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Journal of Australian Studies

@jas-jozstudies.bsky.social

Scholarship and reviews on Australian culture, society, politics, history, and literature. Published on behalf of the International Australian Studies Association (InASA). https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/rjau20

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Journal of Australian Studies @jas-jozstudies.bsky.social · last wk.

Congratulations to the John Barrett Prize winners - catch up on this award-winning scholarship here! Open winners: Emily Yu Zong & Daisy Bisenieks explore how Australian dark humour uses parody, absurdity and laughter to respond to the eco-social phenomenon of invasive species. tinyurl.com/mc4bwyn

Screenshot of journal article. Title: Dark Humour and Invasive Species Storytelling in the Age of Extinction. Authors: Emily Yu Zong and Daisy Bisenieks (Hong Kong Baptist University). Abstract: This essay explores how humour, specifically dark humour, performs an affective politics of opacity in Australian comedies that invokes parody, absurdity and laughter to address the eco-social challenges of invasive species, including rabbits, brumbies, cane toads and red fire ants. The incongruity between jocular feelings and the gravity of extinction highlights humour’s ambivalent potential for violence and subversion. Through an analysis of cartoons and documentaries that bridge conservation science and the Australian cultural imagination, we identify three dimensions of environmental dark humour: (1) it questions human exceptionalism by foregrounding ambiguity, nonhuman agency and assemblage thinking beyond rational control; (2) it performs a cultural diagnosis of colonial legacies, including eco-nationalism and anti-immigration rhetoric, hegemonic White masculinity, and regional and cultural stereotypes; (3) it allows a cathartic release of affective dissent and taboo feelings by subverting culturally normative emotional attachments to invasive animals and mainstream environmentalism. By considering humour as a crucial technique for survival and ambiguity, we argue for its potential to inspire self-reflective, multispecies and decolonial modes of storytelling that can ethically account for human and nonhuman otherness in the age of extinction.

International Australian Studies Association @intlausstudies.bsky.social · last wk.

Congratulations to our 2025 John Barrett Award Winners for best article in JAS! Open winners: Dr Emily Yu Zong & Daisy Bisenieks (HK Baptist University). Postgraduate winner: Phoebe Hayman (La Trobe). And shout out to A/Prof Rebecca Hill (RMIT) for receiving a Highly Commended in the Open Category.

International Australian Studies Association @intlausstudies.bsky.social · 3w ago

And HDR travel bursaries also available!! More detail here: inasa.org/blog/travel-...

Travel Bursaries for InASA’s 2027 Conference

The Cringing Continent 2027 InASA Conference Tuesday 9—Friday 12 February Flinders University, Adelaide Ahead of InaASA’s upcoming conference on Kaurna Country, we invite postgraduate student…

inasa.org

International Australian Studies Association@intlausstudies.bsky.social · 3w ago

*CFP deadline extended* Abstracts for InASA's 2027 conference "The Cringing Continent" now due 14 September....

International Australian Studies Association @intlausstudies.bsky.social · 3w ago

*CFP deadline extended* Abstracts for InASA's 2027 conference "The Cringing Continent" now due 14 September....

International Australian Studies Association@intlausstudies.bsky.social · 2mo ago

*Call for papers!* The 2027 InASA conference, "The Cringing Continent", will be held at Flinders University from 9-12 February. See you all in Adelaide! More info here: inasa.org/blog/call-fo...

Journal of Australian Studies @jas-jozstudies.bsky.social · last mo.

🚨New issue of JAS out now🚨 50.3 features our cutest cover yet - Horrie the Wog Dog (actually a sad tale but let's not spoil the moment). We begin our 50.3 thread with the co-editors taking on AI. Stay tuned for your daily doses of 50.3! #OzStudies tinyurl.com/zsdjmzft

Blue cover of the Journal of Australian Studies Volume 50, Number 1, September 2026. Features a black and white photograph of a small terrier-like dog wearing a little vest and standing on an ammo crate in front of three tents in the north African desert.

Jon Piccini @jonpiccini.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Check out our 18+ cover, JAS pushing the boundaries!

