Amanda Nettelbeck

Professor Amanda Nettelbeck

Professor

School of Humanities

Faculty of Arts, Business, Law and Economics

Eligible to supervise Masters and PhD - email supervisor to discuss availability.


Amanda Nettelbeck's research addresses race and governance in settler colonial histories; the application of colonial law to Indigenous people, including through policing and the courts; the history and memory of Australia's frontier wars; and the ongoing legacies of colonialism in the present.

Her last book Indigenous Rights and Colonial Subjecthood: Protection and Reform in the 19th Century British Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2019) won the 2020 Australian and New Zealand Law & History Society Legal History Prize. Her new book, Unsettled Subjects: Race, Mobility and Colonial Citizenship, is forthcoming in Cambridge University Press's 'Critical Perspectives on Empire' series. She is co-author with Rob Foster and others of 4 other books: Fragile Settlements: Aboriginal Peoples, Law and Resistance in Southwest Australia and Prairie Canada (2016); Out of the Silence: South Australia's Frontier Wars in History and Memory (2012); In the Name of the Law: William Willshire and the Policing of the Australian Frontier (2007, shortlisted for the Chief Minister's NT History Book Award); and Fatal Collisions: The South Australian Frontier and the Violence of Memory (2001, shortlisted in the NSW Premier's Awards).

She is also editor or co-editor of several books, including A Cultural History of Violence in the Age of Empires (Bloomsbury, 2025), Protection and its Intermediaries in Britain's Antipodean Colonies (with Samuel Furphy, Routledge 2020), Intimacies of Violence in the Settler Colony (with Penny Edmonds, Palgrave 2018), and Violence, Colonialism and Empire in the Modern World (with Philip Dwyer, Palgrave 2017).

She is current Chair of the Editorial Board of Australian Historical Studies, Australia's oldest history journal; and a past member of the Executive Committees for the Australian Historical Association, the Australian & New Zealand Law and History Society, and the International Association of Australian Studies. She was a member of the ARC College of Experts 2020-2024. She has been part of collaborative research teams working with collecting institutions in South Australia (including State Library of South Australia, the South Australian Museum and History Trust SA) to produce public digital resources on South Australia's colonial histories.

She has been the Keith Cameron Chair in Australian History at University College Dublin (2018), and the Australia Japan Foundation Visiting Professor in Australian Studies at the University of Tokyo (2024-2025).

She is available to supervise projects on Australian colonial history, comparative settler colonial histories, Indigenous/settler colonial relations, the relationship of Indigenous people to colonial law and policing, the history and memory of frontier violence, and cultures of historical memory and memorialisation.

  • Awards and Achievements

    Date Type Title Institution Name Country Amount
    2020 Award 2020 ANZLHS Annual Prize for Legal History Australian & NZ Law & History Society Australia -
    2019 Fellowship Tom Stannage Fellowship University of Western Australia Australia -
    2018 Award Law and Society Association of Australia and New Zealand Publication Prize for outstanding contribution to law and society Law and Society Association of Australia and New Zealand Australia -
    2018 Nomination Australian Historical Studies Patricia Grimshaw Prize for significant contribution to Australian history Australian Historical Studies Australia -
    2008 Distinction Shortlisted, Chief Minister's Northern Territory History Book Award for In the Name of the Law (Wakefield Press, 2007) - - -
    2008 Distinction Honourable Mention, John Barrett Awards for Australian Studies, 'Practices of Violence/Myths of Creation', Journal of Australian Studies vol 32 - - -
    2005 Teaching Award Executive Dean of the Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences' Award for Teaching Excellence - - -
    2002 Distinction High Commendation, Stephen Cole the Elder Award for Excellence in Teaching - - -
    2002 Award Winner, John Tragenza National Community History Award for Fatal Collisions (Wakefield Press, 2001) - - -
    2002 Distinction Shortlisted, NSW Premier's Award for Fatal Collisions (Wakefield Press, 2001) - - -
  • Research Interests

