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Australian Centre



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The Australian Centre aims to develop innovative research projects in the Australian arts and humanities across a range of disciplines, including Art History, Theatre Studies, Literary Studies, Cultural Studies, Media and Communication, Cinema Studies, Indigenous Studies and Creative Writing.

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The Australian Centre is based in the School of Culture and Communication, with Professor Denise Varney as its director. It aims to develop innovative research projects in the Australian arts and humanities across a range of disciplines, including Art History, Theatre Studies, Literary Studies, Cultural Studies, Media and Communication, Cinema Studies, Indigenous Studies and Creative Writing.

History

The Red Kangaroo book cover
Charleton, W. R. (ed.). ‘The Red kangaroo
and other Australian short stories’ John
Fairfax and Sons, Sydney, 1907, 254 pp.

The Australian Centre was founded in January 1989 with the assistance of a grant from the Hugh Williamson Foundation. Its directors have included Professor Chris Wallace-Crabbe (founding Director 1989-1994), Professor Ruth Fincher (1995-1996) and Professor Kate Darian-Smith (1998-2005 and 2010-2012). Professor John Murphy, Dr Fay Anderson and Dr Sara Wills have also served as directors. During this time the Centre achieved national and international recognition for its undergraduate and graduate level teaching in Australian Studies, interdisciplinary doctoral program and a distinguished record of ARC and other external funding for research projects and fellowships that fostered an appreciation and critical examination of Australian society, culture and history. The Australian Centre also administered a suite of national cultural and literary awards and continues to do so.

Research

The Australian Centre aims to develop research capacity in two key areas:

The Colonial Australian Archive

Contemporary Australian Cultural Practices


Contact

  • Australian Centre on Facebook

  • Email the Australian Centre

People

  • Australian Centre staff
  • Boisbouvier Chair in Australian Literature
  • Advisory Board
  • Researchers
  • Professor Ken Gelder
    Professor Ken Gelder

    Co-director

    Australian Centrekdgelder@unimelb.edu.au

  • Professor Denise Varney
    Professor Denise Varney

    Co-director

    Australian Centredvarney@unimelb.edu.au

  • Amanda Harris
    Amanda Morris

    Project Officer
    ajmo@unimelb.edu.au

  • Professor Alexis Wright
    Professor Alexis Wright

    Boisbouvier Chair in Australian Literatureboisbouvier-chair@unimelb.edu.au

  • Professor Ken Gelder
    Professor Ken Gelder
    Co-director
    Email: kdgelder@unimelb.edu.au
  • Professor Denise Varney
    Professor Denise Varney
    Co-director
    Email: dvarney@unimelb.edu.au
  • Johnathan Green
    Johnathan Green
    Meanjin Editor, the University of Melbourne
    Email: jonathan.green@unimelb.edu.au
  • Dr Jeanine Leane
    Dr Jeanine Leane
    Creative Writing, the University of Melbourne
    Email: j.leane@unimelb.edu.au
  • Professor Ian McLean
    Professor Ian McLean
    Hugh Ramsay Chair in Australian Art History, the University of Melbourne
    Email: i.mclean@unimelb.edu.au
  • Julie McLeod
    Professor Julie McLeod
    Professor of Curriculum, Equity and Social Change
    Email: j.mcleod@unimelb.edu.au
  • Dr Marc Mierowsky
    Dr Marc Mierowsky
    McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow
    Natural Born Subjects: A Cultural History of Naturalization in Britain and the Australian Colonies, 1660-1850 (2019-2021)
    Email: marc.mierowsky@unimelb.edu.au
  • Dr Rachael Weaver
    Dr Rachael Weaver
    Senior Research Fellow, ARC Discovery Project
    Eco-Colonial Australian Literature: Environment, Species, Climate (with Ken Gelder 2017-2020)
    Email: weaverra@unimelb.edu.au
  • Dr Sandra D'Urso
    Dr Sandra D'Urso
    Researcher
    Patrick White and Australian Theatrical Modernism (2014-2018)
    Australian Poetry Today (2015-2018)
    Email: sandra.durso@unimelb.edu.au
  • Associate Professor Justin Clemens
    Associate Professor Justin Clemens
    Associate Researcher, ARC Future Fellowship
    Australian Poetry Today (2015-2018)
    Email: jclemens@unimelb.edu.au
  • Associate Professor Anne Maxwell
    Associate Professor Anne Maxwell
    Associate Researcher, ARC Discovery Project
    'The Complete Craze': Women's Photography and Colonial Modernity in the Asia-Pacific, 1860-1930 (2014-2017)
    Email: emaxwell@unimelb.edu.au
  • Assoc. Professor Mark Davis
    Associate Professor Mark Davis
    Associate Researcher, ARC Discovery Project
    New tastemakers and Australia's post-digital literary culture (2017-2019)
    Email: davismr@unimelb.edu.au
  • Assoc. Professor Beth Driscoll
    Associate Professor Beth Driscoll
    Associate Researcher, ARC Discovery Project
    New tastemakers and Australia's post-digital literary culture (2017-2019)
    Email: driscoll@unimelb.edu.au
  • Dr Sybil Nolan
    Dr Sybil Nolan
    Associate Researcher, ARC Discovery Project
    New tastemakers and Australia's post-digital literary culture (2017-2019)
    Email: sybil.nolan@unimelb.edu.au
  • Professor Rachel Fensham
    Professor Rachel Fensham
    Associate Researcher, ARC LEIF Grant
    Visualising venues in Australian live performance research (2017-2018)
    Email: rachel.fensham@unimelb.edu.au
  • The Colonial Australian Archive

