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Some of our staff working in the area of Australian Studies
 The History of Middlebrow Culture in Australia
Professor David Carter
David Carter is researching the history of 'middlebrow culture' in Australia from the 1920s to the 1960s. Recent American and UK studies have established the field of middlebrow culture - what was perceived as or functioned as 'middlebrow' - as a significant area for research into cultural institutions, modernity, cultural consumption and the relations between 'high' and 'popular' cultures. To date no comparable Australian studies have been published. The study will examine the emergence in Australia of the institutions, values and practices typically identified with middlebrow culture; debates around the concept of the middlebrow; the relation between middlebrow print culture and other cultural forms (e.g. radio); forms of 'middlebrow nationalism'; and the role of middlebrow institutions in the emergence of cultural modernity in Australia. The project has been funded for three years (2004-2006) by a Discovery grant from the Australian Research Council, under the title: 'The Making of the Australian Middlebrow: Nationalism, Modernity and Middlebrow Culture in Australia'.
 Eternal Vigilance: A History of the RSL
Dr Martin Crotty
Martin Crotty is currently working towards a history of the Returned Services League (RSL), established in 1916 and ever since a powerful, loyalist and conservative spokesbody for Australia's returned servicemen and women. The history will be not so much an organisational history, but a history of the RSL's contribution to discourses about Australian citizenship. The project will consider, on the positive side, the RSL and the elevation of the Anzac soldier to a position embodying Australian civic values and, on the negative side, RSL activism against minority groups such "Bolsheviks", "Huns" and all "enemy aliens" in wartime. He has just finished another co-edited book on Turning Points in Australian History (UNSW Press, 2008), a follow up to The Great Mistakes of Australian History (UNSW Press, 2006).
 History of Bushwalking from the Second World War to the Present
Dr Melissa Harper
Melissa Harper has explored the origins and early development of bushwalking as a popular recreational activity. Her research focuses on the challenges faced by bushwalkers as the bush increasingly becomes a contested space. Four-wheel drivers, eco-tourism, modern environmentalism and Indigenous land claims, in different ways, have each forced bushwalkers to rework their own attachments to the land.
Other research interests include Australian cultural history, representations of landscape, attachments to place, recreational use of land, environmental issues, national identity, food and dining out in Australia.
Melissa recently published a book titled, The Ways of the Bushwalker: On foot in Australia, UNSW Press.
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