Just over a year ago I launched my personal website with a brief commentary on two media pieces that struck me as especially important and succinct. They focussed on the value of the humanities and other neglected forms of labour in our increasingly automated age. With it, I solidified one friendship and made another, and … Continue reading The Humanities and 20 Years of Australian Political Culture
My non-professional reading Every year I try to compile, for my own benefit really, a list of my top five non-work-related reads. For 2025, I included some older ones. The standout novel, though, was Ian McEwan's What We Can Know, which is so thoughtful about the future and the humanities and poetry and climate change … Continue reading Yearly Faves
Yesterday I found these notes in my inboxes: Hiya Kate - I'm doing a story about the friendship between arthur phillip and bennelong for tomorrow's paper..I'd love to get your input...Chris Hook, Journalist, Daily Telegraph. And: hello there ...I'm a daily tele journalist doing a story for tomorrow about Australia Day and the friendship between … Continue reading “History Lesson”
In November 2017 I was delighted to be a part of an online roundtable blog on 'Native American Revolutions' hosted by the innovative Age of Revolutions historioblog. It begins: The usual story told of the Cherokees in the revolutionary era is a dire one. Starting with the catastrophic Anglo-Cherokee War of 1760-61, this story traces … Continue reading Cherokees in the Revolutionary Era
Consequences for higher education, work, and the care of bodies. That’s a rather grandiose title for this post, which spruiks just two pieces recently uploaded by historians. But I think they are among the best short things I’ve read this year; and they speak unusually well to each other. The first is by Frances Flanagan, an … Continue reading Historians on the Automated Future
Some of my colleagues are really good at engaging with local history. Since Australian history is not my speciality, my professional "engagement" tends more towards school teachers and international traveling art shows and so on, rather than the immediate world around me. However, recently inspired by my near-and-dear Australianists, I decided last year to become … Continue reading Erko History
My first foray into the mainstream press was both stimulating and disconcerting.  A version of the article appeared here in The Guardian on 8 July. But my original is pasted below... Bangarra’s current production Bennelong opened last week, and tells the first contact story of the Aboriginal warrior. It is exquisite, captivating, quick-paced and deeply moving. But … Continue reading Bennelong’s Contested History
Indigenous Intermediaries: New Perspectives on Exploration Archives. Edited by Shino Konishi, Maria Nugent, and Tiffany Shellam. Canberra: ANU Press and Aboriginal History Inc., 2015. Pp. 205. A$33.00. This books ends with Len Collard and Dave Palmer discussing indigenous terms for ideal approaches to history-making. The Noongar’s sense of kanya and the Kimberley people’s notion of … Continue reading Review of Indigenous Intermediaries
Endeavouring Banks: Exploring Collections from the Endeavour Voyage. Edited by Neil Chambers. Sydney: New South Publishing, 2016. Pp. $69.99 hardcover. The catalogue to a major exhibition held in Lincoln, UK, this sumptuous publication about the Endeavour’s collections also serves as a valuable contribution to eighteenth-century Pacific history. The exhibition of the same title was held … Continue reading Review of Endeavouring Banks
Last year I was honored to launch the latest book by my friend and collaborator, Mike McDonnell. The transcript is below. You are all Mike’s friends and colleagues, so you probably know—or you should know—the basic gist of this book. If you don’t: it’s about the Native Americans who live at the top end of … Continue reading Masters of Empire
Kate Fullagar 