Journal of Australian Studies@jas-jozstudies.bsky.social · 4mo ago

50.2 of JAS is out but the cover is too saucy for Bluesky. The cover image is taken from Max Dupain’s Cronulla nudes series. You can see it on our website: www.tandfonline.com/toc/rjau20/c... #OzStudies #OzPhotography #Dupain

Australian Migration History Network @amigrationhn.bsky.social · 3mo ago

New article by @drjessc.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Desert Wogs and Dirty Dagoes: The Role of World War II Australian Soldiers in Shaping Racial Language in Australia

In post–World War II Australia, wog came to be a slur used against predominantly Southern European migrants, such as Italians and Greeks. However, prior to the war, it was used more benignly to ref...

tandfonline.com

Ana Stevenson @dranastevenson.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Very pleased to see my book review in the latest edition of @jas-jozstudies.bsky.social! ✍️ Anthea Taylor's excellent Germaine Greer, Celebrity Feminism and the Archive makes abundant use of the Germaine Greer Archive, with a particular focus on curatorial labour and audience letter writing 💌

Journal of Australian Studies@jas-jozstudies.bsky.social · 3mo ago

@dranastevenson.bsky.social reviews Anthea Taylor's Germaine Greer, Celebrity Feminism and the Archive www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

James Donaldson @cairojim.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Pleased to have this out and open access with @jas-jozstudies.bsky.social my great grandfather, Major RJ Donaldson DSO, was one of the Aussie engineers at Brightlingsea so this had a special connection for me

Journal of Australian Studies@jas-jozstudies.bsky.social · 3mo ago

In our final article for 50.2, @paulkiem.bsky.social and @cairojim.bsky.social examine the at times whimsical evidence for Australian sappers encountering Roman antiquities at Brightlingsea, Essex during World War I. #OzStudies #OzHist #antiquities #OpenAccess tinyurl.com/ycx6pfvk

Screenshot of journal article. Title: The Centurion and the Sapper: Did Australian Soldiers Souvenir Roman Artefacts While Training at Brightlingsea During World War I? Authors: Paul Kiem (Independent scholar) and James Donaldson (UQ). Abstract: As a result of exposure to a classical education or to the histories permeating the popular culture of the British Empire, many Australian soldiers who went overseas during World War I were receptive to encounters with the past. There are examples of soldiers practising amateur archaeology and souveniring artefacts. The officially sanctioned excavation and appropriation of the Shellal Mosaic is the most well known, but there were many small-scale instances of similar activity. This article assesses the evidence for Australian encounters with Roman antiquities at Brightlingsea, Essex. Notwithstanding the limitations of this evidence and the scope for further research, we argue that the likelihood is that Australians did unearth and souvenir Roman artefacts at Brightlingsea. Like similar incidents from other theatres of the war, many of which were also poorly documented, it helps to illustrate the way in which engagement with the material culture of the past was a significant aspect of Australians’ wartime experience.

Journal of Australian Studies @jas-jozstudies.bsky.social · 3mo ago

We interrupt your (ir)regularly scheduled programming of JAS 50.2 notices to announce that the #CFP for @intlausstudies.bsky.social conference is out now! Join us at Flinders on 9-12 Feb 2027 to discuss "The Cringing Continent"! Abstracts due: 17 August 2026 For more details: tinyurl.com/4hnn6k8v

Call for Papers: ‘The Cringing Continent’, InASA Conference for 2027

The Cringing Continent 2027 InASA Conference Tuesday 9—Friday 12 February Flinders University, Adelaide In February 2027, we invite you to join us on Kaurna Country to reconsider one of the foundat…

tinyurl.com

Journal of Australian Studies @jas-jozstudies.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Journal of Australian Studies @jas-jozstudies.bsky.social · 4mo ago

🚨New issue alert🚨 JAS 50.2 is now available. Featuring a Max Dupain photograph on the cover that has been flagged by Bluesky as sexually explicit. 😳 Wait until they read the article in this issue about foreskins… tinyurl.com/4ncnpapk #OzStudies

Journal of Australian Studies @jas-jozstudies.bsky.social · 6mo ago

This CFP is open for one more week! Get your proposals in by Monday 30 March. #CFP #OzStudies

