Australian Centre
Faculty of Arts
About
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.
The Australian Centre aims to develop research capacity in two key areas:
The Colonial Australian Archive
Contemporary Australian Cultural Practices
History
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.
Justine Hyde
Director, Library Services and Experience, State Library Victoria
Professor Pookong Kee
Former Director, Asia Institute, The University of Melbourne
Email: pkee@unimelb.edu.au
Victoria Marles
CEO, Trust of Nature
Professor Ian McLean
Hugh Ramsay Chair in Australian Art History, The University of Melbourne
Email: i.mclean@unimelb.edu.au
Professor Julie McLeod
Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research Capability), The University of Melbourne
Email: j.mcleod@unimelb.edu.au
Dr Rachael Swain
Discovery Early Career Researcher (DECRA)
Listening to Country: Indigenous Dance Dramaturgy in Remote Australia
Email: r.swain@unimelb.edu.au
Dr Rachael Weaver
Research Fellow, ARC Discovery Project
Populating the Nation: towards a genealogy of colonial Australian character types (with Ken Gelder 2014-2016)
Email: weaverra@unimelb.edu.au
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 Researcher, ARC Future Fellowship
Australian Poetry Today (2015-2018)
Email: jclemens@unimelb.edu.au
Associcate Professor Larissa McLean-Davies
Associate Researcher, ARC Discovery Project
Investigating literary knowledge in the making of English teachers (2016 - 2020)
Email: l.mcleandavies@unimelb.edu.au
Associate Professor Chris Healy
Associate Researcher, ARC Discovery Project
Contemporary Indigenous film and television: new frames of understanding (2014 - 2016)
Email: clhealy@unimelb.edu.au
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
Dr Mark Davis
Associate Researcher, ARC Discovery Project
New tastemakers and Australia's post-digital literary culture (2017 - 2019)
Email: davismr@unimelb.edu.au
Dr 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
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
Associate Researcher, ARC LEIF Grant
Visualising venues in Australian live performance research (2017 - 2018)
Email: rachel.fensham@unimelb.edu.au
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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.
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Contemporary Australian Cultural Practices
Cultural practices provide one key site for Australians to engage with issues that are significant to the nation and to national identity. Understanding the contribution of the cultural sector to new ways of being, identifying and representing Australia, both to itself and internationally, is vitally important to the vision of the nation.
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.
Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize
Offered in 2019
$12,000 approximately (biennial) prize, alternates between supporting an Australian poet to visit Ireland, or an Irish poet to visit Australia.
Peter Blazey Fellowship
Offered in 2019
$15,000 approximately (annual), for a work in progress in the non-fiction fields of life-writing, biography or autobiography.
Kate Challis Award
Offered in 2019
$20,000 approximately (annual), for Aboriginal writers and artists, presented in a five-year cycle of creative prose, drama, the visual arts, scriptwriting and poetry.
Dinny O'Hearn Fellowships
Not offered in 2019
$5,000 approximately, for an emerging writer in any of the fields of creative writing, poetry, or scriptwriting.
Past winners
Philip Morrissey, RAKA Award, ACMI, 2014’
You can read the announcement of the prizes and download the judges reports.
- Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize
- Peter Blazey Fellowship
- Kate Challis RAKA Award
- Dinny O'Hearn Fellowships
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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.
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AusStage
AusStage is a database of Australian live performance.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.