The Griffith Centre for Cultural Research is affiliated with the School of Humanities and is a multi-campus centre based at Griffith University in Brisbane.
With over 80 members across creative arts and humanities, its central brief is to encourage greater collaboration between these two areas, while articulating with contemporary debates in public culture and ideas.
Research awards and grants
Our staff consistently research and succeed in receiving awards and funding from the Australian Research Council grants and other industry-based research funds.
Australian Research Council Future Fellows
The Australian Government's Future Fellowships scheme promotes research in areas of critical national importance by giving outstanding researchers incentives to conduct their research in Australia. The aim of Future Fellowships is to attract and retain the best and brightest mid-career researchers.
Two academic staff from the School of Humanities have been successful as outstanding researchers in the 2010 and 2011 rounds of Future Fellowships. These staff are Dr Bruce Buchan and Associate Professor Regina Ganter.
Dr Bruce Buchan - Australia Research Council Future Fellow 2009-2013
Title: A Colonial and Conceptual History of Asymmetric Warfare and Security
This four year program of research focuses on how ideas of civilized warfare, as an activity pertaining to the subjects of sovereign states, emerged in European political and international thought c.1650-1800. Specifically, this research seeks to recover the British colonial history of asymmetric warfare in India, North America and Australia throughout this period, tracing the articulation of the difference between 'civilized' as opposed to 'uncivilized' forms of conflict. War and terrorism feature prominently in popular, political and scholarly perceptions of Australia's colonial past and its geopolitical future. Our understanding of what constitutes war and terrorism however emerged from long colonial histories of asymmetric conflict and protracted conceptual contestation in Western political and international thought. This project will draw on both of these sources and will aim to provide new perspectives on global problems of warfare, terrorism and security today.
Associate Professor Regina Ganter - Australia Research Council Future Fellow 2010-2014
Title: German-speakers in the Australian Indigenous Encounter: Ethnographers, Collectors, Missionaries
Missionary patriarchs have left a profound impression on indigenous memories in Australia, but there is as yet no clear sense of the massive participation of German speakers in the missionary and ethnographic engagement with Australian indigenous people. Practically half of the early missions to 1850 were staffed by Germans, and German-speaking ethnographers and missionaries have played a leading role in the scientific examination of indigenous peoples and the preservation of indigenous languages. This study by a native German speaker reaches beyond cultural stereotypes to decipher the particular contribution made by German speakers in the Anglophone contact zone. An attractive website and accompanying scholarly book provide easy access to otherwise intractable sources show-casing the vast contribution of German speakers to the mission and ethnographic effort in the Australian colonies. This is a useful resource for history teaching across the nation and a contribution to intercultural understanding.