Bulletin

Issue: March 2004

News

Professor Altman appointed to Harvard Chair

La Trobe University Professor of Politics, Dennis Altman, has been appointed to the Harvard University Chair of Australian Studies - the third La Trobe academic to occupy the prestigious post since 1999.

A specialist in the fields of politics, culture and society, Professor Altman is also a well-known author and public commentator and serves as President, AIDS Society of Asia and the Pacific.

He will take up the Harvard post in January 2005.

Professor Altman is the author of nine books including Global Sex, (2001); Defying Gravity, (1997); Power and Community: Organizational and Cultural Responses to AIDS, (1994); and Paper Ambassadors, (1990). Defying Gravity, and another of his earlier books, Rehearsals for Change, are about to be republished.

While his main teaching and research focus is largely on Australia and the United States, he also specialises in globalisation and development in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as on community and global responses to HIV/AIDS and sexuality and sexual regulation in general.

Previous La Trobe University incum-bents of the Harvard Chair were historian, Professor Marilyn Lake, in 2001, and social theorist, Professor Peter Beilharz, in 1999.

The Harvard Chair was established in 1976 by a grant from the Australian government in recognition of the American Bicentenary and to further American understanding of Australia.

It has been held by high-profile figures such as former Labor Prime Minister, Mr Gough Whitlam, historians Professors Manning Clark and Geoffrey Blainey and former National Gallery of Victoria Director, Dr Patrick McCaughey.

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