Humanities programs

The humanities team teaches in the areas of ancient and modern history, English and writing, philosophy, screen and cultural studies, and the modern languages French, Japanese and Chinese. Each year our academic experts curate a suite of degree level courses in the programs below. The BA is available with flexible blended delivery options as well as completely online.

Our Everyday Laboratory

The Bachelor of Arts includes an Everyday Laboratory (EL) model which uses our city and region as a living lab for teaching and learning. It enables students to engage with local sites and organisations, build networks in the community, and add professional skills to your graduate profile. The EL connects BA students across a range of courses to the places and spaces surrounding the University.

Examples include museum and gallery exhibits as places for observation and review, historical walks, engaging  with large events like the Newcastle Writers’ Festival or This Is Not Art, writing for the local press and underground media, editing for publishers, creating websites and content, blogging and vlogging, making podcasts or digital stories, ethnographic experiences, and more. If you would like more information about the everyday laboratory model check out the brochure.

Contact us

For more information about studying humanities programs please contact our program convenors.

Associate Professor Julie McIntyre Associate Professor Julie McIntyre

Associate Professor Julie McIntyre

Associate Professor
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

Program Convenor - Bachelor of Arts

Dr Janet Liang

Dr Janet Liang

Lecturer in Chinese
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

Program Convenor - Diploma in Languages

Humanities people
Mr Benn Banasik

Mr Benn Banasik

Associate Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

Philosophy

Expertise: philosophy of video games; artificial intelligence; gaming as religious experience; new religious movements

Dr Rebecca Beirne Dr Rebecca Beirne

Dr Rebecca Beirne

Senior Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

Screen and Cultural Studies

Expertise: television studies; gender, sexuality and LGBTIQ studies; film studies; media audiences and consumption; race and ethnicity in media cultures; postcolonial studies; documentary film and television; popular culture; media institutions; comics and graphic novels

Dr Kit Candlin Dr Kit Candlin

Dr Kit Candlin

Senior Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

History

Expertise: American History, especially colonial America; European empires; the history of violence and war

Professor Catharine Coleborne

Professor Catharine Coleborne

Professor and College Associate Dean Research and Innovation
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

History

Expertise: Australian history; New Zealand history; colonialism; cultural history; digital history; gender; histories of the family; institutional closures; medical history; mental health service history; mobilities; social history of insanity

Dr Brooke Collins-Gearing

Dr Brooke Collins-Gearing

Senior Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

English and Writing

Expertise: Indigenous literature; postcolonial literature; children's literature; Young Adult Literature

Associate Professor Nancy Cushing Associate Professor Nancy Cushing

Associate Professor Nancy Cushing

Associate Professor
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

History

Expertise: air pollution; Australian cultural history; environmental history; food studies; heritage studies; human/animal relations; Newcastle; urban history

Dr Sacha Davis Dr Sacha Davis

Dr Sacha Davis

Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

History

Expertise: Germany; Habsburg; Hungary; Roma; Romania; Saxon; Transylvania; Transylvanianism; Zigeuner; diaspora; eugenics; fascism; landscape; migration; minority; nationalism; transnationalism; travel writing; travelogue; wine

Mr Tom Doe

Mr Tom Doe

Associate Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

Languages - Auslan Studies

Expertise: Australian Sign Language studies

Dr Hamish Ford

Dr Hamish Ford

Senior Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

Screen and Cultural Studies

Expertise: film theory and history; post-war European cinema, cinema and philosophy; post-colonial studies; contemporary world cinema; film modernism; documentary cinema; race and ethnicity in media cultures; politics and media culture

Associate Professor Keri Glastonbury Associate Professor Keri Glastonbury

Associate Professor Keri Glastonbury

Associate Professor
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

English and Writing

Expertise: contemporary Australian poetry; nonfiction; creative writing.

