CFP ONLINE SYMPOSIUM EASA (European Association for Studies of Australia) 27-28 November 2026
Thinking Against the Grain: Australian Studies in Times of Constraint KEYNOTE SPEAKERSKate Rigby (Alexander von Humboldt Professor of Environmental Humanities, University of Cologne)Jakelin Troy (University of Sydney)In May 2025, the late Graeme Turner posted a text titled “Why do they hate us? That’s the question academics in the humanities are asking”. As Turner admits, there is no simple answer to why the government, media and high-level university administrators often target humanities and liberal arts programmes for cuts. One visible tendency, however, is the belief that universities should be run like businesses. In Australia, humanities programmes are downsized through involuntary redundancies and the 2020 “job-ready graduate policy” introduced by then Prime Minister Scott Morrison. In Europe, there is a similar trend to prioritise STEM programmes under the rationale of economic efficiency. Consequently, the humanities, no matter where they are located, are frequently treated as the academy’s “strange bedfellows”.How can humanists, philologists, historians and other Australian Studies scholars, make sense of their work in a world of profit-driven higher education? If the purpose of our work is to cultivate intellectual growth and critical thinking by engaging with culture beyond mass consumption and social media feeds, how are we to continue to contribute to slow reading, critical thinking, and social changes both inside and beyond our classrooms?This two-day online symposium is designed to foster cooperative discussions among Australian Studies scholars in Europe, Australia, North America and the Global South.
