative Writing.
She works with international
students on the Integrated Bridging
Program – Research (IBP-R) which
is a course international research
students complete to help them
prepare their research proposals for
PhD and Masters programs.
Emma also has a love of theatre and
has a play in the works.
“I like writing dialogue and the
challenge of having to transmit a
whole lot of information through the
characters onstage,” she said.
“The audience doesn’t have a
backstory, so you just have one
funnel, the characters, to transmit the
story, so it’s a real challenge.”