Journal of Australian Studies@jas-jozstudies.bsky.social · 7mo ago

To celebrate our 50th volume, JAS invites you to contribute to a special issue on (the Journal of) Australian Studies at 50. Please see the CFP below for details - and please circulate it far and wide! @intlausstudies.bsky.social #CFP #OzStudies #OzLit #OzHist #auspol #AustralianStudies

50In 2026, the Journal of Australian Studies
publishes its 50th volume. To mark this occasion we propose a special issue for release in late 2026. For this volume, we would like to invite scholars to revisit its back issues - perhaps with nostalgia, perhaps with criticism, but always with the purpose of evaluating what Australian Studies has been, what it currently is, and what it can be.
We seek articles of that can do one or more of the following:
Select a particular article or special issue from the past to speak to from a contemporary perspective
Revisit one of your own articles published in
JAS
to critically revise, update - or perhaps redact past scholarship
Scholarly reflections of editorial experiences with the journal focused on characterising “Australian Studies” at the time
Critical personal reflections
Debates and disputes in Australian studies (on the pages and off of
JAS
)
A critical history of/commentary on
JAS
and its relationship to the field of Australian Studies more broadly
Critical reviews of key themes the journal has covered (or not covered) over its history
Critical reviews of the role of disciplines and disciplinarity within the interdisciplinary formation of Australian Studies
We also welcome other proposals and suggestions. Please note that we are open to a wide range of lengths and formats in this context, as appropriate to the form of your contribution, and we invite contributors to specify a nominal word count in their proposal, noting that this cannot exceed 8000 words (inclusive of footnotes).
We invite all contributors to provide a 300-500 word
abstract proposal for their article by 30 March 2026
. This is to allow us to identify and remedy any potential overlaps, and to identify peer reviewers in advance.
Outcomes and feedback on abstracts will be provided by 3 April
at the latest. Please submit your abstracts to:
journalofaustralianstudies@gmail.com
with the subject line:
Attn: JAS at 50 Special Issue.

Journal of Australian Studies @jas-jozstudies.bsky.social · 7mo ago

It's Monday morning and you're writing your to do list for the week. Why not add "write abstract for JAS 50.4 special issue" on that list? #OzStudies #CFP #OzHist #OzLit #humanities

Journal of Australian Studies@jas-jozstudies.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Journal of Australian Studies @jas-jozstudies.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Initial manuscripts are due in ScholarOne by 17 July 2026
; however, we welcome early submissions.
All manuscripts will be peer reviewed. In the spirit of collaboration, we ask that contributors to the special issue also assist with peer reviewing other contributions. After revisions based on the peer review are made, manuscripts will undergo an editorial review, after which they may be returned for further revisions. After this round of editorial revisions, the manuscripts will then be forwarded to our copyeditor by no later than 28 August. Final manuscripts (including peer review, revision, copyediting, and revisions after copyediting) are due by 9 October 2026.
If you have any questions, please email the Editors:
jess.carniel@unisq.edu.au
and
chris.hay@flinders.edu.au
Production timeline at a glance
Abstracts:
30 March 2026
Notification of acceptance:
3 April 2026
Initial manuscript submission:
17 July 2026
Peer review and revision process completed by:
28 August 2026
Final manuscripts (including peer review and copyediting)
: 9 October 2026
Publication:
December 2026

Journal of Australian Studies @jas-jozstudies.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Last but not least, a thread of the book reviews published in 49.4. If you have a book you would like us to review, please contact out reviews editors @jonpiccini.bsky.social and Nycole Prowse.

Journal of Australian Studies @jas-jozstudies.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Introducing the papers in 49.4: Hill examines the more-than human elements of Behrouz #Boochani's prison writing as an important part of his "practices of freedom". #OzStudies #immigration #ManusIsland #OpenAccess tinyurl.com/2s3k5dke

