Advanced Studies in the Humanities (ASH)

The scheme supports researchers:

1. who want to work for a brief period at the University of Adelaide;
2. who want to work with Adelaide collections, galleries, museums and archives; 
3. who want to work with staff in the School of Humanities at the University of Adelaide in their field of research; and
4. who is at least 3 years beyond Ph.D. 

Fellows must work in one of the disciplines represented within the School of Humanities. Cross-disciplinary scholars from cognate areas will also be considered as long as those areas connect with the interests of the disciplines and departments in the School of Humanities. Applicants are encouraged to show how their project articulates with the strengths and trajectories of the research areas within the School of Humanities.

Fellowship tenure is negotiable but it must, in normal circumstances,  be taken within 12 months of when the award is granted.

The Departments within the School of Humanities are:

1. English, Creative Writing and Film
2. European Languages, and Linguistics
3. Historical and Classical Studies (incorporates Art History, Archaeology and Curatorial and Museum Studies)
4. Philosophy
5. Media

Depending on the Fellowship, a Fellow may be offered:

1. a return airfare to Adelaide;
2. college-type accommodation for a period usually between one and three months;
3. a workspace within the School of Humanities;
4. access to the Library of the University of Adelaide; and
5. access to relevant staff.

The costs of transport and accommodation will be no greater than $10,000

Depending on the terms of the specific Fellowship, a Fellow may be asked to:

1. deliver a public lecture;
2. deliver a masterclass to staff and/or students of the University;
3. notify the Head of School of Humanities (humanitiesoffice@adelaide.edu.au) of any publication or other output derived from the Fellowship term; and
4. acknowledge the support of the Fellowship program on any resultant publication and include a joint by-line with the University of Adelaide.

The Fellowship in Pacific Studies is offered in collaboration with the Museum of South Australia and Barr-Smith Library at the University of Adelaide.

Pacific Studies constitutes an area of research strength across the Faculty of Arts and especially in the School of Humanities. Researchers from several fields engage in Pacific Studies, including literary studies, historical studies, art history, anthropology, geography, gender studies and Indigenous studies. A particular strength lies in the literature of the Pacific region, both Anglophone and Francophone. Another key area is the field of cultural anthropology, with which researchers across the Faculty engage. There is also a concentration of scholars researching climate change and adaptation – and the cultural representations of these phenomena – in the Pacific region.

The Pacific Collection at the University of Adelaide

The Pacific Collection is substantially based on the extensive papers and research library of the late Professor Henry Evans “H.E.” Maude, OBE (1906–2006), British Colonial Service administrator, historian and anthropologist, and of his wife, fellow researcher and string figure expert, Honor Maude. The collection is further supplemented by papers of colleagues and associates from the University of Adelaide, such as linguist H.G.A. Hughes (1921–2013), which includes research on the languages, cultures and history of the Pacific Islands.

The Pacific Collection consists largely of primary material documenting Central Pacific Islands history, including Maude’s own notebooks, research and reference files, photographs and copies of source documents. The collection is a detailed record of Maude’s activities as administrator in the island colonies, including schemes for the resettlement of Gilbert, Ellice and Banaban Islanders, as well as the reorganisation of government structures of Pitcairn Island in 1940.

The Collection has a large print component also, of c. 12,000 volumes, including books and journals on the history, culture, art, fiction and language of the Pacific islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, with notable strengths in mission history and Pacific anthropology and ethnology journals.

The Pacific Collection was purchased by University of Adelaide Library in 1972, with further additions made by the Maudes until 1998. More recent received items include material accumulated by Professor Maude during visits to specialist research collections on the Pacific Islands in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Hawaii, the United States and the United Kingdom. This collection is the primary source material on which Maude's publications have been based; the collection is thus not only a record of past work on the Pacific, but a major resource for future research.

Select References:

• Papers of Henry (Harry) Evans and Honor Courtney Maude 1904-1999 (University of Adelaide. Rare Books and Manuscripts, MSS 0003)
• Papers of Henry Goronwy Alun Hughes 1921-2013 (University of Adelaide. Rare Books and Manuscripts, MSS 0047)
• Woodburn, Susan (1995). Journeys through Pacific history: A Guide to the Pacific Islands Library and the Papers of H.E. and H.C. Maude. Adelaide : University of Adelaide
• Gunson, Niel (1978). The Changing Pacific: Essays in Honour of H. E. Maude, Oxford University Press.

