The ANU Australian Studies Institute (AuSI) is pleased to welcome Dr Alice Garner as our next Visiting Fellow from our 2022 – 23 Visiting Fellowship Program.

During her Fellowship, Alice will focus on investigating the life of Mavis Robertson, a political and social activist involved in many significant movements in Australian and international 20th-century history.

“We are delighted to have Alice join us at AuSI as a Visiting Fellow. Her Fellowship with AuSI will enable her to closely examine Robertson's papers in the Noel Butlin Archives, leading to the eventual production of a biographical-historical audio documentary series.”

- Professor Paul Pickering, Director, ANU Australian Studies Institute

“I have been making the most of this opportunity to delve into the rich archives of Mavis Robertson in the Noel Butlin Archives, working out which of the many dimensions of her life to focus on. It’s not easy: she had a finger in so many pies! Her boxes are full of material on the post-World War II development of the peace movement, including notes on international peace and youth congresses of the 1950s, as well as on her behind-the-scenes work on the international Chilean Solidarity movement in the 1970s, and on early Women’s Liberation actions in Sydney. I’m still in the initial exploratory phase of full immersion and am full of questions.

“While here I attended the InASA conference on the Whitlam government and enjoyed conversations with scholars in different disciplines that sparked many new ideas and questions. This fellowship is giving me the time and space to stay in this slightly obsessive, exploratory zone and feel out the contours of the project.”

- Dr Alice Garner, Visiting Fellow, ANU Australian Studies Institute

Alice Garner is a historian, educator and performer whose research and publications have ranged across French history, social, cultural, environmental, educational, labour and diplomatic history. A presenter on History Channel’s Coast Australia television (series 2-4), Alice explored the social history of coastal communities around the nation. Alice is President of Oral History Victoria, and a podcast host on New Books in Education. She has also worked as a secondary school teacher, an award-winning actor in television, theatre, film and radio and she plays cello in the endlings and the Idiomatics.