Historian Harvard bound
Bain Attwood
The Australian Nominating Committee announces the appointment of Monash University Professor Bain Attwood to the Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser Chair in Australian Studies at Harvard University for the 2012-2013 academic year.
The chair was established by the Australian government in 1976, and renamed last year in recognition of these two former prime ministers who, from opposite sides of politics, negotiated and endowed this important initiative.
Professor Attwood will be appointed to the History Department in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard.
Chair of the Australian Nominating Committee for the Harvard Chair, Professor Stuart Macintyre, said Professor Attwood was an outstanding scholar in Australian Aboriginal history.
"We are excited that Harvard has been able to appoint him," Professor Macintyre said.
"In a number of prize-winning books Professor Attwood has contributed to the understanding of Aboriginal history, and explored how it has changed the ways we see this country’s history. His breadth of perspective and acuity of judgement provides an original perspective on the international field of Indigenous Studies, and will enhance his teaching at Harvard."
Professor Attwood holds a chair of History in the School of Philosophical, Historical and International Studies at Monash University, and in 2007-2008 was a Fellow in Commonwealth Studies at Cambridge University. He has been a prominent commentator in the media, and was a major figure in Australia’s "history wars".
"It is a great honour to be appointed to this chair and to be following in the footsteps of so many fine scholars," Professor Attwood said.
Professor Attwood joins two other Monash University historians appointed to the chair. Graeme Davison held the chair in 1988-89, and John Rickard in 1997-98.
Professor Attwood said he was looking forward to teaching courses at Harvard that would examine colonisation and Indigenous history and investigate why these have taken both similar and different forms in the settler societies of Australia and the United States.
"I’ll also be organising a conference about the ways in which Anglophone settler states have treated indigenous people’s historical claims regarding sovereignty and land," Professor Attwood said.
"In doing this, I hope to consolidate and develop a collaborative dialogue between American and Australian scholars that has been forged by some of my predecessors at Harvard."
Monash University Dean of Arts, Professor Rae Frances, said the appointment was a fitting recognition of Professor Attwood’s outstanding scholarship in Aboriginal history. "I hope that his time at Harvard will also build research collaborations in Indigenous Studies," Professor Frances said.