Judges: Noah Riseman (Australian Catholic University, Chair), Claire Lowrie (University of Wollongong), Niro Kandasamy (University of Sydney)
Over twenty early career researchers from across Australia applied for the AHA’s 2024 Early Career Researcher Fellowship. The judges were highly impressed by the diversity and quality of the proposals, not least as all would clearly make significant contributions to their specific field of study. This was, they reported, a ‘fantastic’ body of applications in quality and standard.
Recipient: Dr Matthew Firth, Flinders University
Project Title: ‘Constructing History Across Conquest’
Judges’ citation:
Dr Firth has presented a well-articulated and compelling project exploring life writing in Medieval and Early Modern England, focusing on writing about figures from the pre-Norman Conquest period. The project explores narratives of conquest and will reveal ideas and cultural memories that have continued to resonate in the present. Firth’s project takes an innovative approach to pre-Norman Conquest history by placing life stories within the political, social and cultural worlds of the writers. The fellowship will be used to fund visits to un-digitised archives in the UK, and will lead to a monograph exploring biographical representations of England’s pre-conquest past.