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    JCU Blue Humanities Lab

    A multidisciplinary research initiative centred on the ‘blue’ spaces of our world – reefs, oceans, rivers, and inland bodies of waters. The Lab was founded in 2019 with the aim to explore and develop ‘blue’ approaches to research and engagement across a range of disciplines. In doing so, the Lab aims to examine the ways that waters influence our cultures, histories and practices. The Lab comprises members from disciplines including anthropology, history, literary studies, and political science.

    Research Interests:
    • Colonial place-making, cartography, and naming practices
    • Environmental politics, networks and policy 
    • Indigenous aesthetics, film, art and photography
    • Postcolonial literature, print culture, modernism/modernity and the Pacific
    • Shakespeare, ecocriticism, place-based theatre and education
    • The environmental history of northern Australia
    Recent events:

    In 2020, the Lab presented at the ACHRC Humanities in the Regions Conference. View the presentation here.

    Current members include: 
    Dr Claire Brennan Associate Professor Victoria Kuttainen
    Dr Thomas Bristow Dr Maxine Newlands (co-chair)
    Associate Professor Jennifer Deger Dr Bryan Smith
    Dr Claire Hansen (co-chair)
    Contact:

    For information please contact co-chairs Dr Max Newlands and Dr Claire Hansen or any of the members listed above.

    Here I am dancing at my father’s funeral, showing myself as Wurrumba with a shark liver in my mouth. The stars here are the glistening water, the same effect as the light that dapples and shines on the shark’s head from the water. If they need to fight then Galpu people call themselves Wurrumba. They show themselves as an angry shark. Becoming Wurrumba like that lifts you up to be a hero. It pumps you up. It makes you ferocious. Powerful. — Warren Balpatji

    The BP Magazine. Cover. 1 December 1936. Walter Jardine, Australia. Used with permission from the National Library of Australia

    red-haired woman facing the tempestuous water

    Nuove scoperte fatte nel 1765, 67, e 69 nel Mare del Sud, Antonio Zatta. From the collections of the State Library of New South Wales

    man resting on dead crocodile 1949 Australia

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    Striving for Societal Impact: Reflections from the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program

     

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