Monday 30 June–Friday 4 July 2025, James Cook University and Central Queensland University
The 44th Australian Historical Association (AHA) Conference will be jointly hosted by James Cook University and Central Queensland University.
James Cook University and Central Queensland University are proud to be hosting the annual conference of the Australian Historical Association in 2025, to be held from 30 June to 4 July.
The local organising committee of historians from JCU’s College of Arts, Society and Education, and CQU’s School of Education and the Arts are excited to welcome historians from around Australia and the world to Townsville on Bindal and Wulgurukaba Country to share their new research and engage one another on the pressing questions facing our discipline and our communities.
You can visit the official conference website here.
Call for Papers: Looking Up
Historians engage in many forms of looking up. The popular image of a historian is a person with their head down in the depths of an archive or library looking up books and documents. However, historians are at their most impactful when they also look up at the world around them and connect their work to contemporary issues. The first historians and custodians of what is now Australia literally looked up to the stars that served as calendars and markers of the passage of time. From ancient times to the present, historians have looked up at the power structures that shape society.
In Australia, the phrase “looking up” also has a significant geographical dimension. Most of Australia’s population (and most of its historians) work in the southeast corner of the continent, even while nearly half the continent lies in the tropics. Periodically policy makers have looked up to northern Australia and the nations of the ‘near north’ and seen both threats and opportunities. In 2025 the AHA offers historians an opportunity to engage with the scale and place of the Australian continent and its history.
The Australian Historical Association invites historians to come to Townsville for its annual conference to be held between 30 June and 4 July 2025. Co-hosted by James Cook University and Central Queensland University, the organisers welcome proposals for papers and panels on any aspect of history. Participants can identify conference streams relevant to their work, and all abstracts will be considered. Participants are encouraged to relate their work to the conference theme of looking up and applying the historian’s toolkit to make a meaningful contribution to contemporary debate.
Keynote Speakers
The Conference will feature four distinguished keynotes:
- Professor Henry Reynolds
- Margaret Reynolds, AC
- Lyndon Megarrity
- Professor Andrea Gaynor
Submissions
Abstract submissions are due by Friday 7 March 2025 (extended CFP).
Early bird registrations are now available until 21 March 2025.
Enquiries can be sent to AHA2025@jcu.edu.au