Humanities Travelling Fellowships

The Humanities Travelling Fellowships, awarded annually, are one of the Academy’s longest standing awards and were first awarded in 1985. These Fellowships support early career researchers with costs of up to $4,000 to undertake research overseas, including accessing archives and other research materials and connecting with international researchers and networks.

Incorporated into the Humanities Travelling Fellowships is the David Philips Travelling Fellowship which is offered biennially. Preference is given to proposals that contribute to the advancement of knowledge of racial, religious or ethnic prejudice. 

Eligibility

  • Applicants must be Citizens or Permanent Residents of Australia who are residing in Australia at the time of nomination.
  • Applicants must be in the early stages of their careers, which will be determined, inter alia, by how recently a PhD was conferred. In normal circumstances it should have been conferred no more than five years prior to the closing date for applications.
  • Applicants who have received their PhD more than five years ago but who can demonstrate a significant, commensurate period of career interruption (such as maternity or parental leave, carer’s responsibility, illness, unemployment, or non-research employment) may be considered eligible. This includes disruptions caused by COVID-19. A justification for the career interruption must be submitted as part of the proposal.
  • Applicants must be working in the Humanities, defined as those discipline areas for which the Academy is responsible: Archaeology; Asian Studies; Classical Studies; English; European Languages and Cultures; History; Indigenous Studies; Linguistics; Philosophy and the History of Ideas; Religion; Cultural and Communication Studies; and The Arts.
  • Interdisciplinary work is encouraged, provided it includes a substantial proportion of work in the Humanities.
  • Applications will be accepted from independent scholars as well as those working in institutional settings.
  • Applicants must be working on a project that requires work outside Australia for its completion or significant advancement.

Criteria

  • Applications will be assessed on the rigour and significance of the research, its likely impact within a specialist field, and its potential to engage and/or benefit the wider community.
  • Applicants will also need to demonstrate the relevance of the project to their academic career development.

Applications

Applications will open on 25 March 2024 and close on 5 May 2024. 

Fellowship History

The David Philips Travelling Fellowship, is made possible thanks to a generous bequest from Mrs Joan Philips. This Fellowship is named after her late son, Dr David Philips, who was a historian and Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne. 

Offered biennially with a value of $4,000, preference is given to proposals that contribute to the advancement of knowledge of racial, religious or ethnic prejudice. Applications from researchers of South African history are particularly welcome; however, researchers with other areas of geographical interest are also encouraged to apply.

Previous recipients

Since 1985 more than 150 early career researchers have used this grant to access overseas research materials and connect with international research networks.

Dr Levi Durbidge, University of the Sunshine Coast – The impact of virtual exchanges on language learning trajectories: Connecting Caboolture to Kansai

Dr Kristie Flannery, Australian Catholic University – Trafficked: Sex, Servitude, and the Slave-trade in the Pacific

Dr Simon Graham, The University of Sydney – Spying on the World: The Stasi and the International Order

Dr Angeline Leece, La Trobe University – Dental evidence for the dawn of Homo erectus

Dr Deirdre O’Connell, The University of Sydney – From Housing Crisis to Cultural Icon: Tracing the genealogy of the Harlem Rent Party

Dr Michele Seah, The University of Newcastle – The Last Tudor Queens Consort: A Study in Contrasting Queenships

Dr Yu Tao, The University of Western Australia – Chinese Methodist Churches and Diaspora Identities: A Comparative Study of Four Former British Colonies in the East Indian Ocean Rim

Dr Beck Wise, University of Queensland – Public health in the public eye: communicating health and risk to broad publics in the United States and Australia

Dr Shensi Yi, The University o Sydney – Disciplining the Revolution: Comrades, Love, and Gender Politics in Modern China, 1921–37

 

Dr Jon Burtt, Macquarie University  – Circus for Social Change: Social Circus in Action

Dr Chris Cottrell, Monash University – Fieldwork and Residency at Reversible Destiny Lofts, Tokyo, Japan

Dr Jacqueline Dalziell, Macquarie University – Bioengineering Placentas: Feminist Philosophy and Technoscience

Dr Bernard Keo, Monash University – From Public Menace to Michelin Star: The Evolution of Hawker Culture in Malaysia and Singapore

Dr Frederic Kiernan, Melbourne Conservatorium of Music – The Figure of Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679-1745) in Czech and German Musical-cultural History

