2015 was an exciting year for the Contemporary Histories Research Group with the continued development of our website and the launch of our own social media accounts on Twitter and Facebook.
We had several events during 2015, including the History Seminar Series; ‘De-familiarising the Ordinary’ with Professor Jim Cullen, Dr Kat Ellinghaus and Dr Glenn Moore; ‘Gallipoli in Retrospect’ and a postgraduate workshop hosted by Tim Dunlop. We have several upcoming events planned for 2016 – follow us to be notified as more details are released.
Our Deakin University members had an active year with publications, presentations and appointments. Professor David Lowe was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences; Dr Cassandra Atherton took up a Visiting Scholar Position at Harvard University and had her new book Exhumed published, and Dr Tiffany Shellam‘s work Indigenous Intermediaries, and Rosendo Salvado and the Australian Aboriginal World were published. Associate Professor Maria Takolander‘s The Double was a finalist in the Melbourne Prize for Literature; Dr Bart Ziino presented at Melbourne Museum’s War & Emotions Symposium, and the National Museum of Australia on the First World War at Home, and Associate Professor Helen Gardner attended the Waigani Seminar in Port Moresby for the 40th anniversary of Papua New Guinea, and her book Southern Anthropology was also released.
Our Associate members shared many contributions throughout 2015 detailing their current projects and achievements. Dr Donna-Lee Frieze was appointed to the Academia Working Group of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, and her book The Interior of Our Memories: A History of Melbourne’s Jewish Holocaust Centre was published. Dr Samuel Koehne was twice in the top 5% of academics on Academia.edu and also presented at and participated in workshops including the Emotions and Memory workshop at the University of Melbourne, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum summer research workshop. Dr Filip Slaveski was interviewed on Sky News multiple times during 2015 regarding tensions in Ukraine and Russia; Dr Kirstie Close-Barry‘s book A Mission Divided was published; and Dr Philipp Schorch was appointed a Marie-Curie Fellow at Ludwig-Maximilians University. Dr Jon Ritchie is currently in Papua New Guinea for his research project PNG in World War II, and along with Professor David Lowe and Dr Jemma Purdey developed a database with the results of their research project Scholarships and Connections. Mr Ian Kemish is currently undertaking a research project PNG Speaks; and Professor Jim Cullen visited Deakin University as a Thinker-in Residence, and also spent time with our HDR community in a workshop.
Several of our Postgraduate Student members shared reflections of various stages of the Higher Degree by Research experience, including Debra Wain, Sarah Coates, Nathan Coffey and Heather Brown. Heather will be writing for the Contemporary Histories website monthly in 2016, and we look forward to continuing to share insights from our postgraduate community this year.
Our Working Papers Series commenced in 2015, and we are inviting submissions. We have papers currently available from David Lowe, Chris Waters and Samuel Koehne.
Follow us on Twitter @Contemp_History and like our new page on Facebook for updates, news and events, and see our News Archive.
