School of Humanities recognises excellence in award ceremony
The School of Humanities recognised the achievements of its most exceptional undergraduates in its annual award ceremony. In the presence of friends, family, guests and our generous donors, the School of Humanities was delighted once again to be celebrating outstanding research in the Humanities.
The School of Humanities is home to some of the oldest disciplines at the University of Sydney, and demonstrably some of the best – with Classics and Ancient History gaining, and Arts and Humanities ranking 1st in Australia and 12th in the world according to the US News and World Report.
The School of Humanities is also home to some of the oldest prizes and awards at the University including the Nicholson Medal (1866) and several other awards dating back to the 19th century – part of a rich tradition of donors supporting our reaching and teaching, with new prizes being established too, including in our Discipline of Gender and Cultural Studies (GCS).
Janet Cao, recipient of the 2024 Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Gender and Cultural Studies Honours, tells us the importance of her study in GCS:
“GCS provided me with the tools and skills to understand power, the way that we are governed by institutions and discourses that marginalise and maintain boundaries. It taught me that when we leave the partiality of our knowledge, of what we consider ‘normal’ unquestioned, intersectionality will be reduced to tokenistic inclusions of those who are still considered the ‘Other’”
Lila Daly, who received the 2024 Britta Petzl Memorial Prize in Ancient History, and now works in the School of Humanities’ administration team, describes how studying the ancient past has taught her the importance of empathy:
“It’s through empathy and imagination that we can consider the experiences of individuals and populations who only really appear in the gaps and silences of the historical record. In Ancient History, I’ve learned to read between the lines, and to see these silences not always as an absence, but an opportunity – as something to question, and not always accept.”
Lila has taken her research success a step further, having recently won first prize in the Faculty’s Honours Showcase, dialling in from an archaeological dig in Tuscany to scoop the prize.
This year’s award ceremony was held at the Sibyl Centre at Women’s College on the University’s Camperdown campus, with the Dean, Professor Lisa Adkins giving the opening address, and Professor Chris Hilliard, Head of School, as Emcee.
The Dean spoke of the importance of the Humanities to the very real and pressing problems we face today. Professor Adkins said that the Humanities “help us understand, and respond to, the challenges of climate change, the complexities of seemingly intractable territorial conflicts, the continuing effects of colonialism and imperialism on Indigenous people, and the continued prevalence of gendered violence.”
Professor Hilliard warmly welcomed the award recipients, their families and friends, donors and guests, and joined them in celebrating and acknowledging the achievements of our students.
He also acknowledged the dedication and commitment of the teaching staff from the School of Humanities who, he said, “strive to give students the tools to think critically... they come to see the world anew, and they take that new lens out into the world to help create more equitable futures – and we’re exceptionally proud of them for that.”
Prize winner Janet Cao reiterated this, describing her own experience of studying in GCS:
“Surrounded and supported by people who notice the hurt and injustices in the world, as well as the potentialities and ways that communities thrive and ‘respond to the future with affirmative richness,’ the Discipline has been a site of collaborative understanding and healing. From others, I learnt to not only appreciate the contradictions, complexities, and precariousness of living and being, but also the importance of actively insisting that our future can be better.”
Over the evening, sixty-seven prizes were awarded across the seven disciplines to sixty-six individual winners. With wonderful speeches delivered by the recipients, the warmth and the celebratory mood of the evening was contagious.
We congratulate all our winners and wish them every success in the future.