News Story Archives

Robust science depends on encouraging and incentivising more open and transparent practices in research – now, metascientists are looking at what works and what doesn’t.In a piece originally published in Pursuit, Andrew Trounson reports on this new discipline, including the contributions of Professor Fiona Fidler and Professor Simine Vazire from University of Melbourne. About a year after she was appointed to a …

Each year in the third week of May, Australia celebrates National Archaeology Week. This year, our postgraduate community took a leading role in taking National Archaeology Week online, coming up with creative ways of promoting archaeology in a time of pandemic-related disruption. Larissa Tittl gives us a run-down on the week’s events and activities. National Archaeology Week seeks to increase …

For decades, third-year undergraduate History students at Melbourne have taken the subject Hitler’s Germany (HIST 30010). From Semester Two 2020, the subject will be expanded to cover the history of European fascism more broadly, reflecting the expertise of the subject coordinator, Dr Ángel Alcalde, who joined the History program in 2019 as Lecturer in Twentieth-century European History. He explains here the reasoning …

The catastrophic defeat Hannibal inflicted on Rome at Cannae in 216 BCE forced the Republic to drastically change how it would fight the Second Punic War. A strategy of direct military confrontation had to be abandoned in favour of a war of attrition. This strategic shift necessitated a series of additional changes in how Rome mobilised, led, and supported its …

This month's digest of SHAPS research in the media offers a rich selection across a range of topics and genres, from podcasts on Bronze Age pandemics, and on the relationship between logic and belief; online conversations about the ethics of conducting sustainable research, and about cinematic representations of Stalinism; radio interviews on new books in Australian political history; and through …

In December 2019, History PhD candidate Sam Watts travelled through the Deep South completing research for his thesis on racial politics in the Reconstruction-era urban Deep South. Here he reflects on this trip, historical memory, the nationwide protests following the murder of George Floyd, and the ongoing struggle for racial justice in America. The day before I flew out of the …

The publication of a new book is an occasion that should rightly be celebrated with colleagues and friends. Since we can't gather in person to launch these new books by SHAPS scholars, we share their details here. We congratulate in particular Liam Byrne, Julie Patricia Johnson, and Sue Silberberg, three recent PhDs who have just published their first monographs.  – Professor …

In a recent History & Philosophy of Science seminar, SHAPS Research Fellow Dr Martin Bush presented his work on British-American populariser of astronomy, Mary Proctor, and her intriguing relationship to Australian history. From 1912–1914, Mary conducted a high-profile public lecture tour of Australia and New Zealand at the invitation of astronomer Walter Duffield. The purpose of the tour was to …