Welcome to the first CCH newsletter of 2026. If you have things you’d like to share with the CCH community, please email Scott before the next fortnightly newsletter. We will also share news and updates on LinkedIn. Please tag us in the news you post on LinkedIn so we can share it!
A message from the Centre’s Co-Director, Deakin Distinguished Professor David Lowe
It’s exciting to be starting the new teaching year, partly because this is also the start of our CCH seminar program. Many thanks to Scott McCarthy for co-ordinating the program, and to those who have volunteered to speak to date. There will be some variations in format this year, but for the first five weeks up to the Easter break, we can look forward to:
4 March, 11am Stephen Pascoe – Shock Troops of Empire, or Aspirational Imperialists? Revisiting Australia’s Middle Eastern Military Occupations
11 March, 11am Victoria Stead – The Places Labour Makes: Forging a Horticultural Landscape in Shepparton at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
18 March, 11am John Soniega – Monastic-Mission Domain: Spatio-Cultural History of the New Norcia Mission in the Nineteenth Century
25 March, 11am Carolyn Holbrook – How Anzac evolved and why it endures: An interdisciplinary approach to understanding national communities
1 April, 11am Max Billington – The Limits of Sacrifice: Locating the nuclear “veteran” in Australian military mythology
Scott will also be assisting in getting the newsletter ready on a fortnightly basis, so please forward news items to him.
As faculty members know, we are in a period of transition in our research funding categories. Please don’t let that stop you from thinking how we (Faculty/School/CCH) might be able to support your research plans. To recap messages from Associate Dean Research, Andrea Witcomb:
Until the end of March existing schemes will continue, so please keep your applications coming. After that, if you want funding for conferences, publications, individual research projects or equipment, these categories of funding will be managed by your School, regardless of whether or not you are a member of any research group, including ADI, REDI and CCH. Funding for collaborative research projects and engagement and impact activities will be available through Schools, ADI, REDI and CCH and Faculty Research Groups. Faculty will continue to fund International Collaboration, the Industry project development scheme and support for major bids as well as of course ASP. All of us will have responsibilities in researcher development. You will find a portal to apply for all of these grants on the Faculty Research Share point site and we will let you know when it is built!
So, from the end of March, CCH funding will be directed under the two headings of Collaborative Research Project; and Engagement and Impact. We have indicated that activities will be funded as they fall under thematic headings which, in their draft form, are:
- Humanity and Story: past, present, and future through traditional and non-traditional research
- Data, Survey and AI: aggregations and explanations of change
- History of the Present: interpreting the maelstrom
- Community, Heritage and Collections: power, records and materials.
We have begun identifying some projects that logically have claims to support, and we continue to seek your input, in advance of the end of March and the creation of Faculty portals enabling you to formally seek support. Hope that all makes sense!
News from Members and Associates
- Congratulations to Holly Moorhead, who recently submitted her PhD thesis!
- Congratulations to Carolyn Holbrook, who published two articles over the break. The first, ‘The Early Years of Australian Medicare: Universal Health Insurance in the Balance’, in the Journal of Australian Studies. The second (along with co-authors Ann Westmore and Thomas Kehoe), ‘A forgotten episode in the history of tobacco control: how Australia achieved a ban on television advertising of cigarette’, in the Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences.
- Congratulations to Bessie Mikelsons, who was recently awarded Deakin’s Philip Brown Award for 2025. The prize is awarded annually to an enrolled higher degree by research student within the Faculty of Arts and Education, for research into Australia, Australian History, or other relevant areas of study in which aspects of Australian History are present.
Events
Dr. Fiona Gatt is giving two public presentations over the month of March.
Brettena Smyth: Making it better for women
Tuesday, 10 March 2026, 6–7pm AEST
narrm ngarrgu Library, 141 Therry Street, Melbourne VIC 3000
Get your (free) tickets here.
Fiona will take you back 145 years to explore the fascinating life of one of Melbourne’s earliest proto-feminists, Brettena Smyth, who transformed her North Melbourne shop into a centre for birth control education and products, while also spearheading feminist and suffrage efforts in late 19th-century Australia. Her store served as a launching pad for radical social change—advancing women’s health knowledge and political rights.
The Irish in 19th century North Melbourne
Tuesday, 17 March 2026, 6–7pm AEST
North Melbourne Library, 66 Errol Street North, Melbourne VIC 3051
Get your (free) tickets here.
North Melbourne housed an unusually high number of Irish immigrants in the 19th century. To celebrate St Patrick’s Day 2026, Fiona Gatt will deliver a special talk to highlight and unravel their collective history and the story of some well- and lesser- known individuals.
Call for Papers
Contributions to forthcoming collection on Migration and the British World: Peoples, Flows, and Connections
It has been nearly a decade since the last edited collection about migration and the British World. Migration was one of the key themes that led to the creation of the British World model of history. Since then, there has been a new wave of academics carrying out new research on the subject in fascinating ways. This new collection aims to showcase that research, adopting a broad geographical and temporal perspective. The use of plurals of people, flow, and connection is very much intentional as the collection aims to look at not only people of British descent, but non-White people; the flow of people not just from the United Kingdom to other parts of the British World but in the opposite direction also, as well as between other parts of the British World themselves; and various connections – both individual and collective.
The collection is anticipated to be published in the ‘Studies in Transnationalism’ book series with Peter Lang Publishing (subject to a successful peer review), under the auspices of the Australian, Canadian, and New Zealand Studies Network. Submissions due 30 April 2026.
Find out more here.