    This field of research will bring together current and new work across the following areas: colonial literary studies/print culture, theatre and performance, early cinema, visual art and design, migration and settlement, ‘contact’ studies, colonial typologies, frontier settler violence, law and order, race, and gender.

    Read more...
  • Contemporary Australian Cultural Practices

    This field of research will bring together current and new work across the following areas: literary studies, creative writing, theatre and performance studies, cinema, television, visual art, dance, publishing, new media, and social media.

    Read more...

The Australian Centre administers a series of prizes for outstanding endeavour in the visual arts, creative writing and biographical studies. The awards are presented on an annual or biennial basis.

  • Peter Blazey Fellowship

    $15,000 approx. (annual), for a work in progress in the non-fiction fields of life-writing, biography or autobiography. Next offered in 2021.

    06 Nov 2020 Australian Centre Prizes
  • Dinny O’Hearn Fellowships

    $5,000 approximately, for an emerging writer in any of the fields of creative writing, poetry, or scriptwriting. Not offered in 2020.

    25 Jun 2020 Australian Centre Prizes
  • Kate Challis RAKA Award

    $20,000 approx. (annual), for Aboriginal writers and artists, presented in a five-year cycle of creative prose, drama, the visual arts, scriptwriting and poetry. Next offered in 2021.

    25 Jun 2020 Australian Centre Prizes
  • Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize

    $12,000 approximately (biennial) prize, alternates between supporting an Australian poet to visit Ireland, or an Irish poet to visit Australia. Offered in 2019. Not offered in 2020.

    25 Jun 2020 Australian Centre Prizes
  • Past prize winners

    You can read the announcement of the prizes’ past winers and download the judges reports for the Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize, Peter Blazey Fellowship, Kate Challis RAKA Award and the Dinny O’Hearn Fellowships.

    24 Jun 2020 Prize winners
  • Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL)

    ASAL promotes the study, discussion and creation of Australian writing and seeks to increase awareness of Australian writing in the wider community. ASAL holds conferences and maintains a directory of graduate research on the website.

  • AusStage

    AusStage is The Australian Live Performance Database.

  • Humanities Networked Infrastructure (HuNI)

    HuNI combines data from many Australian cultural websites into the biggest humanities and creative arts database ever assembled in Australia. HuNI data covers all disciplines and brings together information about the people, works, events, organisations and places that make up the country's rich cultural landscape.

  • Trove

    Trove is a National Library of Australia search engine that can help find and use resources relating to Australia. Trove brings together content from libraries, museums, archives and other research organisations.

Journals

  • Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (JASAL)

    JASAL is a peer-reviewed journal, published in at least two volumes each year by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature.

  • Meanjin

    Celebrating its 75th anniversary, Meanjin is one of Australia's oldest literary journals. Based at The Universitty of Melbourne since 1945, Meanjin reflects the breadth of contemporary thinking.

  • The Canary Press

    The Canary Press is an Australian story magazine. Founded in 2013, it features writers that no one had ever heard of, alongside some of the finest short story writers in the world.

  • Kill Your Darlings

    Kill Your Darlings (KYD) was founded in 2010 and comprises a quarterly edition. Publishing essays, commentary, fiction and reviews, KYD is committed to feisty new writing across all genres.

  • Mascara Literary Journal

    A bi-annual literary journal founded in 2007, Mascara is particularly interested in the work of contemporary migrant, Asian Australian and Indigenous writers. Mascara specialises in platforms for subaltern writing and human rights, cultural cohesion and participation.

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