There is much to celebrate with our colleagues and former colleagues in the wake of the Australian Historical Association conference last week where the School of History did exceptionally well in the annual prizes and awards.
Congratulations x 2 to Emily Gallagher for winning the prestigious W. K. Hancock Prize for her book Playtime. The Hancock recognises and encourages an Australian scholar who has recently published a first scholarly book in any field of history. Playtime was also highly commended in the non-fiction category of the ACT Literary Awards.
Congratulations to James Watson for winning the Serle Award, which is given to the best postgraduate thesis in Australian history. This is another coveted prize, and a fitting recognition for the quality of James’ thesis “Fibro Modernity: A Social History of Asbestos in Australia, 1878-2024”. Next month the thesis book will appear as Asbestos Nation: The Story of the Most Dangerous Dust in Australia through Monash University Press (and thus making it eligible for the next W. K. Hancock Prize!)
Congratulations to Ben Silverstein and his co-author J. A. Edgar, who were awarded the Marian Quartly Prize for their article in History Australia: “We are all connected to each other: deep history and relationship in Yawuru Country”. https://doi.org/10.1080/14490854.2025.2452383It’s a wonderful article that grounds deep history in contemporary practice and conversation (and also includes a couple of amazing maps). The research was supported by two projects in the School: Ann’s Laureate Program ‘Rediscovering the Deep Human Past’ and the ‘Beyond Reconciliation: Truth-Telling for Indigenous Wellbeing and the Health of the Nation’, ANU Indigenous Health and Wellbeing Grand Challenge, led by Laurie and ACIH. This is Ben’s second time winning this award; he first received it in 2018 – the year after Laura Rademaker!
Thrice congratulations to Zoe Smith, who won the Ann Curthoys Award for the best unpublished essay by an Early Career Researcher; was highly commended for the Marian Quartly Prize; and has been awarded a grant from the Francis Forbes Society for Australian Legal History to facilitate archival research on the history of coercive control in Queensland.
And last but not least, double congratulations to Josh Black who has been appointed to a lectureship at the Centre of Public Ideas at the University of Canberra as well as being highly commended for the Mary Bennett Prize which is awarded every two years by the Australian Women’s History Network to an early career historian for the best article or chapter in any field of women’s, gender or feminist history for his article ‘From “literary air hostesses” to “top bananas”: the professional identify of the woman publisher in Australia’ in Women’s History Review. https://doi.org/10.1080/09612025.2025.2515792
This is a truly impressive and inspiring haul of accolades! Congratulations to everyone involved.