Prof Russell McGregor ~ Adjunct Professor

Russell McGregor is an Adjunct Professor of History in the College of Arts, Society and Education. Before his retirement in 2014, he taught modern world history, Australian history and historiographic theory at James Cook University.

His most recent book, Idling in Green Places: A Life of Alec Chisholm, tells the story of a pioneer conservationist who once ranked among Australia's most popular nature writers. It was shortlisted for the 2020 National Biography Awards. Earlier publications include the award-winning books Indifferent Inclusion: Aboriginal People and the Australian Nation (winner of the 2012 NSW Premier's Prize for Australian History; shortlisted for the 2012 Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History) and Imagined Destinies: Aboriginal Australians and the Doomed Race Theory (winner of the 1998 WK Hancock Prize for History). Another book, Environment, Race and Nationhood in Australia: Revisiting the Empty North, explores the environmental history of the Australian tropics. Russell is also co-author of a history of a north Queensland Aboriginal group, Gugu Badhun: People of the Valley of Lagoons. As well as these, he has published numerous articles and chapters, mainly on environmental history and the histories of racial ideas, Aboriginal policy, Australian nationalism and northern Australia.

His current major research project is on the history of birdwatching in Australia.

Research Disciplines

• Historical studies (4303)

Socio-Economic Objectives

• Understanding past societies (1307)

Awards

• 2020 - Shortlisted for the National Biography Award
• 2012 - NSW Premier's Prize for Australian History
• 2012 - Shortlisted for Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History
• 1998 - W.K Hancock Prize, Australian Historical Association

Fellowships

• Research Fellow, Cairns Institute
• 1997 - Australian Studies Fellow, Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest
• 2021 - National Library of Australia Fellowship
• 2016 to 2017 - David Scott Mitchell Fellow, Mitchell Library, Sydney

Memberships

• Australian Historical Association
• Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies

These are the most recent publications associated with this author. To see a detailed profile of all publications stored at JCU, visit ResearchOnline@JCU. Hover over Altmetrics badges to see social impact.

Journal Articles

• McGregor R (in press) Alec Chisholm and the extinction of the Paradise Parrot. Historical Records of Australian Science, , DOI:10.1071/HR20019.
• McGregor R (2020) Disputing the Territory: the Payne-Fletcher Report of 1937. Australian Historical Studies, 51 (4), pp. 383-400, DOI:10.1080/1031461X.2019.1709516.
• McGregor R (2019) Mateship with Nature: Nationalism and Conservation in the Writings of Alec Chisholm. Environment and History, 25, DOI:10.3197/096734019X15463432087026.
• McGregor R (2019) "People the North": nation-building in 1960s Australia. Australian Journal of Politics and History, 65 (2), pp. 215-229, DOI:10.1111/ajph.12565.
• McGregor R (2017) Excursions through emptiness: interwar travel writing on Northern Australia. Journal of Australian Studies, 41 (4), pp. 421-434, DOI:10.1080/14443058.2017.1380684.
• McGregor R and Fuary M (2016) Walter Edmund Roth: ethnographic collector and Aboriginal protector. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, Cultural Heritage Series, 10, pp. 43-58.
• McGregor R (2016) Making the Rainforest Aboriginal: Tindale and Birdsell's foray into deep time. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, Cultural Heritage Series, 10, pp. 9-21.
• McGregor R (2013) Northern optimism: the preliminary scientific expedition to the Northern Territory, 1911. Northern Territory Historical Studies, 24, pp. 40-51.
• McGregor R (2013) Developing the north, defending the nation? The Northern Australia Development Committee, 1945–1949. Australian Journal of Politics and History, 59 (1), pp. 33-46, DOI:10.1111/ajph.12002.

Books

• McGregor R (2019) Idling in green places: a life of Alec Chisholm. Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne
• Cadet-James Y, James R, McGinty S and McGregor R (2017) Gugu Badhun: people of the Valley of Lagoons. Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, ACT, Australia
• McGregor R (2016) Environment, Race and Nationhood in Australia: revisiting the empty north. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, NY, USA

More

ResearchOnline@JCU stores 89+ research outputs authored by Prof Russell McGregor from 1993 onwards.

Advisory Accreditation: I can be on your Advisory Panel as a Primary or Secondary Advisor.

These Higher Degree Research projects are either current or by students who have completed their studies within the past 5 years at JCU. Linked titles show theses available within ResearchOnline@JCU.

Current

• Developing the Queensland Tropics: The Ideas and Politics of Northern Development 1901-2014 (PhD , Secondary Advisor/AM)
• Management of South East Queensland Forestry: On the Boundary between Economy and Ecology (PhD , Secondary Advisor/AM)
• Indigenous and First Nations Women in Indigenous Leadership: a Comparative Study (PhD , Secondary Advisor/AM)
• The Deep North and the Near North: The Relationship Between North Queensland and Japan, 1894-1991 (PhD , Secondary Advisor/AM)
• An Army of Naturalists: John Gould's Australian Network of Collectors and Correspondents. (PhD , Primary Advisor/AM/Adv)

Completed

• Cultural landscape in the historical perspective of white settlement in the Wet Tropics: case study of Redlynch Valley (2020, PhD , Secondary Advisor/AM)
• Fathoming the reef: a history of European perspectives on the Great Barrier Reef from Cook to GBRMPA (2017, PhD , Secondary Advisor)
• Empty spaces and smiling faces: the New Settlers' League and Australian immigration (2017, PhD , Secondary Advisor)
• "More like a picnic party": Burke and Wills: an analysis of the Victorian exploring expedition of 1860-1861 (2017, PhD , Secondary Advisor)
• Flu, society and the state: the political, social and economic implications of the 1918-1920 influenza pandemic in Queensland (2017, PhD , Associate Advisor)