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Learn more about our Fellows (past and present), award and grant recipients, and more. Visit our Newsroom to explore stories about our impact, community and research.

Past Presidents’ Perspectives: Professor Malcolm Gillies

Today, on the 52nd anniversary of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, we are introducing a new monthly feature in which we reconnect with many of our past Presidents.

It’s a chance to cast our minds back, learn lessons from the past; weigh up the current state of the humanities; and consider how, as a collective, we can address some of the biggest challenges of the future.

Our first Past-Presidents’ Perspective is with leading Australian musicologist Emeritus Professor Malcolm Gillies AM FAHA, who was President of the Academy from 1998-2001.

Academy Fellow, Mabel Lee, honoured and excited by Archibald Prize success

Professor Mabel, one of Australia’s finest translators, researchers and teachers of Chinese literature, is the subject of Fu Hong’s portrait Professor Mabel Lee, a finalist in this year’s Archibald Prize.

Our newly elected Fellows in 2020

We are delighted to announce the election of 22 outstanding researchers and practitioners to the Australian Academy of the Humanities, which is the highest honour for achievement in the humanities in Australia.

New Academy President to champion Humanities’ role in tackling climate change

The newly-elected President of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, Professor Lesley Head FASSA FAHA, believes the Humanities will play as significant a role as the sciences in addressing the biggest global challenge of our time, the earth’s warming.

What now for Australia’s cultural future?

Marking the end of a tumultuous year for our creative and cultural sector, the 51st Australian Academy of the Humanities Symposium ‘At the Crossroad? Australia’s Cultural Future’ explores the impacts of COVID-19 and other disruptions to our cultural life and considers how innovative cultural policy settings and creative practice could together underpin a path to recovery for the sector, for our people and our communities.

Announcing the winner of the 2020 Medal for Excellence in Translation

One of Australia’s most renowned editors and translators of French, Ms Penny Hueston, is the recipient of the 2020 Medal for Excellence in Translation for Being Here: The Life of Paula Modersohn-Becker by Marie Darrieussecq (Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2017).

Artist awarded for reviving traditional possum skin cloaks

An award-winning Australian artist whose recent practice involves the revival of the traditional Indigenous possum skin cloak, is the recipient of the Australian Academy of the Humanities’ 2020 John Mulvaney Fellowship.

Shaping our understanding of Australia’s historic past and present

Award-winning Australian writer and historian, Dr Billy Griffiths – whose latest book Deep Time Dreaming: Uncovering Ancient Australia (2018) has been described as ‘the freshest, most important book about our past in years’ – is the recipient of the Australian Academy of the Humanities’ 2020 Max Crawford Medal. The Medal is Australia’s most prestigious award for outstanding achievement and promise in the humanities by an Australia-based early-career scholar.

Trendall Lectures 1997-2024

The Trendall Lecture alternates between an Australian and an international scholar with a research interest in classical studies.

Academy Lectures 1970-2019

Each year, in this distinguished lecture series, a Fellow is invited by Council to deliver a lecture on their latest research. The series also features a lecture by each Academy President during their term in office. The Academy Lecture is a rich display of the breadth and depth of scholarship in the Humanities and the impact and imaginative power of this work.

Perth-based music scholar receives Australia’s most prestigous music award

Dr Sarah Collins is the recipient of the Australian Academy of the Humanities’ prestigious 2019 McCredie Musicological Award, recognising outstanding contribution to Musicology by an Australian scholar.

Leading Indigenous early-career researcher: inaugural John Mulvaney Fellowship

Dr Harry Van Issum is the recipient of the Australian Academy of the Humanities’ inaugural John Mulvaney Fellowship. The Fellowship provides funds to an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander early-career humanities researcher to undertake research or fieldwork in Australia or overseas. Dr Van Issum will travel to the United Kingdom to assist in the repatriation of Woppaburra skeletal remains presently held in the collections of the Natural History Museum in London.

Acknowledgement of Country

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.