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The successful projects range from inclusive arts for children with disabilities, to the truth-telling history of the Goldfields region of Western Australia.
Imagination and creativity, and the culture and arts that we associate with them, are often treated as luxuries. Yet, if we want to build a better future and respond to contemporary challenges, harnessing imagination should be treated as a first principle, argues Professor Katie Barclay FAHA, a historian of emotion, imagination, and human flourishing.
Professor Caillan Davenport FAHA explains why the stories ordinary Romans told about their leaders are more than entertaining anecdotes. His 2026 book Behind Caesar’s Back explores over 700 years of gossip, jokes, taunts, graffiti and rumour revealing that they are rich sources that help us understand Roman political culture and the lives of the people that circulated these juicy tales.
Governess and accountant for Parramatta graziers, John and Elizabeth Macarthur, Penelope Lucas left precious little written in her own hand about her own life. Alan Atkinson FAHA considers the challenges of writing the biography of an essentially silent historical figure. The result is an experiment in historical method, using insights from other disciplines in an attempt to understand the way his subject understood and managed her world.
We might think of sexually transmitted infections and the encouragement of safe sex as uniquely modern. Professor Tim Parkin FAHA, an expert on ancient Rome, shows how researching ancient sexual health can help guide modern responses to disease outbreaks.
To celebrate books and their impact on our lives on UNESCO 2026 World Book and Copyright Day (23 April), we asked our Fellows, award-winners and colleagues to tell us about a book that changed them, and why.
Archaeologist Emeritus Professor Ian Lilley FSA FAHA led an Australian-Dutch team to excavate Queensland’s Camp Columbia, home to the Government in Exile of the Netherlands East Indies. Ahead of Anzac Day (25 April) and Dutch Remembrance Day (4 May), he reflects on this little-known kernel of Australian and Dutch military history.
Emeritus Professor Joanne Tompkins FAHA highlights the vital role of arts research in shaping Australian culture, exports and productivity, and outlines opportunities for arts researchers to better communicate their impact, in this extract from her speech at the 2025 Annual Academy Dinner.
The Academy’s submission to the Higher Education Support Amendment (Reverse Job-Ready Graduates Fee Hikes and End 50k Arts Degrees) Bill 2025 acknowledges remediating the Job Ready Graduates Package requires addressing extreme funding differentials in student contributions and balancing this with increases to Commonwealth contributions to ensure adequate funding on the university side.
The rise of disinformation and misinformation undermines social cohesion, democracy and our sense of self. A new report, prepared by the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia for Australia’s Chief Scientist, convenes researchers across the Academy of the Humanities and Academy of Social Sciences in Australia to highlight the significant role of Australia’s public institutions in building knowledge about misinformation and disinformation.
Australian historian Lyndal Roper FAHA is the first Australian to win the Holberg Prize, often considered the “Nobel Prize of the humanities.” So who is Lyndal Roper? Professor Charles Zika FAHA, Professor Katie Barclay FAHA, and Professor Susan Broomhall FAHA explore the life and scholarship of their colleague, and what her research tells us about the past, and ourselves.
When a librarian from the University of Sydney discovered a chalk sketch of a mother and baby in a 500-year old copy of Dante’s Divine Comedy, Emeritus Professor Jaynie Anderson AM FAHA thought it could be by Venetian Renaissance artist, Giorgione. Prof Anderson discusses her new book, Giorgione, Dante and the Sydney Incunable, and tracing the international connections that ultimately proved her hypothesis correct, and how the discovery has changed what we know about Giorgione.