Professor Bruce Scates
Position: Professor
School and/or Centres: School of History
Email: bruce.scates@anu.edu.au
Phone: (02) 612 54469
Location: Level 5, RSSS Building, 146 Ellery Crescent
Qualification:
BA (hon) first class, Monash University Dip Ed, University of Melbourne Ph D Monash University.
Researcher profile: https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/scates-bx
Bruce Scates (born Sunshine, Victoria, 1957) is a historian, novelist and documentary film producer. Prior to joining the Australian National University, he held the Chair of History and Australian Studies at Monash University and was the Director of the National Centre for Australian Studies. He has held teaching positions at the University of New South Wales, the University of Auckland, Murdoch University and the University of Melbourne.
A Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, Bruce’s many publications include Return to Gallipoli, A New Australia, the Cambridge History of the Shrine of Remembrance and the recently republished Women and the Great War (co authored with Raelene Frances). The last of these won the NSW Premier’s History Award. Professor Scates is the lead author of Anzac Journeys (also published by Cambridge University Press and short listed in the Ernest Scott Prize for 2014) and a contributor to the Cambridge History of the First World War. He has also written a novel, On Dangerous Ground, retracing CEW Bean’s steps across Gallipoli. Described by Tom Kennelly as ‘eloquent and engrossing’, it was listed on Australia’s first national curriculum for literature, set on university courses in Germany, Turkey and Australia, and awarded special commendation in the Christina Stead Awards. Other titles include The One Hundred Stories: A History of the First World War (with Rebecca Wheatley and Laura James) and The Last Battle: A History of Soldier Settlement in Australia (with Melanie Oppenheimer).
Committed to communicating history to the widest possible audience, Bruce has devised a 12 part documentary in collaboration with the National Museum of Australia and co-presents the same with his colleague from Monash University, Dr Susan Carland. He played a major role in the production of the award winning ABC mini series ‘The War that Changed Us’, his work on pilgrimage was featured in an ABC Compass program and his study of frontier violence profiled in the first report of the Council for National Reconciliation. Bruce was a historical consultant to the new interpretive centre at the Australian National Memorial at Villers Bretonneux, advised the National Museum of Australia and the National Anzac Centre on the content of their galleries and served on a host of high-level state and national committees advising government on the history of commemoration and military heritage. This engagement with cultural institutions has proved highly influential: Bruce’s submissions to government agencies led to the mass digitisation of repatriation records, opening up a vast archive to a global community and effecting a sea change in how the Great War will be remembered.
Bruce is a frequent contributor to writers’ festivals, history events and diverse public forums. In 2005, he delivered the Tenth Annual History Lecture at Government House, Sydney, marking the 90th anniversary of the Gallipoli Landing; in 2008 he delivered the Sir Keith Sinclair address at the University of Auckland on Australia’s and New Zealand's shared experience of war; he has also delivered the Alan Martin and Russel Ward lectures on forgotten aspects of Australia’s military past. Many of these addresses have been broadcast and Bruce’s interviews have been podcast by the ABC (Hindsight, Margaret Crosby), the BBC, and the Guardian. In 2015, he delivered both the Menzies Lecture in London and the Annual History Lecture in Sydney. Bruce Scates has been a keynote speaker at several international forums and presented his work at the Sorbonne and UNESCO sponsored forums. An advocate of teaching innovation and public engagement, he led the development of a MOOC (Mass Open Online Courseware) examining the fraught memory of war. https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/ww1-stories and devised a series of digital narratives for public exhibition. He has also presented keynote addresses National conferences of the History Teachers Association of Australia.
