Dr Effie Karageorgos

Effie Karageorgos is an early career historian working on the social history of war, specifically Australian experiences of conflict. She has a PhD from Flinders University, and her monograph, Australian Soldiers in South Africa and Vietnam: Words from the Battlefield, was published in 2016 by Bloomsbury Academic. Her work has explored the motivations of Australian combatants involved in the South African War of 1899-1902 and the Vietnam War from enlistment to discharge, particularly focusing on the influence of the home front on soldiers' attitudes and behaviours.

Effie has taught History and Academic Skills at Flinders University, The University of Melbourne, Deakin University and Swinburne Online. Her specialty is the study and teaching of Australian history.

She has since expanded on her past work on soldiering to focus on identity, masculinity and war trauma, publishing on this topic in History Australia, Journal of Australian Studies and Health & History. More specifically, she has explored the idea of the late nineteenth century Australian male, their role as representatives of federated Australia from 1901 and how these constructions determined treatment of war trauma emerging from the South African War.

Her current research moves into the twentieth century, considering Australian archetypal masculinity in conjunction with public, medical, military and political perceptions of combat breakdown from the Second World War till the Gulf War so as to determine the relationship between gendered interpretations of the soldier and the changing consideration of war-related trauma.