A message from the Dean of Arts

It has been an eventful few months in the Faculty of Arts and this edition highlights some of the key achievements and events that have taken place.

Since June we have seen the University move up again in global esteem according to the Times Higher Education World Rankings. The University is now 33rd in the World, with our Arts and Humanities and our Social Sciences equal 19th, highlighting the depth and breadth of our experts and the quality of their research.

A particular highlight of the research calendar this year has been the award of the Australian Research Council's Kathleen Fitzpatrick Laureate Fellowship to Professor Joy Damousi from our School of Historical and Philosophical Studies. The award recognises Joy's celebrated career as an Historian and her impact on the discipline. The five year fellowship will enable her to examine a very topical new project on the history of child refugees in Australia, providing both researchers and the broader community with new insights into the impact and experiences of child refugees in Australia throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

In other highlights, saw the Faculty host one of our most celebrated alumni, Professor Germaine Greer, for a very special session of the 10 Great Books series. Professor Greer delighted audiences with a masterful reading of the fragments of the ancient Greek lyric poet, Sappho. Participants enjoyed lively discussion and debate, with topics ranging from biography to history, gender and love, and the many readings and re-readings of the fragments across time.

Thanks to the generosity of one of our esteemed alumni, the Art History program in the Faculty will establish a new Chair in Art History dedicated to Australian art. The Ramsay Chair will honour and celebrate one of Australia's most notable artists, Hugh Ramsay who lived and worked in Melbourne, Paris and London. The Chair highlights the Faculty's rich tradition of Art Historical scholarship, and a renewed focus on Australian Art.

And finally, this month we welcome a new space of thought-provoking commentary and opinion with the launch of the Melbourne School of Government's G20 Watch initiative, providing information and analysis on the premier forum for international economic cooperation and decision-making, hosted by Australia in 2014. I encourage you all to take a look.

I hope you enjoy this edition and I look forward to bringing you more news from the Faculty with the next instalment of Articulation.