Dr Natalie Lazaroo, University of Queensland  – The Community Theatre Project in Singapore: Exploring the Role of Drama in Building Cultural Citizenship and Democracy Among Disadvantaged Young People and Their Communities

Dr Sheng-Hsun Lee, University of Queensland – Communicating COVID-19 in Australia and Taiwan: How Pandemic Narratives are Used and Abused

Dr Jennifer McLaren, Macquarie University – Ireland and the British Caribbean: Engaging with Empire in the Age of Revolutions

Dr N.A.J. Taylor, Deakin University – Cataloguing and Archiving the Atomic Photographers Guild: “The Robert Del Tredici Archiving Initiative

Dr T.J Thomson, Queensland University of Technology  – An Ethnographic Study into Casualisation, Centralisation, and Crowdsourced Journalism in a Remote Outback Town

Dr Janet Wade, Macquarie University – In the footsteps of Thomas Ashby and his companions: the destruction (and preservation) of Italy’s ancient Roman roads, 100 years on

Dr Kate Warren, The Australian National University – Writing a popular historiography of art in Australia

David Philips Travelling Fellowship recipient

Dr Tets Kimura, Flinders University

Dr Andre Brett, University of Wollongong — Divide and Rule: Territorial Separation Movements in Colonial Australasia

Dr Shuxia Chen, National Art School and The University of Sydney — Photography as Avant-garde Art: The “Five Ones” Photography Group in 1980s Xiamen, China

Dr Emlyn Dodd, Macquarie University — Knowledge Networks of the Roman and Late Antique Cyclades: A Study on the Dissemination of Agricultural Expertise and Technology

Dr Simon Graham, The University of Sydney — Spying on the World: The Stasi and the International Order

Dr Yishan Huang, The Australian National University and Xiamen University Malaysia  — A Study of Sinitic Tones: Pitch and Beyond

Dr Ben Huf, State Library of New South Wales and The University of Sydney — Colonial Liquidity: Making Money in Britain’s Settler Empire

Dr Andrea Jalandoni, Griffith University — Lost and Found Chamorro Cultural Heritage: Using Lidar to Find Archaeological Sites on Guam, Marianas

Dr Helen Ngo, Deakin University — Home and its Refusal: Rethinking Homeliness and Homelessness in the Racialised Body

Dr Keith Rathbone, Macquarie University — The Swimmer of Auschwitz: Alfred Nakache, Empire, and French Identity in the 20th Century

Dr Jason Tuckwell, Western Sydney University — Technological Mediation and Creative Praxis: Technē in Art and Technology

Dr Marama Whyte, The University of Melbourne — The New Girls’ Network: Donna Allen’s Media Report to Women (MRTW)

Dr Alexis Bergantz, RMIT — Across the Coral Sea: Trans-imperial Networks between Australia and New Caledonia, c.1890-1940

Dr Poppy de Souza, Griffith University — Earwitnessing as Method: Slow Listening, Sonic Intimacy and Dwelling in Discomfort

Dr James Fraser, The University of Sydney — The Archaeology of Olive Oil: Investigating Rural Complexity after Urban Collapse

Dr Johanna Hood, The University of New South Wales — Vital Fluid: Evolving Social, Moral and Economic Values of Blood and Cadavers in China

Miss Shimona Kealy, The Australian National University — The Prehistory of Cuscus (Phalangeridae) Distributions and Translocations in the Indo-Pacific

Dr Jarrad Paul, The University of New South Wales — Early Humans in Malaysian Borneo: Faunal Remains and Museum Curation

Dr Laura Rodriguez Castro, Griffith University — Advancing Peace and Conflict Studies from The Ground: Women’s Oral Testimonies and Historical Memory in Colombia

Dr Mia Spizzica, Deakin University — The Italian Connection: Examining Evidence on Italian Civilians Interned in Australia During World War Two

Dr Josh Stenberg, The University of Sydney — Chinese Performance in Late Colonial Dutch East Indies

Dr Clara Stockigt, The University of Adelaide — The Historiography of Australian Aboriginal languages

Dr Yirga Woldeyes, Curtin University — The Politics of Saving Endangered Knowledges in Africa: A case from Ethiopia

Dr Sarah Woodland, Griffith University — Prison Voices: Exploring the Role of Theatre in Transforming Criminal Justice Systems in Settler-Colonial Nations

David Philips Travelling Fellowship:

