Academy Fellow

In the 1990s, Professor Milner was seconded to the Academy as Director of its major project, ‘The Australia Asia Perceptions Project’. The Cunningham Lecture which he gave in 1995 was a report on this project.

Professor Milner’s research has focused on Southeast Asian History, Australia-Asia relations, and regional strategic relations.

He is currently Emeritus Professor, Australian National University; Professorial Fellow, University of Melbourne; and Visiting Professor, University of Malaya. He was previously Basham Professor of Asian History (1994-2013) and Dean of Asian Studies (1996-2005) at Australian National University.

Earlier in his career, Professor Milner taught at Monash University, Cornell University and the University of Kent at Canterbury. He has also held visiting appointments at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton; National University of Singapore (as Raffles Visiting Professor); Tokyo University of Foreign Studies; Kyoto University; Humboldt University; National University of Malaysia (as Pok Rafeah Professor); and the Institute of Strategic and International Studies, Malaysia (as Tun Hussein Onn Chair).

Professor Milner has been Research Chair and ACT Branch President of the Australian Institute for International Affairs; Editor of the Asian Studies Review of the Asian Studies Association of Australia; and Australian Co-Chair – and, for two years, Non-ASEAN Co-Chair - of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific. As International Director of Asialink at the University of Melbourne, he has worked with the Asialink Director to develop the Asialink Conversations (Track 2 international leaders’ networking between Australia and Southeast Asia); the annual ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Dialogue; the Asialink Index (an annual audit of progress in Australia-Asia relations); and the domestic-focused, Asialink Leadership Program.

His contributions to the government sector include membership of the Australia Malaysia Institute, the Australia Thailand Institute, the Foreign Affairs Council (for a decade), and two panels of the Australian Research Council.

Professor Milner’s awards include Member of the Order of Australia (“for services to education in the field of Asian studies as an academic and an author, and in international relations through the development of cross-cultural education and outreach activities”); Honorary Doctorate in the Humanities, University of Malaya; Merdeka Award (Malaysia) for ‘Outstanding Contribution to the People of Malaysia’; and National Life Member, Australian Institute of International Affairs.

His public lectures include the Cunningham Lecture, the Golay Lecture (Cornell University), the Raffles Lecture (National University of Singapore), the Pok Rafeah Lectures (National University of Malaysia), the Tun Hussein Onn Lectures (ISIS Malaysia) and the Fourth Asia-Pacific Lecture (ABC) at Parliament House, Canberra.

Kerajaan: Malay Political Culture on the Eve of Colonial Rule (American Association of Asian Studies Monograph, 1982; new edition, 2016: selected as one of the 25 “works of major importance to historical studies” and “most frequently cited in the literature” in the field of Southeast Asia history (Association for Asian Studies in the USA on behalf of the American Council of Learned Societies). Also, published translations in Malay and Thai.

(Editor, with Mary Quilty), Australia in Asia: Episodes (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998)

(Editor, with Mary Quilty), Australia in Asia: Comparing Cultures (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1996, reprinted in 1997, 1999, 2000)

(Editor, with Mary Quilty), Australia in Asia: Communities of Thought (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1996)

The Malays (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008; Revised pb. 2011). Also, published translations in Malay, Czech and Thai

The Invention of Politics: Expanding the Public Sphere in Colonial Malaya (Cambridge, New York and Melbourne; Cambridge University Press, 1995: Revised pb 2002)

(with, Tham Siew Yean and Abdul Rahman Embong), Transforming Malaysia: Dominant and Competing Paradigms (Singapore: ISEAS, 2014). Also, published translation in Chinese

(Editor, with P.M. Herbert), Southeast Asian Languages and Literatures (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989)

(Editor, with David Marr), Southeast Asia in the 9th to 14th Centuries (Singapore: ISEAS, 1986, 1990)

(Editor, with D. Gerstle), Recovering the Orient; Artists, Scholars, Appropriations, (London: Harwood Press, 1994)

(Editor, with Yamamoto Hiroyuki, Kawashima Midori and Arai Kazuhiro), Bangsa and Umma: Development of People-grouping Concepts in Islamized Southeast Asia (Kyoto and Melbourne: Kyoto University Press and Trans Pacific Press, 2011)

(Editor, with Gareth Knapman and Mary Quilty), Liberalism and the British Empire in Southeast Asia (London and New York: Routledge, 2018)

(Editor, with Azirah Hashim), Malaysian Perspectives on ASEAN Regionalism (Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, 2019)