Prof Carolyn Strange

I have studied and taught in Canada (Queen's University, Carleton University, the University of Toronto); the U.S. (Rutgers University); and Australia (Griffith University, ANU). With a focus on nineteenth- and twentieth-century history I have specialised in legal, social, cultural and political history.  

In addition to my academic publications I endeavour to bridge divides in scholarly communities and to reach out to the wider public to communicate my research. I have curated several museum exhibitions in Toronto, Canberra and Sydney and I have organised public symposia on a range of issues, including prison history tourism, the memory of lost places and environmental anxiety. In these projects and publications I have worked closely with collaborators in literary studies, law, anthropology, environmental science, criminology, and media studies.

My teaching speciality is graduate training. I have directed graduate studies at the University of Toronto (Criminology) and founded two graduate training programs at ANU (Cross-Cultural Research; History). In addition I have devised and conducted workshops for graduate students in the social sciences and humanities, as well as specialised skills development workshops for history students. 

I have been awarded fellowships at Warwick University (Institute for Advanced Study); Macquarie University (Law); and the University of Sydney (Law).

In 2012 I was appointed an Adjunct Professor of Arts, Education and Creative Media at Murdoch University, Perth, and I served in that position until 2015.

In 2016 I was honoured to be elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia.

From 2010 to 2016 I served as the external academic assessor for the history department at Lingnan University, Hong Kong.

In 2017 I was appointed Visiting Professor in the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies, York University, Toronto

In 2018, I was appointed Visiting Professor, Faculty of Law, Univesity of Toronto

In 2021 I was appointed Head of the School of History for a three-year term.

In 2022 I was honoured to be elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

PhD (U.S. and women's history) Rutgers, State University of New Jersey, USA; M.A. (Canadian History) University of Ottawa, Canada; B.A. hons. (European History) University of Western Ontario, Canada

My educational training in history has been enhanced over my career through teaching appointments in the U.S., Canada and Australia in women's studies, law and criminology in addition to history.

The range of my research is expansive, and I have published on Australian, Canadian, U.S., and British modern history in the following areas: the history of crime and justice; the history of gender, sexuality and medicine; the history of geography; and the concepts of place, memory and identity in modernity. 

My research has been supported by major grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Canada) and the Australian Research Council. In addition to institutionally-awarded funding I have received grants from the Hannah Institute for the History of Medicine, the Canadian High Commission, the National Institute for Social Sciences and Law, the National Library of Australia, and the Huntington Library. 

In 2013 the New York State Archives named me 'researcher of the year' in recognition of my publications based on its collections. In 2014 I was awarded a fellowship at the Huntington Library, which further supported the research for my most recent book, published by New York University Press in 2016. 

I have extended my expertise in crime, justice and gender through my research on the history of sex murder and capital punishment in post-Confederation Canadian history. This research has led to the production of a monograph and several articles.

I am currently returning to the field of twentieth-century Australian history through the analysis of inter-gender homicide. Initial funding for this project was awarded through a collaborative inter-School research grant from the Research School of Social Sciences.

In 2019, I was awarded a five-year strategic initiative grant from the Research School of Social Sciences to co-ordinate a cross-campus network on the History and Legacies of Violence. Affiliates and updates are listed on the dedicated website: https://www.thehistoryandlegaciesofviolence.com/

In 2022 I was awarded a two-year grant by the ANU Gender Institute to establish a working group on Coercive Control.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Public attitudes towards coercive control: Evidence from a nationally representative population survey ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods (Canberra: Australian National University, Centre for Social Research Methods, 2023) pp. 45 (with Lorana Bartels, Hayley Boxall, Kate Fitz-Gibbon, and Nicholas Biddle). CoerciveControl-ANUPoll-Attitudes.pdf (PDF, 1.22 MB)

“The Female Poisoner's Fate: Accounting for Lenient Outcomes in New South Wales, Australia, 1855-1955,” Crime, History and Societies, 27 1(2023): 59-80. [special issue on women’s lethal violence] https://doi.org/10.4000/chs.3424