The Australian Academy of the Humanities
New Fellows for 2008
At the Annual General Meeting of the Australian Academy of the Humanities on 15 November 2008, 19 outstanding scholars were elected Fellows, and 9 prominent individuals were elected Honorary Fellows.
Fellows elected to the Academy are residents of Australia who have achieved the highest distinction in scholarship in the humanities (Archaeology; Asian Studies; Classical Studies; English; European Languages and Cultures; History; Linguistics and Philology; Philosophy, Religion and the History of Ideas; Cultural and Communication Studies; The Arts).
Honorary Fellows include distinguished public figures who advocate for the humanities, practitioners of the arts, overseas scholars in the humanities who have a close association with Australia, and Australian-based scholars who have made substantial contributions to the humanities throughout their careers.
Below are short profiles of the Academy’s newest Fellows:
Robert Aldrich
Robert Aldrich is Professor of European History and Chair of the History Department at the University of Sydney. He is an authority on the history of colonies, particularly the French overseas empire, and on the history of sexuality, particularly homosexuality. These two specialisations were joined in his landmark work Colonialism and Homosexuality (2003). He was recently decorated with the Ordre des Palmes Académiques by the French government in recognition of his services to French culture. He is co-director of the ‘Nation, Empire, Globe’ research cluster at the University of Sydney. He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA).
His publications include: The seduction of the Mediterranean: writing, art and homosexual fantasy (1993), Greater France: a history of French overseas expansion (1996), and Vestiges of the Colonial Empire in France: Monuments, Museums and Colonial Memories (2005)
Dirk Baltzly
Dirk Baltzly is Associate Professor in the School of Philosophy and Bioethics at Monash University. He took a PhD from Ohio State University (USA) and settled in Australia in 1994. His work focuses on ancient philosophy, particularly Plato, and covers topics such as metaphysics and virtue ethics.
His publications include: Proclus: Commentary on Plato's Timaeus, vol. III, - Book 3, part 1: Proclus on the World's Body (2007) and, with H. Tarrant (eds), Reading Plato in Antiquity, (2006).
John Butcher
John Butcher is Associate Professor in the Department of International Business and Asian Studies at Griffith University. He is a scholar of South-East Asian history, spanning such subjects as British society in Malaya, revenue farming and maritime fishery in South-East Asia. He is a research member of the Griffith Asia institute.
His publications include: The closing of the frontier: a history of the marine fisheries of Southeast Asia, c.1850-2000 (2004) and The British in Malaya, 1880-1941: the social history of a European community in colonial South-East Asia (1979).
Mark Colyvan
Mark Colyvan is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney. His work is broad-ranging, covering the philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of logic, decision theory, and philosophy of ecology. In the course of such interdisciplinary research he often collaborates with mathematicians and scientists. He is Associate Editor of the Australasian Journal of Philosophy. He is Chief Investigator in the Australian Centre of Excellence for Risk Analysis and Core Researcher in the Commonwealth Environment Research Facilities Research Hub: Applied Environmental Decision Analysis.
His publications include: The Indispensability of Mathematics (2001) and, with L. Ginzburg, Ecological Orbits: how planets move and populations grow (2004).
Antonia Finnane
Antonia Finnane is Professor in the School of Historical Studies at the University of Melbourne. Her research covers the social history and material culture of China over the last five hundred years. She has published research on urban history, with particular reference to Yangzhou; on the history of clothing and fashion in China; and on the Jewish refugee community in Shanghai. Her current research concerns consumption in late imperial China, with a particular focus on shops and shopping.
Her publications include: Changing Clothes in China: Fashion, Nation, History (2008) and Speaking of Yangzhou: A Chinese City, 1550-1850 (2004) which won the 2006 Joseph Levenson Book Prize For Pre-1900 China.
Philip Goad
Philip Goad is Professor of Architecture at the University of Melbourne. He is an authority on 20th century Australian architecture. His research addresses architectural history in Australia, Europe and the US, as well as urban design, particularly in Australia. He is a contributing editor to Architecture Australia.
His publications include: New Directions in Australian Architecture (2001) and, with A.D. Pieris, New Directions in Tropical Asian Architecture (2005). He was awarded the Bates Smart Award for Architecture in the Media by the Royal Australian Institute of Architects for Melbourne Architecture in 2000.
Rainer Grün
Rainer Grün is Professor in the Research School of Earth Sciences at the Australian National University and an authority in the dating of archaeological sites around the world. His research is concentrated on the development and application of dating techniques. He was instrumental in the development of the Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) dating technique, which is used for material too old for radiocarbon dating. His research has been particularly significant for our understanding of hominid evolution. He is Editor in chief of Quaternary Geochronology.
His publications include: Die ESR-Altersbestimmungsmethode (1989) and over 140 publications in internationally refereed journals.
Randy La Polla
Randy La Polla is Professor and Chair of Linguistics and Director of the Research Centre for Linguistics Typology at La Trobe University. His research involves the recording and analysis (including comparative analysis) of Sino-Tibetan languages. He has been instrumental in the development of Role and Reference grammar, as demonstrated by his textbook on the subject, written with Robert Van Valin, Syntax: Structure, Meaning and Function (1997), which was nominated for a Leonard Bloomfield Award. He is President of the Australian Linguistic Society and Editor of Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area.
