Talk:Henry Reynolds (historian)

Requested move
Henry Reynolds (historian) is for my mind the much less ambiguous location, but it was a duplicate of this page before it was a redir, and so it has a non-empty edit history (meaning I can't move it myself). --bainer (talk) 05:52, 28 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Page moved :) - take care! Ryan Norton T 10:27, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

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Academic qualifications
There is no authoritative evidence that Henry Reynolds holds the PhD degree from James Cook University of North Queensland. That university only came into existence in April 1970, from the University College of Townsville, which was operated by the University of Queensland. If he had been awarded a PhD in 1970, it would have been from UQ. However the published lists of PhDs from neither university include Reynolds. JCU only awarded PhDs in History some years after its establishment, the earliest ones being to Dr Kett Kennedy and to Dr Noel Loos. At JCU Reynolds was never listed as Dr in the staff lists. The colleagues who worked with him in the History department at that time whom I have consulted have confirmed that he did not have a PhD. The citation provided in rejecting my edit to the main article, to the NLA biography, includes no authoritative source for this claim, nor does it cite the topic of the alleged PhD thesis as one would expect. In the interests of ensuring that Wikipedia is strictly accurate, unless an authoritative link to the university can be provided to substantiate this claim, my edit should be re-instated. Hans Knecht (talk) 05:50, 29 March 2020 (UTC)Hans KnechtHans Knecht (talk) 05:50, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * May be this from JCU clarifies it. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 10:26, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * No, this link confirms that he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters degree by JCU in 2012, much later than 1970 (over forty years later in fact!), it does not address the issues I have raised above. Hans Knecht (talk) 00:24, 31 March 2020 (UTC)Hans Knecht — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hans Knecht (talk • contribs)
 * Quote from the source I mentioned: "Professor Reynolds first worked at University College of Townsville – the forerunner of James Cook University – as a lecturer in history, later obtaining a Doctorate of Letters in history." -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 05:20, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Exactly so - "...later obtaining a Doctorate of Letters in history..." - according to the article itself he was awarded a Dr of Letters from University of Tasmania in 1998 and apparently another from JCU in 2012. He was not awarded a PhD by JCU in 1970.  Hans Knecht.
 * That's not how I understand the JCU media release. I admit it could be phrased more precisely, but the sentence doesn't mention UTas or "honorary" so I understand "College of Townsville", which was then an annex of the University of Queensland, also applies to "Doctorate of Letters". It's very difficult to prove the absence of something, so until a reliable source turns up explicitly supporting your assertion, we have to accept what NLA and JCU tell us. It's not the place of Wikipedia editors to discount their veracity. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:53, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
 * This response is illogical. "Later obtaining" cannot refer to the University College of Townsville, a) because the college did not ever award ANY degrees - all those passing through it were awarded degrees of the University of Queensland, of which it was a college, and b) "later" than 1970 must mean the JCU, which as I pointed out earlier did not award ANY PhD degrees in History in 1970. Furthermore a PhD is a completely different degree from the Doctor of Letters in ALL Australian Universities and no university would use the one term for the other. As you concede, proving a negative is difficult, but I suggest you consult every colleague Professor Reynolds worked with at JCU and you will find that he has not ever been awarded a PhD degree by that university (nor probably by any other).  The sentence in the article asserting that he was awarded that degree by JCU in 1970 should be removed as it is demonstrably untrue.Hans Knecht (talk) 04:54, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
 * "demonstrably" means "supported by a published reliable source" (WP:V and WP:RS), not WP:OR or WP:SYNTH. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:09, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Very well - as a published reliable source I refer you to the first edition of his first major monograph "The Other Side of the Frontier" published by James Cook University in 1981. In the author's bio following page 216 at the back of the book, then Associate Professor Reynolds' academic qualifications are given as the Master of Arts degree from the University of Tasmania. This bio makes no reference to any qualification from JCU, nor to any PhD degree held by him at that time.  Why would the university that allegedly awarded the PhD eleven years earlier not refer to it in a book it was itself publishing, where it was obviously citing his academic qualifications as a part commending the book to readers?  The answer is obvious - the university had not awarded that degree.  Indeed, if it had awarded the degree, it would have been very odd indeed not to have mentioned it in this context. But as I asserted above, there is no evidence JCU ever awarded the Doctor of Philosophy degree to him, far less than in 1970.Hans Knecht (talk) 10:30, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * The 1990 edition has no such section, nor does the 2006 edition. OTOH the text from Trove is a much stronger source than the absence of a mention. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:54, 23 October 2021 (UTC)




 * These later commercial editions are not relevant to this discussion. Here is a copy of the relevant page from the first edition, from a copy signed by Professor Reynolds himself: Hans Knecht (talk) 06:32, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

My interest in this matter has waned. Normally, I would ask the editor who introduced this claim, but it seems that User:Tirin, who created the article in 2005 with this assertion, hasn't edited since December 2021. I reverted your edits from February 2020 because I tend to believe what the creator of an article wrote (citation requirements in in 2005 were not as stringent as they are now). Anyway, arguments for and against this claim are weak, and if it had been added later, I would have questioned it, just as I questioned your removal. So, following the standard rule that nothing controversial can be written without supporting sources, I suppose the sentence "He gained his PhD …" and the infobox entry should be removed. (PS: Your scan of Reynolds' book is likele to be deleted soon.) -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 02:55, 12 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I share your sense of tedium - but I guess this is as gracious a concession of the argument as one can expect. Are you going to remove the relevant sentence(s) or are you indicating that I should do so? Hans Knecht (talk) 07:04, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Never mind - I have made the required corrections. Hans Knecht (talk) 10:30, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Here is the text of the deleted image from p.217 of the First edition (1981) of The Other Side of the Frontier published by the James Cook University of North Queensland -

"HENRY REYNOLDS is an Associate Professor of History at James Cook University of North Queensland. ''Born in Hobart in 1938, he taught in secondary schools in Australia and England for several years after receiving his M.A. from the University of Tasmania. On appointment as lecturer at the Townsville University College, he was responsible for inaugurating the teaching of Australian history. For a number of years he has been in the forefront of the younger historians who ·have been rewriting the history of Aboriginal-white relations in Australia. Journals which have published his papers include Historical Studies, Australian Journal of Politics and History, New Zealand Journal of History, Journal of Australian Studies, Aboriginal History and Meanjin. Two books edited by him have already appeared: a selection of documents, Aborigines and Settlers (Melbourne, 1972) and a collection of papers by James Cook graduates, Race Relations in North Queensland (Townsville, 1978). He was the first, and is still the only, historian elected to the Institute of Aboriginal Studies; he is a member of the editorial board of Aboriginal History.'' ... ''This book is the fruit of ten year's research. Not a synthesis or review of work already in print, it is a work of high originality, remarkable for its breadth of scholarship, cogency of argument and clarity of writing. It is the most important book to appear in its field since Charles Rowley's Destruction of Aboriginal Society.'' It is published in this manner by deliberate decision, to place in reader's hands more quickly  and  more cheaply  than by any other  available  means, a book every thinking Australian should read."  Hans Knecht (talk) 09:46, 9 October 2022 (UTC)