  • Journals

    Year Citation
    2013 Nettelbeck, A. (2013). Equals of the white man: Prosecution of settlers for violence against aboriginal subjects of the crown, colonial Western Australia. Law and History Review, 31(2), 355-390.
    DOI Scopus13 WoS15
    2013 Nettelbeck, A. (2013). The severest provocation. Criminal Law Journal, 37(4), 267-268.
    2012 Nettelbeck, A., & Foster, R. (2012). Food and governance on the frontiers of colonial Australia and Canada's North West Territories. Aboriginal History, 36, 21-41.
    WoS4
    2012 Nettelbeck, A., & Foster, R. (2012). "As fine a body of men": how the Canadian Mountie brought law and order to the memory of the Australian frontier. Journal of Australian Studies, 36(2), 125-140.
    DOI Scopus2 WoS5
    2012 Nettelbeck, A. (2012). Remembering indigenous dispossession in the national museum: the National Museum of Australia and the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Time & Society, 21(1), 39-54.
    DOI Scopus6 WoS2
    2012 Nettelbeck, A. (2012). 'A Halo of Protection': colonial protectors and the principle of aboriginal protection through punishment. Australian Historical Studies, 43(3), 396-411.
    DOI Scopus23 WoS18
    2011 Nettelbeck, A. (2011). The Australian frontier in the museum. Journal of Social History, 44(4 Sp Iss), 1115-1130.
    DOI Scopus8 WoS11
    2010 Nettelbeck, A., & Foster, R. (2010). Commemorating Foundation: a study in regional historical memory. History Australia, 7(3), 1-18.
    DOI Scopus8
    2010 Nettelbeck, A., & Foster, R. (2010). Colonial judiciaries, Aboriginal protection and South Australia's policy of punishing 'with exemplary severity'. Australian Historical Studies, 41(3), 319-336.
    DOI Scopus17 WoS17
    2010 Nettelbeck, A., & Smandych, R. (2010). Policing indigenous peoples on two colonial Frontiers: Australia's mounted police and Canada's North-West Mounted Police. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 43(2), 356-375.
    DOI Scopus49 WoS40
    2009 Foster, R., & Nettelbeck, A. (2009). The rule of law on the South Australian frontier. Legal History, 13(2), 23-53.
    2008 Nettelbeck, A. (2008). Practices of violence/myths of creation: Mounted Constable Willshire and the cultural logic of settler nationalism. Journal of Australian Studies, 32(1), 5-17.
    DOI WoS1
    2008 Nettelbeck, A. (2008). The transfigured body and the ethical turn in australian illness memoir. Journal of Medical Humanities, 29(3), 163-172.
    DOI Scopus4 WoS3 Europe PMC1
    2007 Nettelbeck, A. (2007). Contact history, social memory and the construction of White belonging. ACH: The Journal of the History of Culture in Australia, 26, 195-209.
    2007 Nettelbeck, A., & Foster, R. (2007). Reading the elusive letter of the law: policing the South Australian frontier. Australian Historical Studies, 38(130), 296-311.
    DOI Scopus6 WoS4
    2007 Nettelbeck, A. (2007). Forgotten but not gone: refractions of the Great Australian Silence. Australian Studies, 19(2), 103-130.
    2004 Nettelbeck, A. (2004). Writing and remembering frontier conflict : the rule of law in 1880s central Australia. Aboriginal History, 28, 190-206.
    2001 Nettelbeck, A. (2001). The Making of Local Legend : Accounts of the Australian Maria Massacre. Australian Studies, 16(1), 63-79.
    2001 Nettelbeck, A. (2001). Writing 'Incommensurable Histories': Caryl Phillips's The Nature of Blood. CRNLE Journal (Centre for Research in the New Literatures in English), 2001, 115-121.
    2001 Nettelbeck, A. (2001). South Australian settler memoirs. Journal of Australian Studies, 68(68), 97-104.
    DOI Scopus4
    2001 Nettelbeck, A. (2001). 'Seeking to spread the truth': Christina Smith and the South Australian frontier. Australian Feminist Studies, 16(34), 83-90.
    DOI Scopus6 WoS8
    1999 Nettelbeck, A. (1999). Presenting Aboriginal Women's Life Narratives. New Literatures Review, 34, 43-56.
    1999 Nettelbeck, A. (1999). Mythologising Frontier. Journal of Australian Studies, 61, 75-82(article)&224-226(notes).
  • Books