War and Commemoration, The Politics of Memory, the History of Anzac Day, Labour history, Environmental History, Gender History, Indigenous history
Books:
Scates, B. and Oppenheimer, M., The Last Battle: Soldier Settlement in Australia, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2016
Frances, R. and Scates, B. (eds), Beyond Gallipoli: New Perspectives on Anzac, Melbourne, Monash University Publishing, 2016
Scates, B., Wheatley, R. and James, L., World War One: A History in 100 Stories, Penguin, Melbourne, 2015
Bongiorno, F., Frances, R. and Scates, B. (eds), Labour and the Great War: the Australian Working Class and the Making of Anzac, Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, Sydney, 2014
Scates, B. et.al. Anzac Journeys: Returning to the Battlefields of World War II, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013
Scates, B. On Dangerous Ground: A Gallipoli Story, University of Western Australia Press, 2012
Scates, B A Place to Remember: A History of the Shrine of Remembrance, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009
Scates, B. Return to Gallipoli: Walking the Battlefields of the Great War, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006
Scates, B. The Ghosts of Gallipoli: Walking the Anzac Battlefields, Sydney, History Council of New South Wales, 2005 (Text of History Council Annual Lecture)
Scates, B (ed.), A Future for the Past: The State of Children’s History, Sydney, History Council of New South Wales, 2004
Scates, B. A New Australia: Citizenship, Radicalism and Labour’s First Republic, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997
Scates, B. and Frances, R., Women and the Great War, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997
Frances, R.and Scates, B., Women at Work from the Gold Rushes to World War Two, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993
Frances, R.and Scates, B.(eds), Women, Work and the Labour Movement in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand, (Special Issue of Labour History) Sydney, Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, 1991
Frances, R. and Scates, B. (eds), The Murdoch Ethos, Murdoch University, 1989
Chapters in Books
Frances, R. and Scates, B., ‘Introduction’, in Frances, R. and Scates, B. (eds), Beyond Gallipoli: New Perspectives on Anzac, Melbourne, Monash University Publishing, 2016
Scates, B. ‘The unquiet grave: exhuming and reburying the dead of Fromelles’, in Keir Reeves, et.al. (eds), Battlefield Events: Landscape, commemoration and heritage, Routledge, London and New York, 2016, pp. 13-27
Scates, B. and Wheatley, Rebecca, ‘War Memorials’, in Jay Winter (ed.), The Cambridge History of the First World War, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013, vol. 3, pp. 528-66
Scates, B. and Wheatley, Rebecca, ‘Bibliographical Essay’, in Jay Winter (ed.), The Cambridge History of the First World War, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013, vol. 3, pp. 688-92
Scates, B.A ‘democratic rendezvous’: the bookshops of radical Sydney, in Radical Sydney Places, Portraits and Unruly Episodes, eds Terry Irving and Rowan Cahill, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2010, pp. 89-96
Scates, B. ‘ Finding the missing of Fromelles: when soldiers return,’ in Anzac Legacies Australians and the Aftermath of War, eds Martin Crottty and Marina Larsson, Australian Scholarly Publishing, North Melbourne, 2010, pp. 212-232
Scates, B. ‘Manufacturing Memory at Gallipoli’:, in Michael Keren and Holger H. Herwig, (eds) War Memory and Popular Culture: Essays on Modes of Remembrance and Commemoration, Jefferson, McFarland, 2009, pp 57-75
Scates, B. ‘Places of the heart: real and imaginary pilgrimages to the cemeteries and battlefields of the Great War’ in Claire Woods and Judith Timoney (eds), Writings of War, Adelaide: Lythrum Press, 2008: 1-35
Oppenheimer, M. & Scates, B.,‘Australians at War’, in Martin Lyons and Penny Russell, (eds) Australia’s History: Themes and Debates, Sydney, UNSW Press, 2005, pp 134-151
Scates, B. ‘The Case of Clarinna Stringer: Strategic Options and the Household Economy in Late Nineteenth Century Australia’, Rebellious Families: From Household Strategies to Collective Action, Oxford, Berghahn, 2002, pp. 58-77
Scates, B. ‘Imagining Anzac: Children’s Responses to the Killing Fields of the Great War’, in James Marten (ed) Children and War: An Anthology, New York, New York University Press, 2002, pp. 50-63
Scates, B. ‘Radical Bookshops’ in Martyn Lyons and John Arnold (eds) A History of the Book in Australia: a National Culture in a Colonial Market, St. Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 2001, pp. 146-149
Scates, B. ‘Andrew Fisher: A Political Testament’, in Marian Simms (ed), 1901, St. Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 2001, pp. 81-95
Scates, B. ‘Unemployment’, in Graeme Davison, John Hirst and Stuart Macintyre (eds) The Oxford Companion to Australian History, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 665-6