Screenshot of a journal article. Title: “Spirits of Resistance”: A Politics of Feeling in Behrouz Boochani’s Prison Writing. Author: Rebecca Hill, RMIT. Abstract: This article engages with Behrouz Boochani’s prison writing, especially his autobiographical novel No Friend but the Mountains and his poetic manifesto, “A Letter from Manus Island”. Boochani wrote these works while he was incarcerated in Australian immigration detention on Manus, a tropical island in an archipelago in the far north of Papua New Guinea. His writing is widely acclaimed for its meticulous description and analysis of the ongoing atrocities of the Australian immigration detention regime. I argue that his work should also be read as a sustained thinking of collective practices of freedom. The practices of freedom that Boochani articulates emerge in the generation of “profound relations” of feeling between the people, animals, plants, oceans and winds of Manus. These relations of feeling resist the system of control, coercion and violence that undergird Manus Prison. For Boochani, the system of control at the prison is a microcosm of what he calls Manus Prison Theory. His thinking of freedom is a thinking with the feelings and forces of Manus, and his writing is traced with the places that he wrote in.

Journal of Australian Studies @jas-jozstudies.bsky.social · 10mo ago

🚨JAS 49.4 now available 🚨 JAS editors: "the intellectual mission of #Meanjin lives on beyond its pages, and we commit JAS to similarly challenging and extending the nation’s mental life." Thank you to @beneltham.bsky.social for permission to use the cover image. tinyurl.com/yphjfn38 #OzStudies

Melbourne poet Pi.O performs in front of the Melbourne offices of Meanjin during the Save Meanjin protest, 11 September 2025. Behind him, a man in jeans holds up a sign that covers his face. The sign reads, "Purely on financial grounds".

Zora Simic @zorasimic.bsky.social · 12mo ago

School of Humanities & Languages #unsw is hiring TWO postdoctoral fellows in history! 2 years fixed term, open to different specialisations. Deadline is Nov 2 external-careers.jobs.unsw.edu.au/cw/en/job/53...

Postdoctoral Fellow in History

Undertake independent research and contribute to UNSW’s vibrant History program as a Post-Doctoral Fellow in any area of historical study.

external-careers.jobs.unsw.edu.au

Journal of Australian Studies @jas-jozstudies.bsky.social · last yr.

Last but not least, a thread of the book reviews published in 49.3. Remember, if you would like your book reviewed, please contact our reviews editor @jonpiccini.bsky.social. 🧵 1/5

Journal of Australian Studies @jas-jozstudies.bsky.social · last yr.

And in the final paper of the deserts special section for 49.3, guest editor Reger explores Australian deserts as a setting for Australian science fiction. #SciFi #deserts #OzStudies #AusLit #ecocriticism tinyurl.com/3yb5u3pv

Screenshot of journal article. Title: Desert Depictions in Australian Science Fiction. Author: Gary Reger (Trinity College, US). Abstract: The great interior deserts of Australia provide the setting for two important genres of Australian literature: exploration narratives and science fiction (SF). Both borrow heavily from, but also revise and challenge, the tropes about deserts European settler colonists brought with them. More recent Indigenous SF, however, has pushed back against these settler-colonist tropes, and thus introduced new approaches to the rich field of Australian SF.

Journal of Australian Studies @jas-jozstudies.bsky.social · last yr.

In the second article in the Australian desert special, @ruthamorgan.bsky.social examines Australia's response to the UNESCO agenda on research in "arid zones". #deserts #CSIRO #UNESCO #science #OpenAccess #OzStudies #OzHist tinyurl.com/m4wcn734

Screenshot of journal article. Title: Entering the Arid Zone: Australian Development Diplomacy and UNESCO, 1945–1960. Author: Ruth A. Morgan (Australian National University). Abstract: This article examines the response of Australian governments to UNESCO’s agenda of conducting scientific research in “arid zones” to explore the role of the nation in the liberal internationalism of the postwar world order. UNESCO’s first director-general, Julian Huxley, and its first head of the Natural Sciences Section, Joseph Needham, both positioned science as critical to an internationalist agenda. Australian botanist Bertram Thomas Dickson and his contemporaries shared this belief in the necessary role of science in postwar reconstruction and the betterment of humanity. However, as Dickson’s hitherto unexamined correspondence with Canberra and UNESCO shows, national interests still mattered, as did empire, to the movement of scientific ideas during the first decades after the war. The interwar rise of applied science and its contributions to rural Australia, as historical geographer J. M. Powell argues, had “won” scientists like Dickson and the CSIR official support, which sustained their importance to postwar reconstruction and development efforts. Australia’s contribution to the UNESCO initiative therefore followed Canberra’s assessment of the strategic value of the organisation to its regional ambitions and development diplomacy.