The Museum of South Australia

The South Australian Museum holds unique collections and resources related to the history of human culture in the Oceanic region. 

This includes the largest and most comprehensive collection of Australian Aboriginal cultural material in the world, comprising over 28,000 publically accessible items from across the continent. The Museum holds a similarly significant collection of over 16,000 cultural items from the Pacific. These holdings cover the full breadth of the Pacific, with particular strengths in New Guinea (~12,000 items), Solomon Islands (~2,500), Fiji (~850) and Vanuatu (~700). These collections of human material culture are augmented by extensive documentation (field notes, photographs, recordings) held in the Museum’s Archives. 

The Fellow would have access to all of these collections through searchable databases and with the support of collection management staff. The museum also employs researchers with expertise across these collection areas, who will work with the Fellow to provide guidance and link the Fellow’s research with exhibitions, public programs and broader museum discussions. 

The strategic priorities for research at the South Australian Museum focus on developing inter-disciplinary projects and building partnerships with other cultural institutions and communities. Fellows are encouraged to support these objectives by pursuing research projects that connect with the broad field of natural history and incorporate the voices of relevant Indigenous communities.

More broadly the South Australian State Library, State Archives, Wantok Place LCA International Mission and Pacific Island Council of South Australia have extensive archival records that provide a rich historical context for the outstanding diversity of material culture and art objects held in the South Australian cultural institutions.

The South Australian Museum can also provide the opportunity for engagement and outreach with locally based cultural groups, and has strong social media support for wider engagement and promotion of researcher activities and outcomes.

The ASH Pacific Studies Fellow would be expected to :

1. Work on collections from the SA Museum and/or the Barr-Smith Pacific Studies Special Collection;
2. Contribute to the life of the School of Humanities through a public lecture and/or student/staff master classes/workshop/seminar;
3. Contribute to the life of the School of Humanities and the Museum of South Australia by engaging with relevant staff; and
4. Produce a publication wherein the ASH Pacific Studies Fellowship is acknowledged as supporting the research.

Recipients of the Pacific Studies Fellowship are encouraged to consider ways in which collaborative work may be undertaken in the future.

Applications for the ASH Pacific Studies Fellowship should include:

1. A proposal including the title of the project, its aims and significance and the intended outcome (ie: article, book chapter, exhibition etc)  (no more than 1000 words)
2. The names of any University of Adelaide or Museum staff with whom they wish to specifically work;
3. The period in which the Fellow wishes to work (between one to three months).

Applications should be addressed to:
Head of School of Humanities and should be received no later than 31 May 2022..

View current and past fellows

The Fellowship in Mobilities is offered in collaboration with the History Trust of South Australia.

The Fellowship in Mobilities is intended to support research into any aspect of mobility for which a period in Adelaide would be advantageous in order to use the collections of the History Trust of South Australia and to work with identified members of the School of Humanities. 

The ASH Mobilities Fellow would be expected to :

1. Work on collections from the Barr-Smith Library and/or the State Library of South Australia, and the National Motor Museum, and/or the Maritime Museum and/or the Migration Museum.
2. Contribute to the life of the School of Humanities through a public lecture and/or student/staff master classes/workshop/seminar; 
3. Contribute to the life of the School of Humanities and the History Trust of South Australia by engaging with relevant staff; and 
4. Produce a publication wherein the ASH Fellowship is acknowledged as supporting the research.

The recipient of the ASH Mobilities Fellowship is encouraged to consider ways in which collaborative work with staff in the School of Humanities may be undertaken in the future after the Fellowship period is over. 

The Fellowship will provide;

• a return airfare to Adelaide and college accommodation for a period between one to three months (up to AU10,000 in total);
• a workspace within the School of Humanities;
• access to the Library of the University of Adelaide and museum collections operated by the History Trust; and
• access to relevant staff.

Applications for the Fellowship in Mobilities should include:

1. A proposal including the title of the project, its aims and significance and the intended outcome (ie: article, book chapter, exhibition etc)  (no more than 1000 words)
2. The names of any University of Adelaide or Museum staff with whom you wish to work;
3. The period in which you wish to work (between one to three months).