Frances, R., Scates, B. and McGrath, A., ‘Broken Silences? Aboriginal Workers and Labour Historians’, in T. Irving (ed.) Challenges to Labour History, Kensington, UNSW Press, 1994
Scates, B., “Knocking Out a Living”: Survival Strategies and Popular Protest in the 1890s Depression’, in S. Margary, S. Sheridan and S. Rowley (eds), Debutante Nation: Feminism Contests the 1890s, Sydney, George Allen and Unwin, 1993, pp. 47-64
Scates B., ‘Gender, Household and Community Politics: the Maritime Strike in Australia and New Zealand’, in J. Hagan and A. Wells (eds), The Maritime Strike: A Centennial Retrospective. Essays in Honour of E.C. Fry, Five Islands Press, Sydney, 1992
Frances, R. and Scates, B., ‘Editorial’, in Frances, R. and Scates, B. (eds), Women, Work and the Labour Movement in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand, Sydney, Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, 1991, pp. vii-x
Scates, B., ‘William Arthur Trenwith: Trade Unionist and Politician’, in K. Ritchie (ed), Australian Dictionary of Biography, Melbourne, MUP, 1990
Frances, R. and Scates, B., ‘Editorial’ in Frances, R. and Scates, B. (eds), The Murdoch Ethos, Murdoch, Murdoch University, 1989, pp. 2-8
Frances, R. and Scates, B., ‘Unmasking the Monument: the Other Side of the Pioneer Myth’, in Frances, R. and Scates, B. (eds) The Murdoch Ethos, Murdoch, Murdoch University, 1989, pp. 221-245
Scates, B. and C. Fox, ‘The Beat of Weary Feet: Right to Work Movements in the 1890s and 1930s’, in V. Burgmann and J. Lee (eds), Staining the Wattle: A People’s History of Australia, Melbourne, McPhee Gribble/Penguin, 1988, pp. 205-220
Articles in Refereed Journals
Williams, D., Scates, B., James, L., Wheatley, R., ‘The Anxious Anzac: suggestions for a Metric Moment in Late Modern Australia’, Materiaux pour l’Histoire de Notre Temps, vol. 113-4, 2014, pp. 142-151
Scates, B., Tiernan, C. and Wheatley, R., ‘The Railway Men: Prisoner Journeys through the traumascapes of World War II’, Journal of War and Culture Studies, vol. 7, no. 3, August 2014, pp. 206-222
Scates, B. and Bongiorno, F., Laura James and Rebecca Wheatley, ‘”Such a great space of water between us”: Anzac Day in Britain, 1916-39’, Australian Historical Studies, vol 45, no. 2, 2014, pp. 220-241
Scates, B. and Oppenheimer, M., ‘”I intend to get justice”: the moral economy of soldier settlement’, Labour History, no 106, May 2014, pp. 229-250
Scates. B. et.al. ‘Anzac Day at Home and Abroad: Towards a History of Australia’s national day’, History Compass, 10, 2012, pp. 523-526
Scates, B.‘[It] ought to be as famous as the Statue of Liberty’: The Forgotten History of Tasmania’s Cenotaph – Australia’s First State War Memorial, Tasmanian Historical Studies, vol 14, 2009, Centre for Tasmanian Historical Studies, Tasmania, Australia, pp. 53-78
Scates, B. ‘’Memorialising Gallipoli: Manufacturing Memory at Anzac, Public History Review, vol 15, 2008
Olssen, E. and Scates, B. ‘Class formation and political change: a Trans-Tasman dialogue’, Labour History, no. 95, 2008, pp. 3-24
Scates, B. ‘The First Casualty in War: A Reply to McKenna and Ward’s ‘Gallipoli Pilgrimage and Sentimental Nationalism’’, Australian Historical Studies, no 130. November 2007, pp. 362-371
Scates, B. ‘Soldiers’ Journeys: Returning to the Battlefields of the Great War’, Journal of the Australian War Memorial, no 40. 2006
Scates, B. ‘Walking With History: Children, Pilgrimage and War’s Restless Memory’, Australian Cultural History, no. 22, 2004, pp. 33-43
Scates, B. ‘The Price of War: Labour Historians Confront Military History’, Labour History, No. 84, May 2003, pp. 133- 43
Scates, B. ‘In Gallipoli’s Shadow: Pilgrimage, Memory, Mourning and the Great War’, Australian Historical Studies, No. 118, April 2002, pp. 1-24
Scates, B. ‘My Brilliant Career and Radicalism’, Australian Literary Studies, Vol. 20, no. 4, October 2002, pp. 370-379
Scates, B. ‘The Forgotten Sock Knitter: Voluntary Work, Emotional Labour, Bereavement and the Great War’, Labour History, 81, November 2001, pp. 29-51
Scates, B. ‘Mobilising Manhood: Gender and the Great Strike of 1890 in Australia and New Zealand’, Gender and History (Cambridge, Mass.), vol. 9, no. 2, August 1997, pp. 285-310
Scates, B. ‘Challenging the Pioneer Myth in Australia’, Australian Studies, (London), no. 11, April 1997, pp. 52-62
Scates, B. ‘“Knowledge is Power”: Radical literary culture and the experience of reading’, Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 21, no. 21, 1999, pp.26-47
Scates, B. ‘“We are not ...[A]boriginal ... we are Australian: William Lane, Racism and the Construction of Aboriginality’, Labour History, no. 72, May 1997, pp. 35-49
Scates, B. ‘Remaking Our History’, Labour History, no. 67, November, 1994
Frances, R. and Scates, B. ‘Is labour history dead?’ Australian Historical Studies, no. 100, April 1993, pp. 470-482
Scates, B., ‘Gender, Household and Community Politics: the 1890 Maritime Strike in Australia and New Zealand’, Labour History, No.61, November 1991, pp.70-87
