Jane Lydon

Biography

Professor Jane Lydon is the Wesfarmers Chair of Australian History at the University of Western Australia. She currently serves as the Chair of History (2016-2018) and Deputy Head of the School (Research) Humanities. Her research centres upon Australia’s colonial past and its legacies in the present.

Her books include <i>Eye Contact: Photographing Indigenous Australians</i> (Duke, 2005) and <i>Fantastic Dreaming: The Archaeology of an Aboriginal Mission</i> (AltaMira, 2009), which won the Australian Archaeological Association’s John Mulvaney Book Award in 2010 and the Australasian Association for Historical Archaeology’s Graham Connah Book Award for 2011. Her book <i>The Flash of Recognition: Photography and the Emergence of Indigenous Rights</i> (NewSouth, 2012) won the 2013 Queensland Literary Awards’ History Book Award. She edited <i>Calling the Shots: Aboriginal Photographies</i> (Aboriginal Studies Press, 2014) which brings together Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal scholars to explore the Indigenous meanings of the photographic archive.

Major current research interests include anti-slavery in Australia, the role of magic lantern slides in shaping early visual culture, and the emotional narratives that created relationships across the British Empire. Most recently she edited <i><a href=”https://uwap.uwa.edu.au/products/visualising-human-rights”target=”_blank”>Visualsing Human Rights</a></i> and co-edited (with Lyndall Ryan) <i><a href=”https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/remembering-myall-creek-massacre/”target=”_blank”>Remembering the Myall Creek Massacre</a>.</i>

She is on the Council of the National Trust (WA), and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries London.

<ul><li><a href=”http://twitter.com/LydonJane”target=”_blank”>Jane tweets at @LydonJane</a></li></li></ul>