Professor Jesper Gulddal Professor Jesper Gulddal

Professor Jesper Gulddal

Professor
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

English and Writing

Expertise: global crime fiction; mobility studies; World Literature; comparative literature; history and theory of the novel; 18th and 19th century literature; literary theory

Professor Victoria Haskins

Professor Victoria Haskins

Professor
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

History

Expertise: Aboriginal history; Australian history; colonialism; cross-cultural history; dance history; domestic labour; domestic service; gender history; Indigenous history (US, Asia); museum studies; women's history

Dr Effie Karageorgos

Dr Effie Karageorgos

Senior Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

History

Expertise: war history; history of psychiatry and mental illness; history of gender; history of race; South African history; Vietnamese history

Dr Umit Kurt

Dr Umit Kurt

Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

History

Expertise: early Turkish Republic; modern Middle East; Armenian history; collective and political violence; comparative genocides; nationalism; intercommunal and interethnic strife; Armenian genocide; social and economic history of the late Ottoman Empire; race and ethnicity

Dr Alexandra Lewis

Dr Alexandra Lewis

Senior Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

English and Writing

Expertise: Australian literature; creative writing; fiction; fin-de-siècle literature; history of medicine, psychology and the emotions; life writing; literature and science 1800 to present; memory studies; Neo-Victorian fiction; short fiction; the Brontes and George Eliot; trauma narratives circa 19th century to present; travel writing; twentieth-century women’s writing; Victorian literature and culture

Dr Janet Liang

Dr Janet Liang

Lecturer in Chinese
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

Languages - Chinese Studies

Expertise: Chinese language studies

Dr Ash McIntyre

Dr Ash McIntyre

Student Advocate
Student Central

English and Writing

Expertise: storytelling in environmental crisis; storytelling's impact on personal and communal change; visual representation of literature research

Associate Professor Julie McIntyre Associate Professor Julie McIntyre

Associate Professor Julie McIntyre

Associate Professor
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

History

Expertise: agriculture; Australia's Atlantic; Australian and international wine studies; environmental history; global Newcastle; histories of science; knowledge mobilities; theories of civilising processes; tourism; trans-imperial migration

Dr David Musgrave

Dr David Musgrave

Senior Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

English and Writing

Expertise: contemporary Australian poetry and novel; the satire; creative writing

Associate Professor Trisha Pender Associate Professor Trisha Pender

Associate Professor Trisha Pender

Associate Professor
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

English and Writing

Expertise: early modern women's literature; Jane Austen; literature and film; popular culture; contemporary women's literature

Mrs Sophie Rankin

Mrs Sophie Rankin

Associate Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

Languages - French Studies

Expertise: French language, foreign language acquisition.

Associate Professor Elizabeth Roberts-Pedersen

Associate Professor Elizabeth Roberts-Pedersen

Associate Professor
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

History

Expertise: gender and war; history of psychiatry; war memorialisation; World War II

Associate Professor Alistair Rolls

Associate Professor Alistair Rolls

Associate Professor
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

Languages - French Studies

Expertise: Boris Vian; existentialism; fetishism; twentieth and twenty-first century literature

Dr Michael Sala Dr Michael Sala

Dr Michael Sala

Senior Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

English and Writing

Expertise: creative writing; contemporary fiction; memoir

Ms Claudia Speight

Ms Claudia Speight

Associate Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

Languages - German Studies

Expertise: German language studies

Dr Connie Skibinski

Dr Connie Skibinski

Associate Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

Ancient History

Expertise: Greek mythology; ancient Mediterranean literature; ancient folklore and fairytale

Languages - Japanese Studies

Expertise: intellectual history in the Meiji period; Japanese-English translation

Dr Timothy Stanley Dr Timothy Stanley

Dr Timothy Stanley

Senior Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

Philosophy

Expertise: deliberative democracy; ethical technology; extended mind theory (EMT); hermeneutics; metaphysics; methodology in the study of religion; political and social theory; print/codex information technology; scientific studies of religion; secularization theory; situated religious cognition; tolerance and antibigotry studies

Dr Ryan Strickler

Dr Ryan Strickler

Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

Ancient History

Expertise: religion and identity in the Greco-Roman world; responses to crisis in the Greco-Roman World; late antiquity; religion and authority in the later Roman Empire

Dr Marie-Laure Vuaille-Barcan

Dr Marie-Laure Vuaille-Barcan

Senior Lecturer
School of Humanities, Creative Ind and Social Sci

Languages - French Studies

Expertise: foreign language acquisition; French culture, language and literature; literary analysis; literary translation theories and practices