Ruth Balint

Associate Professor Dr Ruth Balint School of Humanities and Languages University of NSW Sydney, Australia [Email protection active, please enable JavaScript.] Telephone: 61 9385 8278   https://hal.arts.unsw.edu.au/ www.arts.unsw.edu.au/our-people/ruth-balint

I teach and write on transnational histories of migration, displacement, refugees and family, with a current focus on the Displaced Persons of postwar Europe. My book Destination Elsewhere: Displaced Persons and their Quest to Leave Postwar Europe is forthcoming with Cornell University Press (2021). It explores the encounters of refugees with the international aid agencies, western migration agents and Allied forces on European soil during the war´s aftermath, and the struggle to redefine refugees as immigrants to the West. I have also written extensively on the history of families broken apart by the immigration policies of western nations.

My other main interest is in Australian migration history. I have a forthcoming co-authored book with Julie Kalman, Smuggled: An Illegal History of Journeys to Australia (New South Publishing, 2021). In 2019, my most recent radio documentary "Cooking for Assimilation" aired on Radio National´s Hindsight program. It is about the migration of my grandmother as a Jewish refugee to Australia, and more broadly, about the expectations and challenges women migrants faced in postwar Australia. I also hold an ARC Discovery grant with Professor Sheila Fitzpatrick from the University of Sydney and Dr Jayne Persian at the University of Southern Queensland, on the subject of Russian and Russian-speaking Jewish Displaced Persons arriving in Australia via the "China Route" in the Wake of the Second World War.

Publications

Books

• Destination Elsewhere: Displaced Persons and their Quest to leave Postwar Europe. New York 2021 (forthcoming).
• with Kalman, J.: Smuggled: An Illegal History of Journeys to Australia, Sydney 2021 (forthcoming).
• Troubled Waters: Borders, Boundaries and Possessions in the Timor Sea I, Sydney 2005.

Book chapters and articles

• My Grandmother´s Cookbook: A Personal History of Migration, Journal of the Australian Jewish Historical Society, vol. 24, 2019, pp. 486-500.
• Before Australia: Historicising Russian Migration via China after World War II, Australian Historical Studies, vol. 50, 2019, pp. 3-20.
• with Simic, Z.: Histories of Migrants and Refugees in Australia, Australian Historical Studies, vol. 49, 2018, pp. 378-409.
• Alexander and Anastayzia: The Separation and Search for Family among Europe´s Displaced, The History of the Family, vol. 22, 2017, pp. 432-445.
• Children left Behind: Family, Refugees and Immigration in Postwar Europe, History Workshop Journal, vol. 82, 2016, pp. 151-172.
• The Use and Abuse of History: Displaced Persons in the ITS Archive, in: Boehling, R. / Urban, S. / Anthony, E. / Brown-Fleming, S. (ed.).: Freilegungen. Spiegelungen der NS-Verfolgung und ihrer Konsequenzen (Jahrbuch des International Tracing Service 2015), Göttingen 2015, pp. 173-188.
• Representing the Past and the Meaning of Home in Péter Forgács´s Private Hungary, in: Young, G. / Monahan, B. (ed.): Amateur Filmmaking: The Home Movie, the Archive, the Web, Oxford 2014, pp. 193-206.
• Industry and sunshine: Australia as "Home" in the Displaced Persons Camps of Postwar Europe, History Australia, Vol. 11, No. 1, 2014, pp. 102-127.
• The Idea of Home in Postwar Australia, History Australia, vol. 11, 2014, pp. 6-12.
• Aboriginal Women and Asian Men: A Maritime History of Color in White Australia, Signs, vol. 37, 2012, pp. 544-554.
• The Case of Károly Zentai: Displaced Persons and War Crimes in Australia and Hungary, in Colin Tatz (ed), Genocide Perspectives IV: Essays on Holocaust and Genocide, Sydney 2012, pp. 272-311.
• The Yellow Sea, in: Walker, D. / Sobocinka, A. (ed.): Australia´s Asia: From Yellow Peril to Asian Century, Perth 2012, pp. 345-366.
• Soft Histories: Making History on Australian television, History Australia, 2011, 175-195.
• The Ties that Bind: Australia, Hungary and the Case of Károly Zentai", Patterns of Prejudice, Vol 44, No. 3, July 2010, pp. 281-303.
• The Somerton Man: An unsolved history, Cultural Studies Review, Vol. 16, No. 2, September 2010, pp. 159-178.
• Der "Somerton Man": Eine dokumentarische Fiktion in drei Dimensionen, in Butis Butis (ed.), Goofy History: Fehler machen Geschichte, Butis Butis (eds), Köln / Weimar / Wien 2009, pp. 264-279.
• Mare Nullius and the Making of a White Ocean Policy, in Suvendrini Perera (ed.), Our Patch. Enacting Australian Sovereignty Post-2001, Perth 2007, pp. 87-104.