Academy Fellow

Michelle is one of Australia’s leading scholars of Australian postwar political, social and cultural life. Her research has made significant contributions to our knowledge of histories of post-war Australian political and social life, popular culture, feminist and gay and lesbian activism, and the depiction of history in the media. Through both sole-authored and collaborative research, she has investigated the ways that activism centred on questions of gender and sexuality have had a transformative impact on the rights and protections of Australian citizenship in late twentieth century Australia. Her most recent monograph, The Seventies: the personal, the political and the making of modern Australia (2019) offered a history of this transformative decade through a gendered lens, examining the political and social changes of the period through sources ranging from popular culture and media to the submissions and reports of the Royal Commission on Human Relationships. The book has helped to open up the archives of this Royal Commission for other scholars, generating new histories of the social transformations of the 1970s. Working in conjunction with the Whitlam Institute, Michelle’s 2023 edited collection Women and Whitlam: Revisiting the Revolution brought together three generations of contributors to reflect on the policy legacies of the Whitlam government for Australian women. Michelle is currently working on a biography of the journalist and broadcaster Anne Deveson, which will make a significant contribution to our understandings of changing attitudes to women and the care and treatment of the mentally ill in the late twentieth century.

Michelle’s research has also generated new knowledge about the history of Australian culture: my 2009 monograph Friday On Our Minds: Popular Culture in Australia since 1945 offered a new account of postwar cultural change, demonstrating the ways that popular culture shaped and reflected Australian’s increasingly diverse identities. Her first monograph, Upstaged: Australian Women Dramatists in the Limelight at Last (2002) helped to revive scholarly interest in the work of a generation of Australian women playwrights. She has also investigated how Australian history shapes popular understandings of the past through analysis of its representation in film, radio and television.

Michelle has worked consistently to raise the profile of history and historical expertise in Australian public life. She produced an award-winning radio documentary on her research and worked as a presenter on the ABC history television series Rewind. She has acted as a consultant historian on several documentary productions and appeared as an expert interviewee on many others. Michelle is also a public advocate for history and historians in both print and broadcast media, working to raise awareness of policy issues impacting both historians and the cultural infrastructure upon which historical scholarship depends.

Professor, Department of History and Archaeology, Macquarie University.

John Barrett Prize, 2023.

Ernest Scott Prize, 2020.

NSW Premier’s Multimedia History Prize, 2014.

National Library of Australia Fellowship, 2016

Frederick Watson Fellowship, National Archives of Australia, 2012.

1. Michelle Arrow, 2019, The Seventies: The Personal, The Political and the Making of Modern Australia NewSouth, Sydney.

2. Michelle Arrow, in press for 2024, ‘Between Charity, and Neoliberalism: The Campaign for Funding Women’s Refugees in Australia, 1974-1985’, Journal of Women’s History, 36, 1.

3. Michelle Arrow, 2023, (ed), Women and Whitlam: Revisiting the Revolution, NewSouth, Sydney.

4. Michelle Arrow, 2021, 'How much longer will we allow this country's affairs to be run by radical feminists?': Anti-feminist activism in late 1970s Australia, Australian Historical Studies, 52, 3.

5. Michelle Arrow, 2022, ‘”Smash Sexist Movies”: Gender, culture and Ocker cinema in 1970s Australia, Journal of Australian Studies, 46, 2.