Journal of Australian Studies @jas-jozstudies.bsky.social · last yr.

In 49.3's desert special section, Morton explores the various meanings that have been inscribed across the desert by settler Australians, then changed by a new appreciation of Aboriginal art. #OzStudies #OpenAccess #desert #Australia #AboriginalArt tinyurl.com/388x8xcn

Screenshot of journal article. Title: The Symbolic Australian Desert. Author: Steve Morton. Abstract: Arid Australia is lightly peopled, and so in past eras its representation in art and literature has often been based on fleeting visits. The paucity of personally lived experience has encouraged commentators to use it as a blank canvas for a contradictory range of imputed meanings, from emptiness to plenitude. The country is occasionally benign yet is mostly hot and dry: the resulting attitude of deficit is exemplified by Sidney Nolan’s “Desert and Drought” paintings of the 1950s. Yet a subsequent explosion of Aboriginal art, and of written accounts revealing the appetite of Aboriginal people for connection with Country, has helped swing the pendulum towards mystique, and settler Australians have begun to interpret the deserts sympathetically. Even so, settler Australians struggle to see this tough country as habitable. Western ideals have run up against a landscape unusually inimical to industrial and agricultural purposes, such that now the inland may best be interpreted as a symbol of the limits to human endeavour.

Journal of Australian Studies @jas-jozstudies.bsky.social · last yr.

Introducing the special section in 49.3 on "Humanities in the Australian Desert" guest edited by Andrea Gaynor and Gary Reger. #OzDeserts #deserts #OzStudies #OpenAccess #humanities tinyurl.com/8t52xxz9

Screenshot of journal article. Title: The Humanities in the Australian Desert: An Introduction to a Special Section of the Journal of Australian Studies. Authors: Andrea Gaynor (University of Western Australia) and Gary Reger (Trinity College, USA)

Journal of Australian Studies @jas-jozstudies.bsky.social · last yr.

In the last of our general articles in 49.3, MacNeill et al draw upon a survey of 702 artists and arts workers to explore the impact of gender on their economic status as artists. #OzArts #OzStudies #VisualArts #GenderGap #OpenAccess #CreativeIndustries tinyurl.com/23c7sp37

Screenshot of journal article. Title: The Impact of Gender on Incomes in the Visual Arts in Australia. Authors: Kate MacNeill, Jenny Lye, Edwina Bartlem (University of Melbourne), Grace McQuilten, Chloe Powell, Marnie Badham (RMIT). Abstract: The gendered discrepancy in income across the visual and craft arts is widely recognised. Female artists on average receive less for their sales of art than do male artists, and at auction in the resale market, work by female artists on average sells for less than that of male artists. These outcomes are compounded by lower earnings from waged employment in the visual arts and craft sector. This article draws on the results from a 2022 survey of the incomes and working conditions of 702 visual and craft artists and arts workers in Australia to explore how gender impacts the economic status of artists. The authors analyse the survey findings in conjunction with art-market outcomes for visual artists in Australia to assess the key moments in artists’ careers where their career progression is impacted by gender and how policymakers might respond to these challenges.

Journal of Australian Studies @jas-jozstudies.bsky.social · last yr.

49.3 cont'd... Beattie examines the popularity and scepticism surrounding quacks visiting New England in the late 19th century revealing a familiar tension between profit and information in the media. #OpenAccess #quackery #OzHist #OzStudies tinyurl.com/yda83dhp