Special issue of Settler Colonial Studies, ‘Patrick Wolfe’s Settler Colonial Theory, 20 Years On’
This special issue of Settler Colonial Studies aims to collaboratively examine the residual impacts of Patrick Wolfe’s influential essay, “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native,” first published in 2006 in Journal of Genocide Research. In the twenty years since the essay’s publication, it has become a staple of settler colonial studies, being cited thousands of times and quoted and read even more. The Taylor and Francis Journal of Genocide Research has the citation number at 3,800 and views at over 700,000, metrics that do not capture book and untracked publications.
The editors aim to curate a special issue by inviting a mix of scholars from across the globe, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, established and newer voices, to comment on the essay in 2026 as a way to examine the current state of the field. We seek research article contributions of 5,000 words that will undergo double-blind peer-review and also encourage reflective essays and creative responses to “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native.”
Find out more here.
Australian and New Zealand Legal History Society Seminar Series
The Australian and New Zealand Legal History Society are organising four seminar series that will be held from March to October 2026. These sessions will bring together a diverse group of scholars and members of the public to workshop a pre-circulated paper. Our definition of law is expansive and pluralistic; we encourage papers that focus on legal culture and laws beyond western courts as well as more traditional legal history. After brief remarks from the author and an assigned commentator, the discussion will be opened to the floor. All are encouraged to ask questions, provide feedback on the circulated essay, and discuss the topic at hand. Sessions are free and open to everyone.
If you would like to present a paper in either mid-March, mid-May, mid-August, or mid-October, please send an abstract and a list of possible commentators (they do not need to be from Australia or New Zealand).
Submissions due to alecia.simmonds@uts.edu.au
Reflections on the Art of Writing History
The Australian Historical Association’s HDR co-representatives are compiling a celebratory collection of photographs of the membership, accompanied by brief captions, celebrating the art of writing. All Association members are invited to submit a photograph of themselves at their desk—cats on laps, steaming coffee in hand, messy piles of papers and books unconcealed—for inclusion in an upcoming collection entitled “Some Reflections on the Art of Writing History”. All photographs should be accompanied by a brief (not more than 250 words) caption. Submissions due 31 March 2026.
Find out more here.
Opportunities
National Library of Australia Fellowships
Applications are now open for the 2027 Fellowships offered by the National Library of Australia. Up to 7 of these fellowships are on offer, available to researchers who require onsite access to our uniquely held or extensive collections to advance their research towards publication or other public outcomes. Of the 7 fellowships available for application, 4 are for research on any subject while 3 are for the fields of Asian studies and Australian literature.
The Creative Arts Fellowship for Australian Writing is open to creative writers, working in any literary genre, to develop creative works inspired by the Library’s collections. This may include writing for performance, poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, personal essays or graphic novels.
Learn more about the National Library of Australia Fellowships and Creative Arts Fellowship, including information on eligibility, information on previous projects and online application forms. Applications for National Library of Australia Fellowships and the Creative Arts Fellowship will close on 7 April 2026.
PhD Scholarship, Race, Gender, and Violence in Western Militaries in the War on Terror
Dr Mia Martin Hobbs seeks a PhD candidate for her DECRA project ‘Race, Gender, and Violence in Western militaries in the War on Terror’. In the wake of 9/11, Western militaries agreed that force alone would not defeat global terrorism. The US, UK, and Australian militaries set forth new doctrine outlining the need to build trust with local populations, and a core element of this doctrine was the diversity of their armed forces. Leaders were explicit about the necessity of diversity among the ranks, while rhetorical justifications for the War on Terror framed it as defending values of pluralism and equality. Military recruitment materials heavily promoted diversity, tying the individual empowerment of the soldier to the ‘liberating’ mission of the War on Terror. Yet the War on Terror was characterised by the weaponisation of race and gender by Western militaries, and the soldiers who diversified Western forces faced widespread sexual violence and racism within military institutions.
The PhD candidate will conduct their own research on perceptions of gender and race in the wider ADF in the 21st century, or on a related issue, and coauthor comparative research with Mia.
For further information, please contact mia.martinhobbs@deakin.edu.au
Research Grant, Malcolm Fraser Research Grant
The University of Melbourne Archives and Special Collections invites applications for the Malcolm Fraser Research Grant 2026, supporting original research that interrogates, reframes, and advances understanding of liberal traditions in Australia. This grant seeks scholars willing to move beyond inherited narratives—to examine liberalism not as a fixed doctrine, but as a living, contrary drive embedded in policy, practice, and power.
The grant promotes research that advances rigorous, contemporary scholarship on liberal traditions in Australia, contributes meaningfully to public debate and historical understanding, and engages deeply with archival collections held by the University of Melbourne Archives and Special Collections.
The successful applicant will receive $25,000 to support their research project for up to 12 months. Applications due 15 March 2026.
Find out more here.
Postgraduate Essay Prize, Irish Studies Association of Australia and New Zealand
The editors of the interdisciplinary Australasian Journal of Irish Studies (AJIS) and the Irish Studies Association of Australia and New Zealand are pleased to announce that the 2026 ISAANZ Irish Studies Postgraduate Essay Prize competition is now open for entries. The prize includes publication of the winning essay; a year’s membership of the Association, and a $300 lump sum. Entry is open to anyone enrolled in an MA or PhD programme between June 2025 and June 2026.
Find out more here.
Cover Photo
Rubble remains after shelling of Abbey Street and Sackville Street, Dublin, after the rising of Easter 1916 (National Library of Ireland)
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