Academy Fellow

Professor Mark Finnane is Distinguished Professor in the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science and a member of the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research. He was ARC Laureate Fellow at Griffith University (2013-18). He specializes in the history of policing, punishment, criminal justice and legal institutions. In 2013 he was awarded an ARC Laureate Fellowship (2013-18) to research the history of prosecution and the criminal trial in Australia. Bringing together scholars in history, law and criminology his research team is using digital technologies to construct large scale historical databases of criminal justice processes across Australian jurisdictions to enable analysis of the criminal trial over time and in comparative perspective. Key appointments include Dean of Graduate Studies at Griffith University (2000-2006), Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence in Policing and Security (2007-13), of which he was also Director in 2009, and Chair of the Humanities and Creative Arts Panel of the ARC College of Experts (2010).

Main field of activity or interest

Australian History

Other fields in which interested:

Criminology, Socio-Legal Studies, Legal History, Irish History

Tutor - School of History, University of NSW, 1974, 1979-1983

Lecturer/Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor/Professor – School of Humanities, Griffith University, 1984-

Dean, Faculty of Humanities, Griffith University, 1993-1996

Dean, Graduate Studies, Griffith University, 2000-2006

ARC Australian Professorial Fellow, 2007-2013

ARC Laureate Fellow, 2013-2018

Fellow, Australian Academy of Humanities (elected 2001)

Centenary of Federation Medal (2003)

(with J.Richards) 'S.W. Griffith: A Suitable Case for Indictment?',Australian Historical Studies, (2023) online first, DOI: 10.1080/1031461X.2023.2208585

‘Indigenous Peoples and Settler Criminal Law’ in The Cambridge Legal History of Australia, edited by Peter Cane, Mark McMillan and Lisa Ford, (Cambridge University Press, 2022).

‘”Upholding the cause of civilization” – the Australian death penalty in war and colonialism’, International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, (2022), 11, 3, pp. 23-32 (online at https://www.crimejusticejournal.com/article/view/2473)

‘“Absolutely free”?: freedom of movement and ‘the police power’ in federation Australia’, Australian Historical Studies, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1080/1031461X.2022.2061023

‘Governing in a pandemic: Law and government in Australia, 1919’, Australian Historical Studies, (2022), 53:2, 266-283.https://doi.org/10.1080/1031461X.2021.1920990

‘‘They were subject to our laws’: Aboriginal defendants in NSW courts 1850–1914’, History Australia (2020), 17, 3, 448-470.

(with Yorick Smaal) ‘Character, Discipline, Law: Courts Martial in World War I’, Australian Historical Studies, (2020) vol. 51, no. 3, pp. 324–340.

‘Deporting the Irish Envoys: domestic and national security in 1920s Australia’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 41, 3, (2013), 403-425 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03086534.2013.789276

‘Terrorism and government: between history and criminology’ ANZ Journal of Criminology, Vol. 46, No. 2 (August 2013), 159-177.

‘Chinese litigants in late colonial court-rooms’, Journal of Chinese Overseas 9, 2, 2013, pp. 193-211.

‘The Munich Olympics massacre and the development of counter-terrorism in Australia’, Intelligence and National Security, on-line 30 April 2014, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02684527.2014.882680.

‘'Habeas corpus Mongols': the Chinese uses of law in Australian immigration politics, 1888’ Australian Historical Studies, 45, 2, 2014, pp. 165-183.

Finnane, M (2013) ‘Law and regulation’, in The Cambridge History of Australia Vol 1 Indigenous and Colonial Australia, pp 391-423, Alison Bashford and Stuart Macintyre (eds). Cambridge UP: Melbourne

Finnane, M (2013) ‘Terrorism and government: between history and criminology’, ANZ Journal of Criminology, Vol. 46, No. 2 (August 2013), pp 159-177

Finnane, M (2013) ‘Deporting the Irish Envoys: domestic and national security in 1920s Australia’, in Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 41, 3, pp 403-425

Douglas, H, Finnane, M (2012) Indigenous Crime and Settler Law: White Sovereignty after Empire, Palgrave Macmillan: Houndsmills, UK

Douglas, H, Finnane, M (2012) ‘Obstacles to ‘a proper exercise of jurisdiction’ – sorcery and criminal justice in the Settler-Indigenous encounter in Australia’, in Between Indigenous and Settler Governance, Lisa Ford and Tim Rowse (eds), pp. 59-69. Routledge: London

Finnane, M (2007) J V Barry: A Life, UNSW Press: Kensington NSW