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Freedom rider activist Gary Williams, distinguished theatre director Professor Julian Meyrick, Roman historian Professor Tim Parkin, an expert in decision-making Professor Katie Steele and an award-winning poet Professor Sarah Holland-Batt are among 41 distinguished humanities scholars and practitioners elected to Fellowship of the Australian Academy of the Humanities today.
What does Australian English sound like? In Donald Horne’s 1964 publication, The Lucky Country, language and how it shapes our identities was given only passing mention. Horne described ‘Australian language’ as largely derivative of ‘city slang’, ‘provincial idiom’ or ‘thieves cant’ from England. But James Walker FAHA, Professor of Linguistics, shows that the diverse languages of post-war migrants has enriched Australian English as it evolves in interaction with class and heritage to create a new national identity.
Donald Horne, who served as chair of the Australia Council, thought that proper discussion of the arts and its role in shaping our national identity was all too rare in his era. Emeritus Professor Fred D’Agostino FAHA invites us to one such discussion on Wednesday 13 November 2024.
There’s been much talk recently about whether children under 18 should be banned from accessing social media. Many claim social media negatively impacts children’s wellbeing. But is exclusion the answer? What are the other solutions? Professor Axel Bruns FAHA from QUT Digital Media Research Centre and Dr Aleesha Rodriguez from the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child examine how we can keep children safe online — while still upholding their rights to information and education.
This week Professor Helena Grehan FAHA reveals how the immersive experience of theatre helps audiences sit with complex and often contradictory ideas and emotions. She explores the multi-award production, Jurrungu Ngan-ga ‘Straight Talk’ and its call for us to reconsider ideas of incarceration, imprisonment and Australian nationhood.
The Australian Academy of the Humanities has awarded the 2024 Medal for Excellence in Translation to Stephanie Smee for her translation of the multi-award-winning French bestseller, ‘On the line: notes from a factory’ by Joseph Ponthus, published by Black Inc. in Australia in 2021.
Philosopher and architectural theorist Dr Lucy Benjamin is the 2024 recipient of the Ernst and Rosemarie Keller Award, which will support new research into how we think about the past, the kind of memorials we construct to commemorate history, and how we perceive monuments as time passes.
We now ‘know more about the “hidden” women philosophers of antiquity than ever before,’ says Professor Han Baltussen FAHA, mostly thanks to historians and philosophers ‘asking the right questions’ of the primary sources available to us. So who were these hidden women philosophers, and what do they tell us about women’s intellectual contributions to the pool of human knowledge?
‘A Fellow’s Fellow’ is a new AAH interview series, bringing together two Fellows whose scholarship, legacy and career have had a marked impact on the other. In our inaugural interview, Professor Kate Fullagar FAHA FRHistS interviews Emeritus Professor Alan Atkinson FAHA, one of Australia’s most distinguished historians, on the importance of understanding pre-democratic history, the dilemmas of historians, and his next project.
Professor Denis Byrne FAHA explores how Chinese-Australians had a unique influence on housing styles in their home villages in Southern China in the decades around the turn of the 20th century. The ‘Australian houses’ represented their owners ongoing dual sense of belonging and now are relics of the transnational heritage that migration generates.
The Australian Academy of the Humanities is delighted to see five Fellows shortlisted for the 2024 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards in four categories. The recipients will be announced Thursday 12 September 2024.
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.
