It’s been an exciting start to 2025 for InASA!
The biennial conference held at Macquarie University earlier in February was a resounding success. Three days of presentations showcased the diverse and inspiring work of Australian Studies scholars from across the country and internationally. Keynote addresses by Professor John Maynard, Professor Frank Bongiorno, and Associate Professor Nancy Cushing invited us to reflect in different ways on the conference theme “Australian Studies in the 21st Century: Human and More-Than-Human Worlds”. Our sincere congratulations and thanks go to the conference organising committee, who we hope are now enjoying a well-earned rest.
InASA also held its Annual General Meeting during the conference. Several new members were appointed to the Executive Committee as office bearers and ordinary members. We are delighted to launch a new ‘Inside the Exec’ series to introduce these members (and re-introduce some existing ones!).
We begin the series with President Professor Anna Johnston and Vice-President Dr Andonis Piperoglou. Read on to find out more about Anna and Andonis’ roles, and how their passion for Australian Studies infuses their research and teaching.
InASA President: Professor Anna Johnston, University of Queensland
I was first invited to join the InASA Executive by Professor Kate Darian-Smith in the 2000s, and have been InASA’s President since 2022. Before then I was Vice-President working with the lovely Noah Riseman. One of the things I love about InASA is the highly rewarding and long-term relationships we develop: I’m still working closely with Kate on the Australia-Japan Foundation Chair of Australian Studies and appreciated her advice developing the inaugural Australia-Korea Foundation Chair in 2024 with Seoul National University. I get immense satisfaction from the positive things InASA achieves, from supporting new HDR and ECR colleagues through prizes and awards, to selecting senior colleagues to represent Australia overseas in key Visiting Chair positions.
I was lucky to study at The University of Queensland in the 1990s with leading researchers in Australian Literature, Cultural Studies, and Postcolonial Literature. That combination of disciplines and their interstitial spaces underpin my research, which now focuses on colonial Australia and decolonising approaches to the colonial archive. Since 2000, I have taught Australian and world literature, mostly from the contemporary period, and love inspiring students to reevaluate what they think they know about Australian culture. I was fortunate to secure two back-to-back ARC research fellowships in my mid-career, which enabled me to undertake major archival work and concentrate on developing my research leadership, as well as have my daughter Ruby. I was also fortunate to be appointed the AJF Chair at the University of Tokyo in 2014-15, which widened my view of Australian studies overseas and made me a much better teacher of international students.
This year I have been delighted to witness the strong legacy of foundational figures of Australian Studies such as Kay Schaffer and Lyndall Ryan, whose names now grace InASA awards. Both women wrote innovative books that influenced my own understanding of Australian Studies as a vibrant and interdisciplinary intellectual field. These women were highly influential mentors, underpinned by their commitment to feminism, which was central to their vision for Australian Studies. I would be delighted if my end of career impact was in any way as significant as these incredible figures in our field.
Looking to the future of Australian Studies, I recently co-wrote the Journal of Australian Studies Editorial (48.4) with my great colleague & InASA Treasurer Dr Jon Piccini. There, we said: “The future of Australian studies is bright, diverse and global, and it has a deep history.” That was my line and I’m sticking to it!
InASA Vice-President: Dr. Andonis Piperoglou, University of Melbourne
Since 2023, I have served as Vice President of the InASA Executive. I joined the InASA Executive in 2019 after being prompted by former InASA President Noah Riseman. At the time, I was an early minted PhD and taking an active role on the InASA Executive was a welcome learning curve in how a healthy and friendly academic association operates. Since then, I helped established the Lyndall Ryan Thesis Prize in Australian Studies—chairing the judging committee of the inaugural Lyndall Ryan Thesis Prize was a highly rewarding experience.
I am a migration historian, who is increasingly engaging with novel approaches to studies of diasporas. I work on human movements between the Mediterranean and Pacific and have published extensively on Greek migrations to Australia. I completed my dissertation at La Trobe University on Greek engagements with the operations of race and labour in White Australia (soon to be my first sole authored monograph, Making Greek Settlers: Racial Inclusion and Exclusion in White Australia, Illinois University Press). Today I am fortunate to hold the inaugural Hellenic Senior Lectureship in Global Diasporas at the University of Melbourne, which involves public engagement with our diasporic communities. With recent census data indicating that over half of the Australian population are either born or have a parent born overseas, I see my research on migration and diaspora as crucial to developing more diverse and accurate studies of Australia and its peoples.
Crossing historical assessments of Australian literary culture to critical interrogations of what constitutes Australia, the multidisciplinary of Australian Studies has enabled me to comprehend Australianness in its variability. Leaders in the field like Lyndall Ryan, Ann Curthoys, and Raymond Evans opened Australia Studies to consider feminist, classist, and racialist dynamics in a new light. More recently, research around alter-Australian cultures has provided ways to understand the country beyond monocultural renderings. Conceptually and historically grounded researchers like Shino Konishi, Jordanna Silverstien, and Melissa Bellanta have exemplified newfound provocations on what good research in Australian Studies can look like.
When considering the output of research work that has been published in recent issues of the Journal of Australian Studies (JAS), the future of Australian Studies is optimistic. From studies of First Nations relationalities to the politics of representation in Australian archives, critical readings of significant literary figures and refreshing takes on Australian political history, Australian Studies is clearly cultivating a future orientated research culture that is diverse and generative. Its future rests on a new generation of scholars who are keen to continue work on how we can apply critical meaning to Australia’s pasts and presents.
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