History, English, Languages and Screens research

Sometimes the questions we ask are beyond the expertise of any one scholar. Through collaborative research projects, the History, English, Languages and Screens group draws upon multiple disciplines in order to open new horizons in humanities research. Our scholars collaborate in a dynamic, innovative team offering a unique blend of critical and creative approaches to their topics.

Research centres and networks

Centre for Literary and Linguistic Computing

The Centre for Literary and Linguistic Computing was established to continue the development and application of statistical and computing tools for the analysis of (literary) texts.

Centre for the Study of Violence

The Centre for the Study of Violence is a world-first collaboration that applies new historical knowledge to advance humanity's understanding of violence. Members of the Centre explore every aspect of the history of violence, including concepts of violence, representations of violence, questions of interpersonal violence and issues of political and cultural violence.

Centre for Early Modern Studies

The Centre for Early Modern Studies brings together a new group of scholars specialising in research on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with a concentration of expertise in the literature of Renaissance England, France and North America.

Early Modern Women Research Network

The Early Modern Women Research Network is an Australian-based network of scholars which aims to bring the often institutionally-isolated scholars of early modern women's writing into dialogue with others in the field, both within Australia and internationally. EMWRN regularly meets at major conferences, sponsoring panels and symposia, often in conjunction with other early modern networks.

Future of Madness Research Network

The Future of Madness Network aims to present the next generation of scholarship in madness studies and play host to visitors and internationally recognised scholars, whilst becoming a magnet for new postdoctoral and postgraduate research and attracting ARC fellowships and grants in the wider field. A strong focus will be placed around: the histories of mental illness; mental health; institutions; post-institutional care; community psychiatry; colonial, national and global mental health; methodologies and approaches to interdisciplinary scholarship in mental health care; trauma studies; health and wellbeing; and, critical disability studies.

Wine Studies Research Network

Wine studies is a humanities and social science-based field at University of Newcastle. Cross-discipline collaboration in this field includes scholars from history, social science, business and tourism.

Recent Australian Research Council funded projects

  • Professor Jesper Gulddal has been awarded (with Dr Stewart King; Dr Barbara Pezzotti; Dr Carlos Uxo Gonzalez; Professor Jarrod Hayes) $265,773 for their ARC Discovery project World Crime Fiction: Making Sense of a Global Genre. This project aims to generate new knowledge about the worldwide popularity of crime fiction by analysing the genre’s engagement with the major global challenges of our time, from climate change to the crisis of democracy. Using data from scholars and fans across all continents, and employing an innovative comparative methodology, it seeks to produce a new framework for analysing the global practice of crime fiction. Outcomes include a deeper understanding of the capacities of crime fiction to explore the complex relationship between crime, law and justice in various settings. The project will benefit Australia by creating new insights into the unique contribution of Australian, including Indigenous, crime writers to this truly global genre.
  • Dr Effie Karageorgos has been awarded (with Prof. Catharine Coleborne) $234, 359 for their ARC Discovery project Life outside institutions: histories of mental health aftercare 1900 - 1960. This project aims to show that post-institutional care is central to the history of mental health before the era of deinstitutionalisation. It expects to break new ground by examining patterns of discharge from psychiatric institutions from 1900 to 1960, linking these with the development of mental health aftercare services for people leaving hospitals in Australia before these institutions closed. Planned outcomes of this project include a sole-authored monograph and co-edited book, a higher degree research thesis, and public engagement. This should provide significant benefits by connecting processes of institutional discharge to the wider community with later patterns of post-institutional care.
  • Dr. Ryan Strickler has been awarded (with Professor Bronwen Neil; Dr Amelia Brown; Dr Estelle Strazdins) $230,368 for their ARC Discovery project Images of Power in the Roman Empire: Mass Media and the Cult of Emperors. Contemporary leaders understand the power of an image to influence public opinion, but are they following a path well-trodden by Roman emperors? This project aims to illuminate the role that mass media and images played in securing and sustaining imperial power during the Later Roman empire from the Flavians to the Theodosians (69-450 CE). The comparison of coins, statues and monuments will shed new light on the dynamic ways that popular media were used to mediate between emperors, their officials, provincial elites and the wider populace, and show how leaders used mass media in the Roman world. Social and cultural benefits include a better understanding of the ways that leaders today handle such media to influence public opinion.
  • Professor Victoria Haskins has been awarded (with Dr Raymond Kelly; Professor Kate Senior; Professor John Maynard; Professor Richard Chenhall; Dr Frances Edmonds; Professor Kathleen Clapham; and Mr Gionni Di Gravio) $370,408 for their ARC Discovery project Ngukurr to Newcastle: intercultural collaboration and influence. This interdisciplinary project will explore the intercultural contributions of residents from a remote Aboriginal community both on their own community and the broader Australian society. In doing so it aims to challenge dominant deficit-centred view points of remote Aboriginal communities and instead examine these communities as sites for lively intercultural exchanges. It will support community members to collect and document stories about the people who were an are influential and in doing to engage in Indigenous histories from an Indigenous perspective. Collaborative engagement with the community will ensure that these stories are preserved in accessible forms so that they are accessible for future generations and future leaders.
  • Professor Philip Dwyer and Associate Professor Hans-Lukas Kieser (with Professor Joy Damousi; Professor Mark Edele; Associate Professor Frances Clarke; Professor Peter Gatrell; Associate Professor Rebecca Plant; Dr Reto Hofmann) have been awarded $448,000 for their ARC Discovery Project, Aftermaths of War: Violence, Trauma, Displacement, 1815-1950. This project aims to investigate the cultural, social and psychological aftermaths of wars between 1815 to 1950 from a comparative, transnational perspective. By connecting the displacement of people, the brutalization of warfare and the trauma associated with it, this study will offer a broader and more complex understanding of the experience of civilians and combatants in the wake of armed conflicts.
  • Associate Professor Hans-Lukas Kieser has been awarded $158,991 for his ARC Discovery Project, The ‘Peace’ of Lausanne (1923): Genesis, Legacies, Paradoxes. This study aims to revisit the foundation of the modern Middle East by investigating the still valid 1923 Peace Treaty of Lausanne. Through a combined analysis of the Treaty's prehistory, protracted negotiations and paradigmatic impact, it will reassess the Conference's and Treaty's role in Modern History.
  • Dr. Elizabeth Roberts-Pedersen (with Prof Noah Riseman, Dr Tristan Moss, Dr Elizabeth Roberts-Pedersen, Dr Alana Piper) has been awarded $264,435 for their ARC Discovery Project, A Century of Sex and the Australian Military, 1914-2020. This project aims to explore how the Australian military and its members have dealt with sex and sexuality. Through uncovering policy, health and disciplinary files, as well as medical literature, civilian police, newspaper and court records, the project intends to analyse how the Australian military evolved its approach to members’ sexual and intimate relations, and the consequences military life had for individuals’ sexual and romantic partnerships.
  • Dr. Ümit Kurt has been awarded $369,424 funding for his ARC DECRA project Global Patterns of Mass Violence: Ottoman Borderlands in Context, 1890-1920. This project examines the transformative dimensions of mass violence committed against the minorities of the Ottoman Empire – Armenians, Assyrians, Yazidis, and Greeks – and the historical impact and consequences of the Empire’s violent history on the Balkans and the Levant (Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon).

Other networks

We also coordinate with resource organisations that help us enrich the city of Newcastle and Hunter region’s cultural heritage.