Screenshot of journal article. Title: The Golden Chariot: Quacks, Quackery and New England Newspapers, 1889–1893. Author: Belinda Beattie, University of New England. Abstract: Quack advertising was widespread in pre-Federation newspapers including those in rural New England (northern New South Wales). Between 1891 and 1892, Madame and Dr Paul Duflot and their Golden Chariot visited the New England area and attracted large crowds. At the same time, the practice of medical science was striving to establish its credibility and set itself apart from alternative health providers. They did this by pejoratively labelling alternative medicine providers as “quacks”. This article contributes to the New England media-history and news-framing literature on quack reporting. It draws on the framing theories of Robert Entman and Paul D’Angelo, alongside Zygmunt Bauman’s concepts of the “stranger” and “strangerhood”. The analysis reveals a striking hypocrisy among local newspapers: while they prominently advertised the quacks and their cures—including the Duflots’ public appearances and private consultations—they simultaneously ran anti-quack news stories. Notably, the popularity of the Duflots suggests that New Englanders were not entirely won over by medical science. Instead, they prioritised personal autonomy, human agency and control over their healthcare decisions.

Journal of Australian Studies @jas-jozstudies.bsky.social · last yr.

Number 3 in 49.3 - in a time of international student debates, Song and Spencer take us back to the first Korean international student in the 1920s, illustrating the importance of student mobility for people-to-people #diplomacy. #InternationalStudents #Korea #OpenAccess tinyurl.com/3je6ty9v

Screenshot of journal article. Title: From Colonial Korea to White Australia: Hoyul Kim, Australia’sFirst Korean International Student, 1921–1925. Authors: Jay Song, ANU, and Louise Spencer, University of Melbourne. Abstract: This article uncovers the life of Hoyul Kim, the first Korean international student who lived in Australia from 1921 to 1925. It sheds light on the role of the Presbyterian Church in both colonial Korean and White Australian contexts. The article draws on archival research from the National Archives of Australia, the Presbyterian Church of Victoria, the Scotch College in Melbourne and the University of Melbourne to document Kim’s activities in Australia. The bilingual team uses both Korean- and English-language materials on Kim. We argue that, in spite of the colonial and racially motivated state barriers to international student mobility in the 1920s, Kim managed to travel to Australia and gain an overseas education. Kim’s story contributes to a little-known history of Korea–Australia relations that runs much deeper than formal state relations. Kim’s story illustrates that bilateral relations are shaped by people-to-people encounters that encompass shared values of religion and education via transnational migration.

International Australian Studies Association @intlausstudies.bsky.social · last yr.

Congratulations to the 2026 Visiting Professor of Australian Studies at Seoul National University, Dr. Constantinos Yiallourides! More info on Dr Yiallourides' appointment to this prestigious position here: inasa.org/blog/announc...

Announcing the 2026 Visiting Professor of Australian Studies at Seoul National University

Dr. Constantinos Yiallourides has been appointed the 2026 Visiting Professor of Australian Studies at Seoul National University’s Graduate School of International Studies. Constantinos is an intern…

inasa.org

Journal of Australian Studies @jas-jozstudies.bsky.social · last yr.

Next up in 49.3, O'Brien examines patterns of environmental protest in Sydney over a decade, finding key differences in inner and outer urban/metro areas. #environment #protest #GlobalCity #urban #Sydney #ProtestEventAnalysis #OzStudies tinyurl.com/7537amzs

Screenshot of journal article. Title: A Study of Patterns of Environmental Protest in Sydney, Australia. Author: Thomas O'Brien, University of York. Abstract: As a global city and commercial capital of Australia, Sydney occupies an important place in the national imagination. Attention is naturally drawn to the city, making it a valuable target for those seeking to present claims and challenge those in power. This article draws on a unique protest-event catalogue to examine patterns of environmental activism in Sydney over the 1997–2018 period. The article draws out the key issues, actors and actions, and shows how these have changed over time across the Sydney metropolitan region. The findings suggest that the affordances of the urban environment play an important role in shaping the patterns of protest. A central division is between actions in the City of Sydney and those in surrounding local government areas. The greater availability of targets in the City of Sydney facilitates larger-scale actions, whereas those in the wider metropolitan region are more closely tied to sites impacted by perceived threats.

Journal of Australian Studies @jas-jozstudies.bsky.social · last yr.

Let the 49.3 games begin! First up, @kristindemetrious.bsky.social and Lowe examines the historical influence of US public relations on Australian practice and its ongoing legacies in Australian political communication. #AusUSrelations #OpenAccess #auspol #PublicRelations tinyurl.com/3tjps2b2