Applications should be addressed to:

The HOS of Humanities at humanitiesoffice@adelaide.edu.au and should be received no later than 12 September 2022.

View current and past fellows

The relationship between the University of Adelaide in Australia and Bath Spa University in the UK goes back almost a decade. Both are partners in the Global Academy of Liberal Arts (GALA), an international community of diverse, innovative, and socially responsible universities that aims to transform lives and to enhance global understanding through interdisciplinary collaboration in teaching and research. The two universities also have a Study Abroad agreement, with a particular focus on the humanities and creative arts; most recently, this involved Bath Spa Creative Computing students travelling to Adelaide for a one-month traineeship, funded by the Turing scheme and GALA.
 
The Adelaide-Bath Spa Collaborative Fellowship — jointly funded by the University of Adelaide and Bath Spa University — builds on this existing relationship. It offers staff at each university with particular interests in English literature, history, philosophy, creative writing, creative media, digital humanities, heritage and museum studies the opportunity to visit the other university to develop collaborative initiatives and projects of any kind, with at least one tangible outcome anticipated during the Fellowship period. A Fellow will also be expected to give one masterclass to university staff and students and deliver one public lecture related to their field of research or creative practice.

In the first year, Bath Spa University staff will be eligible to apply to visit Adelaide; it is hoped that in succeeding years the Fellowship will be reciprocal, alternating between Adelaide and Bath.

The successful Fellow will be expected to visit the host university for six weeks or longer, depending on the project, where they will be given access to facilities as a Visiting Research Fellow. The dates of the Fellowship are negotiable but it is expected that the visit should coincide at least in part with a teaching period at the host institution. The Fellowship needs to be taken up within 12 months of its award. 

The Fellowship will provide:

• a return airfare to Adelaide and college accommodation for a period of at least six weeks (up to AU10,000 in total);
• a workspace within the School of Humanities;
• access to the Library of the University of Adelaide; and
• access to relevant staff.

Applications are now open to colleagues at Bath Spa University. Applicants should include: 

• A proposal for potential collaboration between the two universities in one or more of the following disciplines: English literature, history, philosophy, creative writing, creative media, digital humanities, heritage and museum studies. It should include aims, significance, and intended outputs  (i.e. article, exhibition, lectures, etc) and their outcomes - no more than 1000 words. Wherever possible, the collaboration should support a longer-term project, or inform the development of one. 
• The names of relevant colleagues at the University of Adelaide’s School of Humanities and/or the J. M. Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice — please indicate if you have already contacted them
• Written confirmation from your Head of School endorsing your application
• The period in which you wish to work (between one to three months).

Each application will be reviewed by a joint panel of senior staff at the University of Adelaide and Bath Spa University.

Applications should be submitted to the HOS of Humanities at humanitiesoffice@adelaide.edu.au by 12 September 2022.

View current and past fellows

Robyn McKenzie is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Australian National University working on the multi-team project ‘Beyond Reconciliation: Truth-Telling for Indigenous Wellbeing and the Health of the Nation’. She has research interests in First Nations collections, museums and the making of value. In the first half of the 20th century string figures became a key focus of ethnographers working with material culture. The South Australian Museum has rich holdings of mounted figures collected from Aboriginal communities at this time, with further documentary material in the Museum archives. These holdings are complemented by the papers of Honor Maude, ‘the world’s foremost authority’ on Pacific string figures, in the Pacific Collection at the Barr Smith Library at the University of Adelaide. As ASH Fellow Robyn will be working across these collections to bring this material into focus through a range of public programs: including an exhibition co-curated with Stephen Zagala, Curator of World Cultures at SAM, planned for 2024.

Recent Publications

• ‘“Such intimate relations”: on the process of collecting string figures and the paradigm of participant observation fieldwork’ Royal Anthropological Institute, Art and Anthropology online pamphlet series [March 2022] https://www.therai.org.uk/images/stories/AnthArt/AnthandArtVol4.pdf
• ‘The revaluation of historical collections by source communities: The string figures of Yirrkala.’ In Howard Morphy and Robyn McKenzie (eds.), Museums, Societies and the Creation of Value, Routledge, London, 2022, pp. 152–166.
• ‘Strange and complicated feats with string’, in Gaye Sculthorpe, Maria Nugent and Howard Morphy (eds.), Ancestors, artefacts, empire: Indigenous Australia in British and Irish museums, The British Museum, London, 2021, pp. 216–223.

