University of Sydney / Faculty of Arts / Department of History / Staff / Academic Staff

Dr Melissa Bellanta

Research interests

  • Social and cultural history of nineteenth-century Australia
  • Popular belief
  • Popular theatre and urban culture
  • Environmental consciousness and radical movements

Current projects

Holy Smoke and Mirrors: Popular Culture and Belief in Australia, 1850-1930

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Selected publications

‘Transcending Class? Australia’s Single Taxers in the 1890s’, Labour History, forthcoming.

‘Feminism, Mateship and the Brotherhood of Man in 1890s Adelaide’, History Australia, forthcoming, November 2007.

‘Engineering the Kingdom of God: Irrigation, Science and the ‘Social Christian’ Millennium, 1880-1914’, forthcoming in Journal of Religious History, late 2007.

‘Land nationalisers, single taxers and environmentalism in late nineteenth century Australia’, Melbourne Historical Journal 32 (December 2004), 13–30.

‘Mobilising Fictions, or, Romancing the Australian Desert, 1890–1908’, History Australia 1:1 (December 2003), 15–30.

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Areas of teaching and research supervision

Teaching

  • Imperial History/World History - History Honours Seminar
  • HSTY3651 Writing Place: Land and Memory in History
  • HSTY2629 Sex and Scandal
  • HSTY 2614 Australian Social History 1919-1998 (not offered 2007)
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Conference activity

In 2006

Anti-spiritualism and Modernity: Harry Keller and the Davenport Brothers in Australia, 1876’, Australian Modernities: Vernacular Performers and Consumers
International Conference, University of Queensland, December 2006.

‘Invalid and Adventurer: George Napier Birks and Australian Masculinity’, Flinders University, Adelaide, August 2006.

‘The Sentimental Citizen: William Guthrie Spence and Australian Masculinity’, Australian Historical Association conference, Canberra, July 2006.

‘First-wave Feminists and the Brotherhood of Man in 1890s Adelaide’, Mateship Conference, Monash University, Melbourne, February 2006.

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Prizes

Max Kelly Medal, History Council of New South Wales, 2004

Melbourne Historical Journal, Best paper for 2004

Blackwell Prize for best postgraduate paper at AHA Regional Conference, 2003

University Medal, University of Sydney

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