Dr Christina Kenny, The University of New England — Post-Colonial Desires: East African Queer Identities in the Age of Human Rights

Dr Alessandro Antonello, The University of Melbourne — Cultures of Impact: The History of Environmental Assessment in Antarctica, 1970–1991

Dr Alexandra Dellios, The Australian National University — Migration and Multicultural Heritage in Transnational Contexts

Dr Phoebe Garrett, The Australian National University — Structure and Persuasion in Suetonius’ Caesars

Dr Rosemary Hancock, University of Notre Dame Australia — Faithful Democracy: Religion and Democratisation

Dr Elizabeth Ingleson, The University of Sydney — Making Made In China: Race, Politics, and Labor in Sino-American Relations, 1972-1978

Dr Roberta Kwan, Macquarie University — ‘Love thy neighbour’: Shakespeare and Neighbourly Love

Dr Kathleen Lynch, The University of Sydney and Macquarie University — A Philosophical Framework for Cause Prioritization in Conservation

Dr Cat Moir, The University of Sydney — The Politics of Life: Biological Thought and the European Left, 1800-1933

Dr Lintao (Rick) Qi, Monash University — Jin Ping Mei in Japan: Translations, Adaptations, and Circulations

Dr Yichi Zhang, University of Technology Sydney — Scene of Intertwining Modernities: Urban Formation of Chinese Mercantile Ports, 1845-1945

Dr Alix Beeston, United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney — Unfinished: The Misadventures of Literary and Cultural History

Dr Helen Bones, Western Sydney University — Trans-Tasman Educational Publishing Networks and Australian Literary Nation-Building

Dr Claire Cooke, University of Western Australia — Man Made Mission? Race, Prejudice and Masculinity in South Africa During the Early Days of Apartheid

Dr Emilie Dotte-Sarout, Australian National University — A Tale of Polynesian Prehistory: Investigating the History of Polynesian Archaeology, in French Polynesia’s Archival Records, Collections and Personal Histories. Also see the story of what the Humanities Travelling Fellowship enabled Dr Dotte-Sarout to achieve: ANU archaeologist on much-needed support for carer-researchers

Dr Deanne Gannaway, Institute for Learning and Teaching Innovation at the University of Queensland — Tracing the Evolution of Bachelor of Arts Programs from Colonial Roots

Dr Kyle Harvey, University of Melbourne — ‘Nuclear Migrants’: Activism, Mobility, and the Transnational Left

Dr Tristan Moss, University of New South Wales — An Accident of Geography: Australia and the Exploitation and Exploration of Space

Dr Anne Rees, La Trobe University — The Limits of Blood Brotherhood: United States Immigration Restriction and White British Subjects, 1921-1940

Dr Alexandra Robinson, Charles Sturt University — Enemies of the Jesus Movement: Using the Rhetoric of Invective to Examine Confrontational Discourse in Early Christian Literature

Dr Arjun Subrahmanyan, Murdoch University — Democracy and Power in Modern Thailand

Dr Jinghong Zhang, Australian Centre on China in the World at the Australian National University — Comparing Wine and Tea Drinking in China

David Philips Travelling Fellowship:

Dr Georgia Wallace-Crabbe,  Australian Film, Television and Radio School and the University of Technology Sydney — Memories of the Struggle

Dr William Anderson ― Medieval Landscape Formation in the South Caucasus Highlands: An Artefactual Approach

Dr Kate Ariotti, University of Newcastle― Exploring the Aftermath of Captivity: British and Australian POWs and the Legacy of Imprisonment in Turkey during the First World War

Dr Dean Aszkielowicz, Murdoch University― The United States, Australia and Japan, 1945-1960: Learning to be Allies

Dr Amelia Dale, University of Sydney ― Gendering Multimediality: The Cry and 1750s Women’s Writing

Dr Daniel Edwards  Training, Production and Distribution Organisations in China’s Documentary Sector

Dr Margaret Hutchison, Australian National University ― Dominion and Imperial Imaginings: A Comparison of Australian and New Zealand First World War Official Art

Dr Katrina Lavers ― Contemporary Circus Creators and Practices

Dr Henry Martin Lloyd, University of Queensland ― Who were the Enlightenment Philosophers?: Towards a Principled Answer

Dr Alys Moody, Macquarie University ― Global Modernists on Modernism

Dr Melanie O’Brien, University of Queensland ― From Discrimination to Death: Understanding Genocide Process and Prevention through History and Human Rights

