The Academy Editions They are Australian classics we think we know well – works such as Marcus Clarke’s His Natural Life (for too long known as For the Term of His Natural Life) and Catherine Martin’s An Australian Girl. Yet the stories behind them are far more complex than we might realise, as a landmark […]
Rediscovering the roots of Australia’s literary classics Read More »
A new kind of ethics Richard Sylvan and Val Plumwood – formerly the married couple Richard and Val Routley – were leading proponents of a new environmental ethics which emphasised the intrinsic value of the natural world. Plumwood and Peter Singer both featured in Routledge’s 2001 Fifty Key Thinkers on the Environment, alongside Darwin, Buddha,
It’s not all about us: the philosopher trio who changed the debate Read More »
A language all of our own Is there such a thing as Australian English? Or do Australians speak a bastardised form of British English, incorporating some choice local words and phrases? (Such as – a simile no foreigner would understand – “flat out like a lizard drinking”.) The answer to the first question is an
Is Australian English fair dinkum? Bloody oath, it is! Read More »
James Noel (Jim) Adams was born on 24 September 1943 at Royal North Shore Hospital, St Leonard’s, Sydney. His father, John George (known as Jack), was a printer and his mother, Beryl (née Chant), had been a secretary prior to her marriage. He was christened in Sydney at St Swithun’s Church, Pymble and grew up
James Adams CBE FBA FAHA: 1943-2021 Read More »
Mutiny on the Batavia It was one of the most gruesome sagas of Australia’s early European history: the massacre of more than a hundred men, women and children by mutineers on a remote, inhospitable island following the shipwreck in 1629 of the Dutch East India vessel Batavia. The bloody events, which unfolded off the coast
Putting meat on the bones of an early Australian horror story Read More »
Tracking the Brontës in a Greyhound bus Nearly two centuries after their deaths, Charlotte Brontë and her sisters remain among the best-loved writers in English literature, their novels read and re-read – and the minutiae of their lives pored over – by millions of people around the world. It’s well known that these extraordinary women
A sleuth on the track of the Brontës’ early writings Read More »
A billion dollar industry Australia’s cultural and creative industries generated nearly $112 billion for the economy in 2016 to 2017 and employed 600,000 people, more than mining and agriculture combined. And while many other industries have been shedding jobs because of automation and other factors, creative employment – which includes people working in screen production,
Mapping the creative economy – an Australian breakthrough Read More »
Two databases, both alike in dignity In 1789, the year after Britain colonised Australia, settlers staged their first theatre production in a mud-wall hut in Sydney: a performance of Irish playwright George Farquhar’s The Recruiting Officer, with Governor Arthur Phillip in the audience. The production is among more than 100,000 theatrical events recorded in AusStage,
Two world-leading databases of Australian literature & culture Read More »
Do emotions have a history? Throughout human history, emotions have inspired and shaped individuals and societies. The driving force behind wars, relationships, culture and creativity, they continue to play a central role in every realm of life today. The broad-ranging impacts of human emotions have, in recent years, been exhaustively explored and illuminated by Australian historians, psychologists, musicologists, archaeologists, and
Once more with feeling: mining our rich emotional lives Read More »
It is with deep regret that the Academy informs you of the passing of Professor Philip Ayres FRHistS FAHA, a leading literary historian and one of Australia’s most renowned biographers. He was elected to the Academy in 1999 and was a member of the English Section. Professor Ayres was born in South Australia on 28
Philip James Ayres: 1944-2021 Read More »
A world of grammatical wonders The rainforests of north-east Queensland, the ancestral country of the Dyirbal people, are replete with wild fruit and vegetables. They were an important food source – so important that the Dyirbal language has a special gender just for edible plants. This is just one of the “grammatical wonders” of the
The marvels of Indigenous language: edible gender & “mother-in-law” talk Read More »
Illuminating challenges, creating solutions What have art, literature, philosophy and history got to do with rising sea levels, mass species extinctions and over-consumption of natural resources? Plenty, according to researchers in the environmental humanities, who demonstrate that science and technology alone cannot solve the global challenges threatening the planet’s future. By exploring the human dimensions
Articulating the great environmental challenges Read More »
The Australian Academy of the Humanities recognises Australia’s First Nations Peoples as the traditional owners and custodians of this land, and their continuous connection to country, community and culture.