His publications include: with C. Huang, A Grammar of Qiang, with Annotated Texts and Glossary (Mouton Grammar Library) (2003) and, with G. Thurgood (eds), The Sino-Tibetan Languages (Routledge Language Family Series 3) (2003)
Li Liu
Li Liu is Professor in the Archaeology Program at La Trobe University. She came to Australia in 1996 from China, via lecturing positions in the US. Her research deals with Neolithic and Bronze Age China, focusing on topics such as settlement pattern, social complexity, political economy, ritual practice, state formation, craft specialisation, and zooarchaeology.
Professor Liu has major publications in both Chinese and English. Her publications in English include: The Chinese Neolithic: Trajectories to early states (2004) and, with X. Chen, State Formation in Early China (2003).
Richard Maltby
Professor Richard Maltby is Professor of Screen Studies and Head of the School of Humanities at Flinders University. He came to Australia in 1997 from the UK where he founded the Bill Douglas Centre for the History of Cinema and Popular Culture at the University of Exeter. He is an authority on the regulation of the American film industry and the censorship of Classical Hollywood cinema. Richard Maltby is the Series Editor of Exeter Studies in Film History and a founding Executive Committee member of the International Cinema Audiences Research Group.
His publications include: Hollywood Cinema: An introduction (1995, 2nd edition 2003) and, with A. Higson (eds), "Film Europe" and "Film America": Cinema, Commerce and Cultural Exchange, 1920-1939, which won the Prix Jean Mitry for cinema history in 2000.
James Masselos
James Masselos is an honorary associate in the History Department of the University of Sydney. His broad-ranging research on the social history and visual culture of India includes Modern South Asian history and historiography, Indian art and religion, and Bombay City and Presidency. He is a founding member of the Asian Arts Society of Australia.
His publications include: Towards Nationalism: Group Affiliations and the Politics of Public Associations in Nineteenth Century Western India (1974) and The City in Action: Bombay Struggles for Power (2007).
Jock McCulloch
Jock McCulloch is a Professor in the School of Global Studies, Social Science and Planning at RMIT University. He is an historian of Africa and Australia, whose research covers such areas as History of Medicine, Revolutionary Political Theory, and Colonial Sex and Gender. He has published works on the politics of development, the colonial history of Southern Africa, and medical sociology, especially studies of asbestos and silicosis. He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA).
His publications include: Colonial Psychiatry and the ‘African Mind’ (2007) and, with G. Tweedale, Defending the Indefensible: The Global Asbestos Industry (2008)
Albert Moran
Albert Moran is Professor in the School of Arts at Griffith University. He is a leading authority on Australian television, specialising in screen adaptation and the history and industrial forms of Australian television. He was a pioneer of television studies and is among the founders of Australian film history. His recent work has branched into international television studies with such work as New Television: Globalization and the East Asian Imagination (2007).
His publications include: Copycat TV: Globalisation, Program Formats and Cultural Identity (1998); with J. Tulloch, A Country Practice: 'Quality' Soap (1986); and, with E. Vieth, Historical Dictionary of Australian and New Zealand Cinema (2005).
Kerry Murphy
Kerry Murphy is Associate Professor, Associate Dean of Research and Head of Musicology in the Faculty of Music at the University of Melbourne. She works on both nineteenth-century French music and colonial Australian music history. She heads a research team working on the formation of musical taste in pre-federation Victoria and she has also been involved in preparing critical editions of Historic Australian Operas and Australian Art Song. She is a member of the editorial board of Musicology Australia and serves on the artistic advisory board of the Victorian Opera Company.
Her publications include: Hector Berlioz and the Development of French Music Criticism (1988), and with B. Kelly (eds) Berlioz and Debussy: Sources, Contexts and Legacies: Essays in honour of François Lesure (2007).
John Pryor
John Pryor is Associate Professor in the History Department at the University of Sydney. He is a medievalist, working mainly on the Crusades, medieval economic history and medieval and early modern maritime history. He is Director of the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Sydney.
His publications include: Geography, technology and war: studies in the maritime history of the Mediterranean, 649-1571 (1988), Commerce, shipping, and naval warfare in the medieval Mediterranean (1987) and Business contracts of medieval Provence: selected notulae from the cartulary of Giraud Amalric of Marseilles, 1248 (1981).
Paul Salzman
Paul Salzman is Associate Professor in the English Program at La Trobe University. He is a scholar of early modern prose fiction, early modern women’s writing and Australian literature. His monograph on Elizabeth Jolley, ‘Helplessly Tangled in Female Arms and Legs’: Elizabeth Jolley’s Fictions (1993) is particularly celebrated.
His publications include: as editor, English Prose Fiction 1558-1700: A Critical History (1985), Early Modern Women’s Writing: An Anthology (2000), Literary Culture in Jacobean England: Reading 1621 (2002) and Reading Early Modern Women’s Writing (2006).
