A Reflection on Professor Tom Griffiths

A Reflection on Professor Tom Griffiths
Friday 23 November 2018

For over thirty years, Tom Griffiths has been an instrumental in researching Australia's complex cultural and environmental history. Tom has been a mentor to many students and an advocate of history and the humanities in many public spheres.

As we mark the retirement of Professor Tom Griffiths, Jayne Regan, a Research Assistant at School of History, reflects on Tom’s impact on her academic life.

“Between 2013 and 2017 I had the pleasure and privilege of working on my doctoral thesis under the supervision of Professor Tom Griffiths. Tom was unfailingly enthusiastic about my project from the very beginning. Throughout my PhD candidature I was reassured by his confidence in my abilities as a researcher and writer, and energised and challenged by his gentle guidance and insightful feedback on my work. Tom’s contagious passion for history has shaped my own development as a historian, and I have no doubt that his writing – both old and new – will continue to inspire and influence historians around the world.”

Alexandra Roginski is another Tom’s PhD student who writes:

"I count my years as Tom's PhD student as a great privilege. My unusual project took shape from long discussions about history, writing and literature, a process that Tom guided with wit and wisdom while always allowing space for me to find my own way. Historians make a crucial contribution to contemporary Australian society, Tom reminds us, though few equal his ability to connect across the academy and with the public in equal parts. I have learned much from him about historical method, and about the grace and ferocity we must call upon in equal parts to do our work meaningfully in difficult times."

 

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