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Draft:Australian Historical Association

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  • Comment: Primary sources do not establish notability per WP:ORG. DoubleGrazing (talk) 06:44, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

The Australian Historical Association (AHA) is a voluntary professional organisation representing historians working in and on Australia. It was founded in Perth, Australia in 1973.[1] It is the peak body for professional scholars of history, and has over 900 members including academics, teachers, students, archivists, curators, and authors.[2] In 2022, the Association became a registered charity.[3]

The main objects of the Association are to promote the creation, publication, dissemination, and discussion of historical research; to educate the public about the historical scholarship produced by its members; to express opinions on such issues of public policy as concern historical study; and to organise general and local meetings, symposia, and conferences.[4] The Association is managed by an Executive Committee, which currently comprises seventeen members, including: Michelle Arrow (President), Kate Fullagar (Vice President), Richard Scully (Secretary) and Peter Hobbins (Treasurer).

The Association publishes the quarterly academic journal History Australia, one of the leading publications in historical studies in Australia. History Australia commenced publication in 2004 under the editorship of Marian Quartly and has been published with the international publisher Taylor & Francis since 2016.[5]

History

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Before the founding of the AHA, Australia’s academic historians gathered annually under the auspices of the Congress of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science (ANZAAS). From the mid-1960s, with the higher education sector rapidly expanding, historians at these gatherings discussed the prospect of forming their own professional Association. A proposal for an Australasian Historical Association including members of the profession in New Zealand was voted upon and rejected by those attending the ANZAAS Congress in 1967, though a majority of Australian historians supported the proposal.[6]

In principle agreement for an Australian Historical Association was achieved in Sydney in 1972, and the following year a draft Constitution approved by all Australian university history departments bar one. Monash University Professor A. G. L. Shaw was elected as the inaugural president, while University of New South Wales Professor Frank Crowley, one of the leading proponents for the formation of the AHA, was passed over for election to the first Executive Committee.[7]

Activities

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Bulletins, Newsletters, and History Australia

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The AHA started producing Bulletins in 1974 to keep members informed about the latest news, achievements and opportunities in their profession.[8] In 2004, it published the first issue of History Australia, with Monash University Publishing, which was designed to include both news and peer-reviewed research articles.[9] In recent years, the AHA has circulated weekly or fortnightly digital newsletters to members instead of including updates and announcements through the quarterly journal.

AHA Conferences

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The AHA has also convened annual conferences, the first taking place in Melbourne in August 1974. Initially, these were small conferences held on the sidelines of ANZAAS, with which the AHA retained an affiliation until the 1980s. The AHA held its first major annual conference, separate from ANZAAS, in 1982 at the University of New South Wales.[10]

Since then, the AHA has hosted major national conferences. The 1988 conference, whose theme was ‘The Making of Nations’ in recognition of the Australian Bicentenary, was held at The University of Sydney. A major conference in Perth in 1994 saw contributions from international historians Catherine Hall and Raphael Samuel. In 2005, the AHA and UNSW co-hosted the Congress of International Historical Sciences, which was attended by nearly ‘1,400 delegates from 70 countries’.[11] The AHA’s annual conferences have continued to play a key role in the intellectual life of the profession, with the most recent conference at Flinders University in July 2024 canvassing a broad range of discussions on the theme of ‘Home Truths’.

Public Advocacy

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Advocacy has been a core purpose of the AHA since its inception. Presidents of the AHA have played key roles in public debates about government provision for archives and national cultural institutions, adequate funding for universities and their humanities disciplines, and the design of new national curricula for primary and secondary history education.

Examples of the AHA’s role in public debates over the years include:

  • Offering advice about the inclusion of women and marginalised communities in the government-sponsored, twelve-volume bicentenary history project[12]
  • Data collection and advocacy on gender discrimination in the historical profession and university history departments
  • Advocacy on improvements to civics education in Australia in the 1990s and 2000s
  • Information gathering about the growing incidence of casualisation in universities in the 2010s
  • Advocacy concerning the representation of Australian colonial frontier warfare in the nation’s central war museum, the Australian War Memorial.

Awards and Prizes

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A range of prizes has been offered by the Association, independently and in collaboration with other organisations and benefactors, since the late 1980s. These prizes have been intended to recognise new and emerging historians, celebrate the lifetime achievements of senior scholars, and to support the publication and dissemination of the best new literature the profession has to offer.

Postgraduate Student prizes include the Geoffrey Serle Award for best thesis on Australian history; the General History Thesis Prize for non-Australian history; and the Jill Roe prize for best unpublished article.

Early Career prizes include the W. K. Hancock Award for best first scholarly book; the Allan Martin fellowship to undertake Australian history; and the Ann Curthoys prize for best unpublished article in specified fields.

Other prizes for historical research include the Kay Daniels prize for convict history; the Marilyn Lake prize for Australian transnational history; the Marian Quartly annual prize for best article published in History Australia; and the Magarey Medal for biography (shared with the Association for the Study of Australian Literature).

The AHA also awards several bursaries, travel fellowships, and lifetime achievement prizes each year.

Past presidents

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References

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  1. ^ Henrich and Carment, Eureka and David (2023). An Important and Necessary Institution: A History of the Australian Historical Association (first ed.). Canberra: AHA. p. 5. ISBN 9780646878324.
  2. ^ "About the AHA – The Australian Historical Association". Retrieved 2024-09-06.
  3. ^ "ACNC registered charities". ACNC. 2024. Retrieved 2 September 2024.
  4. ^ "AHA Constitution – The Australian Historical Association". Retrieved 2024-09-06.
  5. ^ Taylor & Francis. "History Australia webpage". T&F online. Retrieved 2 September 2024.
  6. ^ Henrich and Carment, Eureka and David (2023). An Important and Necessary Institution: A History of the Australian Historical Association (first ed.). Canberra: AHA. pp. 6–10. ISBN 9780646878324.
  7. ^ Henrich and Carment, Eureka and David (2023). An Important and Necessary Institution: A History of the Australian Historical Association (first ed.). Canberra: AHA. p. 12. ISBN 9780646878324.
  8. ^ "Australian Historical Association bulletin - Catalogue | National Library of Australia". catalogue.nla.gov.au. Retrieved 2024-09-06.
  9. ^ Henrich and Carment, Eureka and David (2023). An Important and Necessary Institution: A History of the Australian Historical Association (first ed.). Canberra: AHA. pp. 55–58. ISBN 9780646878324.
  10. ^ Henrich and Carment, Eureka and David (2023). An Important and Necessary Institution: A History of the Australian Historical Association (first ed.). Canberra: AHA. pp. 28–29. ISBN 9780646878324.
  11. ^ Henrich and Carment, Eureka and David (2023). An Important and Necessary Institution: A History of the Australian Historical Association (first ed.). Canberra: AHA. p. 60. ISBN 9780646878324.
  12. ^ Australians: A Historical Library, twelve volumes (first ed.). Sydney: Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates. 1987. ISBN 9780949288295.
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