PRESS RELEASE:
Award-winning Australian Academics Appointed Visiting Professor in Australian Studies, University of Tokyo
29 April 2014
Leading Australian scholars Associate Professor Anna Johnston and Dr Maria Nugent have been appointed to the annual Visiting Professor in Australian Studies position at the Centre for Pacific and American Studies (CPAS), University of Tokyo, for 2014–15 and 2015–16. The University of Melbourne’s Professor Kate Darian-Smith, Chair of the CPAS Selection Committee, says “Associate Professor Johnston and Dr Nugent’s areas of expertise, Australian literature and Indigenous studies, are of great interest to Japanese students. Their appointments will contribute enormously to the strengthening of ties between Australia and Japan”.
Associate Professor Johnston is an ARC Future Fellow and Director of the Centre for Colonialism and Its Aftermath at the University of Tasmania. Her area of research is literary studies, and she has substantial experience in the fields of colonial and postcolonial studies. She plans to encourage her students “not to think of Australia in isolation, but rather as a culture that has a long-standing tradition of engagement with the world, including the migrations of people, ideas, and texts from pre-colonial through to contemporary communities”. She is keen to use colonial and contemporary Australian travel writing, as well as film and literature, in teaching Japanese students about Australia and connections between the two countries.
Dr Nugent is an award-winning author and Research Fellow attached to the Australian Centre for Indigenous History within the School of History at Australian National University. She currently holds an ARC Future Fellowship. Her research is concerned with cross-cultural encounters and exchanges between Indigenous people and others in Australia from the late eighteenth century to the present. Dr Nugent is looking forward to teaching Australian and Aboriginal history through the study of intercultural interactions and exchange; she was drawn to the position “because of an abiding interest in Japan, as well as for the opportunity it provides for thinking anew about Australian and Aboriginal history from outside Australia but still within the Asia-Pacific region”.
Contact for interviews:
Associate Professor Anna Johnston
School of Humanities
University of Tasmania
Private Bag 41, Hobart TAS 7001
Telephone: +61 3 6226 2367
Email: Anna.Johnston@utas.edu.au
Dr Maria Nugent
School of History
Australian National University
Canberra ACT 0200
Telephone: +61 2 6125 2445
Email: maria.nugent@anu.edu.au
The position is supported by the Australia-Japan Foundation (AJF). The AJF is a non-statutory, bilateral foundation in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. It was established in 1976 with the aim of strengthening and further developing Australia-Japan relations. The AJF provides funds in support of a range of projects that help advance Australia’s engagement with Japan. The International Australian Studies Association (InASA), the peak global Australian Studies organisation, manages the selection process on behalf of the Australia-Japan Foundation. Applications for the 2016-17 Professorship will open in mid-2015.
Further details about the position can be found at:
http://ajf.australia.or.jp/en/
Dr Maria Nugent
Associate Professor Anna Johnston