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Historical accounts reveal that some traditional Aboriginal games bore similarities to golf, long before the sport gained global prominence. Professor John Maynard FAHA explores the hidden connections between Aboriginal culture, history and golf — from his own personal experience, to the barriers Aboriginal people faced in accessing the sport, and the unexpected connections between golf courses and significant Aboriginal sites.
Anna Gero, a recipient of a 2025 Humanities Travelling Fellowship, is researching how Pacific communities define climate adaptation “success” — challenging the Western frameworks typically imposed by external funders and exploring potential misalignments between community values and institutional measures.
Emeritus Professor Robert Aldrich FAHA FASSA FRHistS, scholar of modern colonial history and the French overseas empire, considers the opportunities, and challenges, of both independence and a ‘negotiated dependency’ for New Caledonia.
Nine early-career researchers will conduct projects addressing issues of national and international significance, such as the impact of political mis/disinformation on social platforms, historical attitudes towards women’s work & how Pacific communities respond to climate interventions.
What are the consequences of seeing climate change as ‘natural’ and ‘part of nature’? Emeritus Professor Lesley Head FAHA FASSA explores the role of political and media narratives and literary legacies.
Highly Commended for the 2025 John Mulvaney Fellowship, Dr Jacinta Walsh is a researcher at Monash University Indigenous Studies Centre. Her research focuses on the collection, access and governance of Indigenous records in remote areas of Western Australia—documents critical to families tracing their ancestry, and to Australia’s shared history.
PhD candidate, artist and seaweed researcher Brad Darkson is the recipient of the 2025 John Mulvaney Fellowship. Under the Fellowship, Brad will connect with First Nations knowledge holders in traditional seaweed management across Australia, Aotearoa, the United States and Canada.
Although artificial intelligence is now synonymous with the sciences and Silicon Valley, much of our understanding of AI stems from fictional tropes. Professor Chris Danta FAHA investigates what the history of science fiction literature can tell us about our future relationship with machines and AI.
Can we transform the disasters of Hiroshima and Nagasaki into a narrative of hope and liberating action, and thus carry us all safely into the future? Emeritus Professor Allan Marett FAHA reflects on his celebrated Noh play which uses an ancient theatre form to explore and reframe some of the fundamental moral challenges of the nuclear age within a Buddhist philosophical framework.
Australia’s multilingualism is fuelled, maintained, and diversified by migration flows but Census data indicates migrant communities struggle to pass on their languages to the next generation. Antonia Rubino FAHA, Associate Professor of Italian Studies, shows that the grandchildren of migrants are reclaiming their linguistic heritage and enhancing Australia’s language diversity.