Scates, B. ‘Socialism and Manhood: a Rejoinder’, Labour History, No. 60, May 1991, pp.121-4
Scates, B. ‘Socialism and Feminism, the Case of William Lane: A Reply to Marilyn Lake’, in Labour History, No.59, November 1990, pp.72-94
Scates, B. ‘A Struggle for Survival: Unemployment and the Unemployed Agitation in Late Nineteenth Century Melbourne’, Australian Historical Studies, No.94, April 1990, pp.41-63
Frances, R. and Scates, B. ‘Honouring the Aboriginal Dead’, Arena, No.86, Autumn 1989, pp.32-51
Scates, B. ‘A Monument to Murder: Celebrating the Conquest of Aboriginal Australia’, Studies in Western Australian History, Vol.10, April 1989, pp.21-31
Scates, B. ‘Millennium or Pandemonium: Radicalism in the Labour Movement, Sydney 1887-1898’, Labour History, No.50, May 1986, pp.72-94. (This was a special commemorative issue of the journal devoted to the ‘new social history’)
Scates, B., ‘“Wobblers”: Single Taxers in the Labour Movement, Melbourne, 1889-1899’, Historical Studies, No.83, October 1984, pp.174-196
Frances, R., M.Roper and Scates, B., ’What Rough Beast? A Review Article’, Journal of Australian Studies, No. 15, November 1984, pp. 72-79
External Research Grants
2010-15 ARC Linkage Grant, First Chief Investigator. A history of Anzac Day at home and abroad. Project partners Department of Veterans’ Affairs, National Museum of Australia, National Archives of Australia, Shrine of Remembrance, Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Historial de la Grande Guerre, King’s College London, Legacy.
2009-13 ARC Discovery Project, First Chief Investigator. A history of Australian pilgrimages to World War II battlefields.
2008-14 ARC Linkage Grant. First Chief Investigator. A social, cultural and environmental history of soldier settlement in NSW, 1916-39. Project partners are the Department of Veterans’ Affairs and State Records NSW.
2003-5 ARC Linkage Grant, First Chief Investigator, to research a history of the 1998 Maritime Dispute. Industry partners: the ACTU and MUA.
2002-5 ARC Discovery Grant, Sole Chief Investigator, to write a history of Commemoration, Pilgrimage and the Great War.
2000 Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Sole Chief Investigator, Seeding Grant to establish a Pilgrimage Web Site and survey visitors to the Cemeteries of the Great War.
2000 Army Research Scheme, Sole Chief Investigator, Seeding Grant to survey nurses involved in the dedication of a National Memorial to Australian Service Nurses, Dept. of Defence.
1999 New South Wales History Fellowship, Sole Chief Investigator, to write a biography of Mary Booth and a history of post war commemoration.
1996-9 Large ARC Grant, First Chief investigator, to write a history of the 1890s depression in Australasia.
1996 Australian War Memorial, John Treloar Grant-in-Aid, Sole Chief Investigator on a study of ‘Remembrance: Loss, Commemoration and the Politics of Anzac’.
1994 Australian War Memorial, John Treloar Grant-in-Aid, for a project on Australian women during the Great War. This was a joint project with Rae Frances.
1993 Committee for the Advancement of University Teaching, teaching development grant to development a new subject on the history of work. This was a collaborative project with Rae Frances.
Teaching Awards:
History Teachers’ Association, Award for Excellent and Sustained Contribution to the Teaching and Learning of History, 2017
NSW Quality Teaching Award, 2003
Australian Award for Outstanding University Teaching, 2002
UNSW Vice Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence, 2002
Other Prizes:
Mevlana Fellowship, 2015 - Awarded by the Government of Turkey
Anzac Journey’s short-listed for Ernest Scott Prize, 2014 - Awarded to the best book on Australian or New Zealand History
Ferguson Prize for Labour History 2015 for - Scates, B. and Oppenheimer, M., ‘”I intend to get justice”: the moral economy of soldier settlement’, Labour History, no 106, May 2014
Special Commendation, Christina Stead Awards, 2012 for - Bruce Scates, On Dangerous Ground, UWA Press, 2012
NSW History Fellowship, 1999 - Awarded by the Premier of NSW
NSW Premiers’ History Prize, 1998 for - Bruce Scates & Raelene Frances, Women and the Great War, CUP, 1997
Special Distinction in English Literature, 1975 - Higher School Certificate Examinations Board, State of Victoria
School Dux, Mornington High School, 1975.
Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Social Sciences
2014-15
Consultant to the Commonwealth Department of Veterans’ Affairs on the content of the Western Front Interpretative Centre, France.
From 2013
Advisor to the West Australian Museum’s Anzac Interpretive Centre, Albany.
From 2011
Chair of the Military and Cultural History Working Group, Anzac Centenary Advisory Board, Commonwealth Department of Veteran’s Affairs.
From 2011
Member of the Advisory Board, Australian National Archives
From 2009
Committee Member of the Research Council, Historial de la Grande Guerre, France
WARS1003 - War and Society (Semester 2 2018)
