Distinguished Australian Academic Appointed Visiting Professor in Australian Studies, University of Tokyo
Leading Australian scholar Professor Rodney Smith has been appointed to the annual Visiting Professor in Australian Studies position at the Centre for Pacific and American Studies (CPAS), University of Tokyo, for 2023–24.
Professor Kate Darian-Smith, Chair of the Selection Committee and Executive Dean of the College of Arts, Law and Education at the University of Tasmania, said the appointment of leading scholars in Australian Studies to the prestigious University of Tokyo ‘plays a pivotal role is essential to developing Australia-Japan relations and educational exchanges’.
About the appointee:
Rodney Smith (2023-24) is a Professor in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Sydney. His research and teaching at the University of Tokyo will extend his previous work on the Australian political party system by comparing the challenges faced by long-established major parties in Australia and Japan, and their contemporary responses.
Professor Smith is the first political scientist to take up the Visiting Professor of Australian Studies this century and he aims to use it to strengthen connections between Japanese and Australian scholars in the social sciences. He said, ‘it will provide an exciting opportunity to introduce Japanese students to the ways in which Australian political values, institutions and processes have shaped policy responses to the critical challenges of our time, such as climate change, aging populations, new technologies, the legacies of colonialism and regional security’.
The Professor of Australian Studies position at the University of Tokyo is supported by the Australia-Japan Foundation (AJF), and the selection process managed with assistance from the International Australian Studies Association (InASA). Applications for the 2025-26 and 2026-27 terms for the Visiting Professorship will open in mid-2024.
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