InASA warmly congratulates the winner of the 2024 Lyndall Ryan Thesis Prize, Dr Emily Gallagher, for her thesis “The Childhood Imagination in Australia, 1890–1940”.
The Lyndall Ryan Thesis Prize celebrates excellence in PhD research in the interdisciplinary field of Australian Studies. InASA is honoured to offer this $1000 prize, sponsored by the late Professor Ryan.
Congratulations also to the two Commended applicants, Dr Chris Cheng and Dr Rebecca Lindsay.
The prize announcements were made at the 2025 InASA conference at Macquarie University. Full thesis details and judge’s comments are available below.
(InASA President Prof Anna Johnston with Commended applicants Dr Chris Cheng and Dr Rebecca Lindsay at the 2025 InASA conference.)
Winner: Emily Gallagher for “The Childhood Imagination in Australia, 1890–1940”.
This is a fascinating, excellent and innovative thesis – both conceptually and methodologically – that explores children’s imaginings from the 1890s-1940s. The primary sources demonstrate in-depth research and, as commented by all three examiners, constitute an incredible feat. The voices of young people are often presented as inaccessible to historians; however, this thesis is possibly the first really to uncover sources generated by children. These include letters to the editor, drawings, avian biographies, and much more. The thesis contributes to Australian Studies via its interdisciplinary focus, bringing the fields of folklore and the history of childhood into conversation with Australian Studies. The thematic approach to the thesis is novel – focusing on print culture, bird loving, war/adventure, dolls, airplanes and fairy tales and legends – as are the arguments about how settler children’s imaginations both responded to, and perpetuated, settler colonialism, gender roles and imagined national identity. Children are commonly depicted as pure and innocent, separated from adult life and its responsibilities. What this thesis does is return agency to young people, showing how their imaginations and fascination with fauna and the mysteries/unknown of the continent represented another form of terra nullius. This thesis is also careful to avoid reifying the category of childhood: there is no one experience of adolescence, as the thesis shows in its wonderful discussion of the very different ways Indigenous and non-Indigenous children depicted air travel, for instance. What really stands out about this thesis is the originality – of topic, source base, methodology and case studies/examples explored.
Commended: Chris Cheng for “Australian Migrant Heritage in South China: The Legacy of Diaspora-Funded Schools in Twentieth Century Zhongshan”.
This is a very exciting and innovative thesis that is a model of multi-disciplinarity. It draws on architecture, oral history, archival records, family histories and material culture, using diaspora funded schools in China to explore numerous themes: heritage, ChineseAustralian relations, education, diaspora, memory and migrant histories. The breadth of reading and conceptual frameworks discussed reflect this interdisciplinarity and it works well. The methodology and particularly the architecture background really is innovative for Australian Studies, and the focus on the tangible tie to the homeland is surprisingly innovative for migration studies (there is, to a lesser degree, some research on this with European migrants to Australia). The thesis is quite dense in that it covers a lot of ground, yet it is effective because there is so much new material and primary research, complemented well by lots of secondary theories and literature.
Commended: Rebecca Lindsay for “Settler Reading Postures: Reading Ruth in Settler Colonial Australia”.
This innovative thesis crosses the fields of Biblical Studies, Settler Colonial Studies and Indigenous studies. It brings a new reading to the Book of Ruth through the lens of settler colonialism in Australia. The thesis is also autoethnographic in that the author regularly positions herself within the content – particularly focusing on her identity as a Settler on Aboriginal land. The thesis takes a contrapuntal approach, meaning it reads various texts alongside each other which may not seem directly related but which all highlight different viewpoints. Using the themes of home, land, memory and identity, the thesis brings together the Book of Ruth and Indigenous-authored texts into unexpected but highly sophisticated conversations. The thesis represents an innovative and rich form of textual analysis, highlighting how settler colonial readings of the Bible can both reinforce and destabilise understandings of belonging and connection to land and country.
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