Dr Christina Petterson, University of Newcastle  The Adolf Hartmann Papers

Dr Laura Roberts, University of Queensland  Luce Irigaray and Politics

Dr Anna Teresa Scheer, University of New England― Christoph Schlingensief und die Avantgarde

Dr Natasha Wheatley, University of Sydney  Living and Dying in International Law: Sovereignty, Time and the International Afterlives of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

Dr Jose Antonio Zarandona, Deakin University ― Measuring Destruction of Cultural Property in Iraq and Syria

Dr Yukie Zhu, Australian National University  The Future of the Past: Cultural Heritage in Urban China

Dr Leslie Barnes, Australian National University ― Narrating Sex and Power: Sexual Exploitation and the Persistence of Colonialism in Vietnam and Cambodia

Dr Samuel Baron, Australian National University ―Rethinking Non-Causal Explanation

Dr Catherine Bishop, Australian Catholic University ‘World-minded’ Women: International Federation of Business and Professional Women and World Youth Forums: Internationalist Youth Initiatives in the Cold War 1947-55

Dr Iva Glisic, University of Western Australia ― The Futurist Files: Politics, Ideology and Futurism in Russia between 1905 and 1930

Dr Christopher Hale ― The Origins of the Palace of Nestor in Greece: The Ceramic Evidence

Dr Kit Morell, University of Sydney ― Specimen Esto: Setting an Example for Rome

Dr Astrida Neimanis, University of Sydney ― Counterarchives in the Gotland Deep

Dr Gretchen Stolte, Australian National University ― Researching Australian Aboriginal Bark Paintings at the University of Oregon’s Museum of Natural and Cultural History

Dr Natalia Szablewska, Southern Cross University― A Critical Discourse Analysis of Migration in Cambodia:  2010-2015

Dr Indigo William OAM, Griffith University ― Exploring Cosmopolitanism and Belonging in Transnational Adoption

Dr Genevieve Young-Evans, Macquarie University ― Languages of Respect and Reproach: 5th Century Church Historians and Church Councils

David Philips Travelling Fellowship:

Dr Fiona Davis, Australian National University ― Local History and Healing: Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and its Lessons for Australia

 

Dr Kate Bagnall ― Transnational Chinese and White Australia

Dr Tania Colwell, Australian National Unviersity ― Beyond Wonder: Emotions of Encounter in Jean le Long’s Fleurs des histoires d’Orient

Dr James Gourley, Western Sydney University ― Vladimir Nabokov and Thomas Pynchon: Temporal Affinities

Dr Vanessa Hearman, University of Sydney ― Bridging the Gap: Indonesian and Timorese Civil Society Activism During the Late Suharto Regime and Thereafter (1992-2002)

Dr Claire Higgins, University of New South Wales ― Canada’s In-Country Refugee Programme in Latin America: A History that Will Inform Australia’s Current Policy Debate

Dr Mei-Fen Kuo, Swinburne University of Technology ― Enterprising Chinese Australians and the Diaspora Networks, 1890-1949

Dr Agnieska Sobocinska, Monash University ― Concerning the World: Internationalism, Sentimental Humanitarianism and the Cold War

Dr Bridget Vincent, University of Melbourne ― Poetry and Public Apology in the Late Twentieth Century: Adrienne Rich and Geoffrey Hill

Dr Rachel Yuen-Colllingridge, Macquarie University ― Reading Content and Format in the Greek Magical Papyri from Roman Egypt

Dr Amir Ahmadi, Monash University ― Sacrifice and Eschatology in the Zoroastrianism

Dr Christine Barry ― The Artist as Ethnographer: A Discourse Between Art and Anthropology

Dr Matthew Chrulew ― The History and Philosophy of Zoology and Ethology

Dr Christina Clarke, Australian National University ― Metal Vessels in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Near East from the Late Chalcolithic to the End of the Bronze Age: Local Innovations and Inter-Regional Influences

Dr Catherine Grant, Griffith University ― Pathways to Sustainability: Assessing the Vitality of Music Genres in Contemporary Cambodia

Dr Ruth Morgan, Monash University ― Engineers of Empire: British Engineering Expertise in Asia, Australia and Africa

David Philips Travelling Fellowship:

Dr Ben Silverstein, La Trobe University  Governing Settlers: Race and Labour in Colonial Kenya

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.