Professor Jeremy Taylor, head of the Department of History, is exploring opportunities for collaboration between humanities scholars at the universities of Adelaide and Nottingham.

How can humanities scholars from Nottingham and Adelaide become more involved in the wider Adelaide-Nottingham Alliance? What shared arts and humanities interests are there within the alliance which might lead to joint projects or events? How can humanities research contribute to projects which are taking place elsewhere within the Alliance?

In November 2023, a delegation from Nottingham’s School of Humanities travelled to Adelaide to discuss these very questions. The delegation included two heads of department (myself and Will Bowden, Classics and Archaeology), a Nottingham Research Fellow (Teresa Baron, Philosophy) and a PhD student (Vivien Chan, History). The programme built on discussions sparked by a series of virtual workshops already held between Humanities schools at both universities, which identified common interests and overlapping research themes such as colonial history, contested heritage, health humanities and ethics.

Support from seed fund

The visit was funded with the generous support of the Adelaide-Nottingham Alliance Seed Fund, and made possible thanks to the warm welcome extended by staff and students at UoA’s School of Humanities. It involved various sandpit events, seminar presentations and both formal and informal meetings with peers at Adelaide who are involved with largescale projects, such as the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, and the “Art at a Crossroads” project, lead by Dr Sally May.

The Nottingham group was particularly excited by the emphasis on “practice-based humanities” at Adelaide, and strong links with GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives and museums) sector partners – many of whom are literally a short walk from the main campus on North Terrace. This includes the Art Gallery of South Australia and the South Australian Museum – which holds the largest collection of Australian Aboriginal material cultural in the world, and which is currently planning a major overhaul (with the close involvement of UoA scholars).

Potential for greater collaboration

We were also struck by the strength of Adelaide’s work on Indigenous studies across a range of disciplines, both within and beyond the humanities. The ethical, intellectual and practical expertise that Adelaide has developed in this field is certainly something UoN can learn from (especially when it comes to broader trends in the UK around decolonisation of the curriculum). We were also impressed by the collegial and engaged attitude of the Adelaide PhD students we met.

Members of the Nottingham delegation presented some of their own current scholarship while in Adelaide. Teresa Baron presented her work on ‘Research ethics and the quest for ectogenesis’ at Adelaide’s Fay Gale Centre for Research on Gender. This overlapped with some interesting conversations around the potential for greater collaboration in health humanities – a rapidly expanding field for both universities. Vivien Chan and I gave a joint talk as part of Adelaide’s History Seminar Series, detailing recent publications on colonial Malaya and Hong Kong respectively. This led to fruitful discussions about how to bring debates around colonial history into the wider Sustainable Futures research theme, which is a central part of the ANA. Will Bowden presented his recent work on excavations in Albania (at late antique Butrint), thus sharing cutting-edge archaeological research being undertaken at Nottingham with scholars and students in South Australia.

Discussions are continuing around the possibilities for collaborative research projects, joint PhD supervision and staff mobility in the arts and humanities. We hope that the highly positive relationship which has been established between humanities scholars at Adelaide and Nottingham will lead to tangible opportunities for cooperation in the near future.

Biography

Jeremy Taylor is Professor of Modern History at the School of Humanities in the Faculty of Arts. He focuses on the modern cultural, social and political history of East and Southeast Asia.