Anna Silvas
Anna Silvas is an Australian Research Fellow in the School of Classics, History and Religion at the University of New England. Her research concentrates on late antiquity, particularly on monastic communities and the spirituality of ascetic women in early and medieval Christianity. Her published works include translations of ancient literature as well as monographs. She is a member of the British School of Archaeology in Ankara.
Her publications include: Macrina the Younger, Philosopher of God (2008), The Asketikon of Basil the Great (2005), and Jutta and Hildegard, the Biographical Sources (1998).
Rodney Tiffen
Rodney Tiffen is Professor in the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. He is a scholar of the media and Australian politics. His research covers such areas as democratisation, mass media and Australian relations with Asia, and he is currently working on the Australian press’ political reporting over the last 50 years.
His publications include: Diplomatic Deceits - Government, Media and East Timor (2001) and, with R. Gittins, How Australia Compares (2004).
Peter Wilson
Peter Wilson is William Ritchie Professor of Classics and Chair of the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Sydney. He is an authority on ancient Greek theatre, music and dance. He is currently working on a social and economic history of classical Greek drama.
His publications include: The Athenian Institution of the ‘Khoregia’: the Chorus, the City and the Stage (2000) and as editor, Greek Theatre and Festivals: Documentary Studies (2007).
The Academy’s newest Honorary Fellows are:
Phillip Adams AM AO
Phillip Adams is best known for his roles as broadcaster and columnist. He has been the presenter of Late Night Live on ABC Radio National and Radio Australia since the mid-1990s. He received a Walkley award for journalism in 2004.
Adams was a foundation member of the Australia Council, and was, at various stages, Chairman of the Film Radio & Television Board, the Australian Film Commission, Film Australia, and the Australian Film Institute. A renowned rationalist and republican, he was named Australian Humanist of the Year by the Australian Council of Humanist Societies in 1987, and Republican of the Year in 2005.
Penelope Allison
Penelope Allison is a Reader in Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Leicester. She is a broadly experienced field archaeologist, having worked on sites in Australia, Peru, Italy and Bahrain. Her particular specialty is the analysis of archaeological space, especially in the household. Her edited volume The archaeology of household activities (1999) and Pompeii households: Analysis of the material culture (2004), along with its associated website, are standard reference works in this field.
Anne Cutler
Anne Cutler is the Director of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Her research is in the field of speech comprehension and processing. In 1999 she was the first woman to win a Spinoza Prize and is a member of the Academia Europaea and the Netherlands Royal Academy.
Carrillo Gantner AO
Carrillo Gantner is the President of the Myer Foundation. He is an actor, director and the co-founder of Playbox Theatre. He has had a long career of activism and philanthropy in the Australian Arts sector including, notably, his roles in Asian-Australian relations in the Arts. He has worked in China as an actor and, in the 1980s, he was the Cultural Counsellor to the Australian Embassy in Beijing. He has served on the Federation for Asian Cultural Promotion and the Australia-China Council.
Kate Grenville
Kate Grenville is an Australian author of fiction and books about the writing process. She is an Honorary Associate and Writer in Residence in the Department of English at the University of Sydney. Her novels have been short-listed for the Miles Franklin Award and the Man Booker Prize. Two of her novels, Lilian’s Story and Dreamhouse, have been made into films (the latter as Traps). The Secret River (2005) has won many prizes, including the Commonwealth Prize for Literature and the Christina Stead Prize, and has been an international best-seller. The Idea of Perfection (2000) won the Orange Prize.
John Lynch
John Lynch is Professor of Pacific Languages and Director of the Pacific Languages Unit, University of the South Pacific, Vanuatu. He is one of the most prolific and influential scholars in the descriptive and historical study of the Oceanic subgroup of Austronesian languages. His research covers Oceanic languages, especially languages of Vanuatu, the history of languages of the Pacific, pidgin and creole languages, language change, dictionaries and orthography design. He was the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Papua New Guinea from 1986 to 1991.
Jeffrey Smart
Jeffrey Smart is an Australian-born painter, based in Italy. His iconic paintings of anonymous urban landscapes are popular with collectors, critics and the wider public. He has been exhibiting regularly since 1957 and his work is represented in the National Gallery of Australia, all state galleries, many regional galleries and numerous private and corporate collections, both nationally and internationally, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) and the de Beers collection.
Joan Sutherland
Joan Sutherland is a world-renowned opera singer, born in Sydney. She made her stage début in Sydney in 1947 and, after winning the Sun Aria prize in 1951, studied further at the Royal College of Music in London. She sang in all the major opera houses of the world throughout her long performing career, and her last stage performance was at the Sydney Opera House in 1990. She is known as ‘La Stupenda’ for the clarity of her voice and coloratura abilities.
Jørn Utzon AC
Jørn Utzon is a world-renowned architect. Born in Denmark, his masterpiece was the Sydney Opera House, opened in 1973, one of the great iconic buildings of the twentieth century. His domestic architecture embraces the landscape as well as function, creating buildings that work with people. He joins the handful of Modernists who have shaped the twentieth century. He won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2003 in recognition of his contribution to architecture.
For more information about the Fellows of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, please contact the Fellowship Officer on (02) 6125 8965 at the Academy.