Amanda Harris

Biography

Amanda Harris is an ARC Future Fellow at Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney and Director of the Sydney Unit of digital archive PARADISEC (Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures). Amanda is a musicologist and cultural historian interested in hearing the voices of those often excluded from conventional music histories. Her current work focuses on histories of musical encounter in Australia’s Oceanic location and colonial history. She approaches this work through collaborative research into present and past musical cultures. Amanda’s monograph Representing Australian Aboriginal Music and Dance 1930-70, published by Bloomsbury Publishing in 2020 was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award in Australian History. The book Music, Dance and the Archive, co-edited with Linda Barwick and Jakelin Troy, was published by Sydney University Press in 2022 and won the Mander Jones Award for the publication making the greatest contribution to the archives profession in Australia. Amanda’s current research is supported by ARC funding for three projects: the Future Fellowship Resonant histories of musical encounter in Australia (FT220100115), a collaborative Discovery Project Hearing the music of early NSW 1788-1860 (DP210101511), and a Linkage, Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) Project Modularised cultural heritage archives – future-proofing PARADISEC (LE220100010).