Associate Professor Mark McKenna
Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (2011-2015)
Room 837 Brennan MacCallum, A18
+61 2 9114 1152
After completing my doctorate in 1996, I took up a research fellowship in political science at the Research School of Social Sciences at the ANU in Canberra. From 2000 till 2005 I was an ARC QEII Fellow in History at the ANU. I took up a position as Senior Research Fellow in History at Sydney University in August 2006, and in 2010 became a member of the department. Over the last decade I’ve published mainly in two areas - the history of Australian republicanism and monarchy and Aboriginal history.
Research Areas
Australian history, particularly political and cultural history and Aboriginal history.
Current Projects
Selected Publications
Books
An Eye for Eternity: the Life of Manning Clark, Melbourne University Press, 2011
What’s Wrong With Anzac? (with Marilyn Lake, Henry Reynolds & Joy Damousi), UNSW Press 2010
This Country: a Reconciled Republic? (University of New South Wales Press, 2004)
Looking for Blackfellas’ Point: an Australian History of Place (University of New South Wales Press, 2002).
(with Wayne Hudson) Australian Republicanism: a Reader (Melbourne University Press, 2003)
The Captive Republic: A History of Republicanism in Australia, 1788-1996 (Cambridge University Press, 1996).
Articles
‘The Language of Ordinary Men’, in Bain Attwood & Tom Griffiths (eds) Henry Reynolds: Frontier Race Nation, Australian Scholarly Publishing 2010
‘The Crown’ in Richard White (ed) Symbols of Australia, UNSW Press 2010, pp.33-37
‘Australian History and the Australian National Inheritance’, Australian Cultural History, Vol.27 2009, pp.1-12
‘Silence Shattered with a Whisper to the Heart’, Australian Literary Review, March 4 2009
"Monarchy: from Reverence to Indifference," in D. Schreuder & S. Ward (eds) Australia's Empire (Oxford History of the British Empire Companion Series), Oxford 2008, pp. 261-287
"Notes From the Underground: Writing the biography of Manning Clark", Kathleen Fitzpatrick Memorial Lecture, School of Historical Studies, University of Melbourne, 2008 [pamphlet 30 pages]
"The Republic", in R. Manne (ed) Dear Mr. Rudd: Idea for a Better Australia, Black Inc; 2008, pp. 15-27
"The Anzac Myth" in Tony Jones (ed.) The Best Australian Political Writing, Melbourne University Press, 2008, pp. 333-350
"Values and Patriotism in John Howard's Australia" , in Gare, D & Ritter, D., Making Australian History: Perspectives on the Past Since 1788, Thompson 2008, pp. 592-600
'"It was very moving Mate": Anzac Day and Sentimental Nationalism",Australian Historical Studies, No.129 April 2007 pp. 141-51 (together
with Stuart Ward)
"The Strange History of Manning Clark", in Drusilla Modjeska (ed), Best Australian Essays 2007, Black Inc, 2007, pp. 199-226
"Writing the Past", in Drusilla Modjeska (ed), Best Australian Essays 2006, Black Inc. Melbourne, 2006, pp. 96-110
"The Poetics of Place Land Constitution and Republic," Dialogue (journal of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia), Vol.23 1/2 2004, pp.27-33.
"A History for Our Time? ‘The Idea of the People in Australian Democracy’," Blackwells’ History Compass, 2003.
"'I wonder whether I belong': Manning Clark and the Politics of Australian History," Australian Historical Studies October 2003, pp. 364-383
"An Article of Faith for a Sceptical Democracy: The Legacy of Manning Clark," Eureka St Vol.8 No.2, March 1998, pp.29-33 (this article shared first prize in the H.V. Evatt Foundation Essay Prize 1997)
"The Australian Republic: Still Captive after all these Years," in Malcolm Mackerras and John Warhurst (eds) Constitutional Politics: The Republic Referendum and the Future (University of Queensland Press, 2002)
"Building a Closet of Prayer in the New World: the Story of the Australian Ballot," London Papers in Australian Studies, No.6 Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, London, 2002 ISBN 1 85507 122 3Menzies
Awards
- Appointed to the Keith Cameron Chair of Australian Studies at University College, Dublin, 2011
- Shared first prize in the H.V. Evatt Foundation Manning Clark Essay Prize, (Topic: Australian Republicanism) 1997.
- Co-winner of W.K. Hancock Prize for Australian History [for The Captive Republic] awarded by Australian Historical Studies Association July 1998
- Author of a new Constitutional Preamble chosen by the Constitutional Centenary Foundation to be circulated to Federal Parliament, February 1999
- QEII Fellowship, ARC 1999.
- Winner of Australian Cultural Studies prize 2002, (awarded by the Centre for Australian Culture, UNSW and the Australian National Capital Authority) for Looking for Blackfellas’ Point.
- Winner of NSW Premier’s Award (Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction) for Looking for Blackfellas’ Point, May 2003.
- Winner of NSW Premier’s Award (Book of the Year) for Looking for Blackfellas’ Point, May 2003.
- Looking for Blackfellas’ Point was also shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s History Prize 2003 and the Australian Literary Studies Association’s Colin Roderick Prize for Best Australian Book 2003 (Fiction or Non-Fiction)
- This Country: a Reconciled Republic? shortlisted for the Gleebooks Prize for cultural criticism in the 2005 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards