A/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 2013, he taught modern world history, Australian history and historiographic theory at James Cook University.

His most recent book is Idling in Green Places: A Life of Alec Chisholm, which tells the story of a pioneer conservationist who once ranked among Australia's most popular nature writers. 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 is an environmental history of the Australian tropics, Environment, Race and Nationhood in Australia: Revisiting the Empty North. 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 books, he has published numerous articles and chapters, mainly on the history of racial ideas, Aboriginal policy, Australian nationalism, northern Australia and environmental history.

His current research is in two main areas: the environmental history of northern Australia and the history of popular natural history in Australia.

Research Disciplines

• Historical Studies (2103)

Socio-Economic Objectives

• Understanding Past Societies (9505)

Awards

• 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
• 2016 to 2017 - David Scott Mitchell Fellow, Mitchell Library, Sydney

Memberships

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

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 (2019) Mateship with Nature: Nationalism and Conservation in the Writings of Alec Chisholm. Environment and History, 25.
• McGregor R (2019) "People the North": nation-building in 1960s Australia. Australian Journal of Politics and History, 65 (2). pp. 215-229
• McGregor R (2017) Excursions through emptiness: interwar travel writing on Northern Australia. Journal of Australian Studies, 41 (4). pp. 421-434
• 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
• McGregor R (2012) Drawing the local colour line: white Australia and the tropical north. Journal of Pacific History, 47 (3). pp. 329-346
• McGregor R (2012) A dog in the manger: White Australia and its vast empty spaces. Australian Historical Studies, 43 (2). pp. 157-173

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 81+ research outputs authored by A/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

• Cultural Landscape in the historical Perspective of White Settlement in the Wet Tropics: Case Study of Redlynch Valley (PhD , Secondary Advisor/AM)
• Developing the Queensland Tropics: The Ideas and Politics of Northern Development 1901-2014 (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

• 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)