David Waldron

Position: Senior Lecturer
Location: Mt Helen Campus
Study area: History and Folklore
Phone: 5327 9710
Email: d.waldron@federation.edu.au
ORCID ID: 0000-0002-0972-5935

Qualifications

Future Shapers - Committee for Ballarat Community Leadership Program - 2021

PhD - Federation University - 2002
Thesis: Sign of the Witch: Romanticism and the Pagan Revival

Graduate Certificate of Education (Tertiary) - Federation University - 2005

Bachelor of Arts (First Class Honours) - Federation University - 1999
Thesis: Free Market Economic Determinism a comparative Case Study of Mexico and Ghana.”

Bachelor of Arts (Majors: International Relations/Philosophy) - Deakin University - 1998

Safety: Mental Health First Aid - Federation University - 2016

Current: Working with Children Check

BOLD Course 4: Teaching in a BOLD Environment - Federation University - 2018

Courses

Bachelor of Arts (History)
Bachelor of Arts (Honours)

Units

Global Histories (BAHIS1001)
Introduction to Historical Research and Genealogy (BAHIS1002)
Managing Heritage (BAHIS2007/3007)
Honours Thesis (BAHRS4001/4002)

Biography

Dr David Waldron is a Senior Lecturer in History at Federation University Australia with a research focus on folklore and community heritage. He is the author of “Sign of the Witch: Modernity and the Pagan Revival” (Carolina Academic Press 2008), “Shock! The Black Dog of Bungay – a Case Study in Local Folklore” (Hidden Press 2010) and “Snarls from the Tea-Tree: Victoria’s Big Cat Folklore” (Australian Scholarly Publishing 2013), editor/contributor of “Goldfields and the Gothic: a Hidden Heritage and Folklore” (Australian Scholarly Publishing 2016) and author of “Aradale: the Making of a Haunted Asylum (Australian Scholarly Publishing 2020).

He is regularly involved in public engagements, festivals and multi-media displays, including the Ballarat Heritage Festival, and is the co-writer and researcher for the National Trust of Australia People’s Choice award historical pod cast series “Tales from Rat City”. He is also active in developing history and heritage tours including the NTAV Publi8c Heritage award nominated Ballarat Old Gaol Tour and the Portsea Quarantine Station night tours.

Areas of expertise

David is a folklorist and historian with a particular focus on the development of urban legends and popular folklore as a response to traumatic community experiences. He is interested in the intersection of folklore, popular culture and the creation of shared mythology and story-telling. He is also interested in tracing the development of folklore attached to historic and sacred sites and the development of urban legends in relation to social, cultural and political crisis in communities. He has a strong interest in new religious movements and the concomitant development of new mythologies and belief systems.

He has written extensively on the origins of contemporary neo-Paganism and its relation to medieval and early modern beliefs in the supernatural, romanticism and western modernity. He has also written extensively on British folklore as linked to local identity and community and on the Australian folklore of Bunyips, Big Cats and Yowies in relation to environmental and social history. A current research focus is on the use of ghost stories as a vehicle for memorialising community trauma through both story-telling and hoaxing.

Research interests

New Religious movements
Folklore Studies and community identity
The intersection of community folklore and popular culture/urban legends
Active learning models in Historical Education
Place, Culture and Identity formation in small, communities
Ghost Stories and Urban legends as a cultural response to shared trauma.
Museum theatre and public heritage engagement

Supervision

Current Post Graduate Students

David has supervised a variety of post-graduate students including,

Helen Hamilton – ‘Patricia Violet Slater 1918-1990: A remarkable leader in the nursing profession in changing times’

Marcus Chester – Lola Montez and her tour of the Australian Goldfields in the 1850s and its enduring memory in Australian culture.

Graeme Quick - Galloping through Ballarat: The social, cultural, and economic contribution of the horse to Ballarat and district.

Publications

Books

Waldron, D & Waldron, S & Buchanan, N. Aradale: the Making of a Haunted Asylum. Australian Scholarly Publishing: Melbourne, 2020.

Waldron, D (Ed.) Goldfields and the Gothic: A Hidden Heritage and Folklore. Australian Scholarly Publishing: Melbourne, 2016.

Waldron, D & Townsend, Simon. Snarls from the Tea-Tree: A History of Victoria’s Big Cat Folklore. Australian Scholarly Publishing: Melbourne, 2012.

Waldron, D & Reeve, C. Shock! The Black Dog of Bungay: A Case Study in Local Folklore. Hidden Publishing: Herts, 2010.

Waldron, D. The Sign of the Witch: Modernity and the Pagan Revival. Carolina Academic Press: Durham, 2008.

Book chapters

Waldron, D & Waldron, S. ‘Beyond the Corridors of the Mind: An Exploration of the Dark History of the Ararat Mental Hospital. Jung Journal: Culture and Psyche. Vol 14, No 3. 2020

Waldron, D & Michael, P. 'A Living Chessboard: Make Your Own Medieval World Create your own medieval incursion with these DIY costumes and equipment', Agora: The Journal of the History Teachers Association of Victoria. Vol 54 no 3. 2019

Waldron D. ‘A Medieval Mystery in Modern Ballarat’, Agora: Journal of the History Teacher’s Association of Victoria. Volume 52, No 1, 2017.4-9.

Waldron D & Waldron S. ‘Playing the Ghost: Ghost Hoaxing and Supernaturalism in Late Nineteenth-Century Victoria, Australia’, Folklore, 127:1, 2016.71-90.

Waldron D. ‘Playing the Ghost: Ghost Hoaxing and Supernaturalism in Late Nineteenth-Century Victoria’, Provenance: The Journal of the Public Record Office of Victoria, No 13, 2014.

Waldron D & Newton J. ‘Rethinking Appropriation of the Indigenous – a Critique of the Romanticist Approach”.Nova Religio. Volume 16, No 2, November 2012.

Waldron D. ‘Big Cats and Dead Sheep: An overview of the folkloric phenomena of Big Cats in the Australian Bush. ”Australian Folklore.2011.Journal 25.March 2011.183-194.

Waldron D. ‘Roleplaying Games and the Christian Right: Community Formation in Response to a Moral Panic’. Journal of Religion and Popular Culture. Vol IX. Spring 2005.pp 50-78.

Waldron D. ‘Witchcraft for Sale: Commodity vs Community in the neo-Pagan Movement’. Nova Religio, Vol 9. No 1.August 2005.32-48.

Waldron D & Waldron S. ‘Jung and the neo-Pagan Movement’. Quadrant: The Journal of the CG Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology. Vol XXXIV.No 2.Summer 2004.pp 29-46.

Waldron D. ‘Ecofeminism and the Reconstruction of the Burning Times’. Intercultural Studies. Vol 3.No 1.Spring 2003.pp36-50.

Waldron D. ‘Post-modernism and Witchcraft History’. The Pomegranate: Journal of Neo-Pagan Thought. Issue 15. February, 2001. pp16-22.

Refereed journal articles

Joubert, M., Larsen, A., Magnuson, B., Waldron, D., Sabo, E., & Fletcher, A. (2023). Global challenges: South African and Australian students’ experiences of emergency remote teaching. Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice, 20(4). https://doi.org/10.53761/1.20.4.09

Waldron, D. Fitzroy's Hand of Glory. Traces: Uncovering Australia's past. Edition 22, 2023

Waldron, D & Leonard, 7. ‘Ju-Jitsu’s Role in the Fight for Women’s Suffrage’, Agora: Journal of the History Teachers Association of Victoria. Vol 56 no 1, 2021, 3-8.