Historians scoop national awards
La Trobe history scholars won top awards at the recent Australian Historical Association's 2008 Biennial Conference in Melbourne.
Professor Marilyn Lake, an ARC Professorial Research Fellow, was elected Vice President/President Elect of the Association. Professor Lake's most recent book, Drawing the Global Colour Line, with Henry Reynolds, was published earlier this year to widespread critical acclaim.
Professor Lake said the success of La Trobe historians, including that of emerging and established scholars, was 'testament to the vibrancy of the History Program's research culture and to the strong support offered to post–graduates and post–doctoral fellows.'
'Recent new appointments to History, such as Tracey Banivanua–Mar — whose book, Colonial Violence, was highly commended by the AHA judges and short–listed for two NSW Premier's prizes for history — will ensure that La Trobe maintains its reputation as one of the leading history programs in the country,' said Professor Lake.
Dr Robert Kenny, an ARC Post– Doctoral Fellow, received the W.K. Hancock Prize for the best first book in any field. His winning work was The Lamb Enters the Dreaming: Nathanael Pepper and the Ruptured World (Scribe Publications, 2007), see story, left. Dr Kenny also gained his PhD from La Trobe.
Lecturer, Dr Marina Larsson, won the 2008 Serle Award for the best postgraduate thesis in Australian history. Her winning work was The Burdens of Sacrifice: War Disability in Australian Families 1914 — 1939 awarded in 2006. The PhD thesis will be published as a book, Shattered ANZACS: Living with the Scars of War, by UNSW Press next year.
And leading Asia scholar, former La Trobe Head of Social Sciences, Professor John Fitzgerald — who now heads the Ford Foundation in China — won the Ernest Scott Prize for the best book in Australasian History for Big White Lie: Chinese Australians in White Australia.