Finding Country - entangled memories, obscured histories and uncanny connections between two cities of empire

Finding Country is an iteration of my intradisciplinary somatic and multimedia practice. The project offers a further exploration of ideas of belonging, memory practices and social justice as an act of repair. I want to extend and deepen my understanding and enactment of decolonisation.  I want to make work in Adelaide bringing an awareness of my sectionality as a White man, as a visitor from the colonising country and as a descendant of those who decided to stay in that ‘mother’ country. I want to invoke and hear the revenants of colonisation making a space, however ephemeral, to be with discomfort, to reflect and learn from it. I want to hold this learning and weave into my ongoing research-creation in England. The concept is speculative with concrete activity emerging through working collaboratively and I invite comments and contributors who might walk with me in the coming weeks.

The activity may include:
Walking in search of the traces and legacies of former slaveowners in Adelaide. Using existing research and data bases and following them through street names and place names I will track those who, having received ‘compensation’ from the British Government following the abolition of chattel slavery and the status of slave in the British Empire, acquired land and funded development in the area.

I will walk tracing the ‘colonial’ Adelaide place names and street names, some hold the names of settlements near where I now live and others the names of London suburbs that migrant/settler relatives of mine emigrated from. I will to explore resonances, synchronicities and serendipities walking and asking questions

Learning and sensing with the land, identifying sites with older, deep time, pre-colonial significance, I hope to find other sites of memory. I hope to meet indigenous custodians who can help me gain an understanding of the land and lives that were colonised by former slaveowners and English economic migrants.

Traversing these three entangled maps of knowledge and experience I seek to develop an embodied understanding of ‘country’.

The work may focus to a particular geographical area or the layering and transposition may be more abstracted. I intend to generate at least one public performative walk using a walking-with approach.

The process will generate social media, tracking and mapping, maybe some geolocated AR, writing and sound work and whatever emerges in the collaborations I hope to establish. These will shared online and in public conversation. There are conversations to be explored between Bath's UNESCO World Heritage status and Adelaide's UNESCO City of Culture status regarding uncomfortable histories and their contribution to ‘building peace in the minds of men and women’.

About Richard 

Kate Pullinger has been at the forefront of experimenting with digital narrative forms over the past twenty years; her most recent digital work, Breathe, is a ghost story for the smartphone that personalises itself to every reader. Her novel, The Mistress of Nothing, won Canada's Governor General's Award for Fiction in 2009; her most recent novel is Forest Green, Doubleday, 2020.  At Bath Spa, Professor Pullinger is the Director of the Centre for Cultural and Creative Industries, where she works on creative technology research projects. While at the University of Adelaide for her Fellowship, Kate plans to engage with the faculty and students via masterclasses and a public lecture, working with Adelaide colleagues from Creative Writing, the Australian Institute of Machine Learning, and other research centres and units.

Scenes from the South has embedded South-South mobilities as a working concept since its inception and launch in South Africa in 2020.  A collaboration with Amazwi South African Museum of Literature and the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin, it is a travelling exhibition on the archives of South African-Australian Nobel Laureate J. M. Coetzee, which I have curated with Professor David Attwell.  It is also an intervention in – and celebration of – ideas of the ‘South’.  Tracking Coetzee across his home ground of the Western Cape and further afield, it is designed around a series of itineraries which speak both to biographical and literary landmarks in Coetzee’s ‘life & times’, and to his intellectual, creative and biographical travels across other ‘southern spaces’. This includes his other southern home of Adelaide, where he has lived since 2002, but also Buenos Aires where, from 2015-18,  he directed the Cátedra Coetzee at UNSAM, bringing together Australian and South African writers, critics and filmmakers to Argentina.  Both cities happen to be located, like his hometown of Cape Town, along the 34th parallel South.  

This shared latitude forms the guiding conceptual basis of my ASH Mobilities fellowship project – a South Australian variation of Scenes from the South. Collaborating with colleagues in the School of Humanities, the History Trust and the J. M. Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice, the project will engage in both archival research and fieldwork to curate and create additional materials for a further exhibition, including maps, photographs and other archives and artworks that specifically speak to questions of country, coastlines and seascapes, navigation and migration, and the city space of Adelaide.