    Year Citation
    2012 Foster, R., & Nettelbeck, A. (2012). Out of the silence: the history and memory of South Australia's frontier wars. Australia: Wakefield Press.
    2007 Nettelbeck, A., & Foster, R. (2007). In the name of the law - William Willshire and the policing of the Australian frontier. Australia: Wakefield Press.
    2001 Foster, R., Hosking, R., & Nettelbeck, A. (2001). Fatal collisions: The South Australian frontier and the violence of memory. 17 RUNDLE STREET KENT TOWN SA 5067: Wakefield Press.
    1998 Nettelbeck, A., & Kerr, H. (Eds.) (1998). The Space Between: Australian Women Writing Fictocriticism. University of Western Australia Press.
  • Book Chapters

    Year Citation
    2014 Nettelbeck, A. (2014). Queen Victoria's Aboriginal subjects: a late colonial Australian case study. In M. Tonkin, M. Treagus, M. Seys, & S. Crozier De Rosa (Eds.), Changing the Victorian subject (pp. 21-35). Australia: University of Adelaide Press.
    2013 Nettelbeck, A., & Foster, R. (2013). On the trail of the march west: The NWMP in Western Canadian historical memory. In A. Perry, E. Jones, & L. Morton (Eds.), Place and Replace: Essays on Western Canada (1 ed., pp. 76-92). Canada: University of Manitoba Press.
    2012 Foster, R., & Nettelbeck, A. (2012). Proclamation Day and the rise and fall of South Australian nationalism. In R. Foster, & P. Sendziuk (Eds.), Turning Points: Chapters in South Australian History (1 ed., pp. 48-62). Australia: Wakefield Press.
    2010 Nettelbeck, A., & Foster, R. (2010). The Central Australian frontier and the struggle to remember. In L. Burke (Ed.), The Politics of Cultural Memory (pp. 182-198). United Kingdom: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
    2010 Nettelbeck, A. (2010). The Illness Community: Uses of Community in Australian Health Services, Support Resources and Illness Memoir. In V. Kalitzkus, & P. Twohig (Eds.), The Fallible Body: Narratives of Health, Illness & Disease (pp. 3-12). Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press.
    2001 Nettelbeck, A. (2001). Rufus River massacre. In The Wakefield Companion to South Australian History (pp. 469). Kent Town, S.A.: Wakefield Press.
    2001 Nettelbeck, A. (2001). Maria Massacre. In The Wakefield Companion to South Australian History (pp. 233-332). Kent Town S.A.l: Wakefield Press.
    1999 Nettelbeck, A. (1999). Introduction. In An Australian girl, 1999 (Vol. 41, pp. vii-xxxi). Oxford University Press.
    DOI
    1999 Nettelbeck, A. (1999). Elizabeth Jolley's The Well and the Female Gothic. In eXtensions essays in English studies from Shakespeare to the Spice Girls (pp. 89-99). Wakefield Press.
    1998 Nettelbeck, A. (1998). Notes Towards an Introduction. In The Space Between: Australian Women Writing Fictocriticism (pp. 1-18). University of Western Australia Press.
  • Conference Papers

    Year Citation
    2004 Foster, R., & Nettelbeck, A. (2004). 'White indigeneity' in the life and writings of constable William Willshire. In S. Schech, & B. Wadham (Eds.), Conference Proceedings for the 'Placing Race and Localising Whiteness' Conference 2004 (pp. 133-142). Flinders University, South Australia: Flinders University Press.

2025-27 ARC Discovery (DP250101888). CIs Amanda Nettelbeck, Carolyn Holbrook, Leah Lui-Chivizhe, Ben Mountford, Emma Robertson, ‘Derailing Empire: A Transcultural and Gendered History’ ($461,000)

2020-23 ARC Linkage (LP190100561). CIs Robert Foster, Amanda Nettelbeck, John Carty. Research Associate Skye Kricchauff. Linkage Partners History Trust SA, State Library SA, South Australian Museum, State Records SA, Reconciliation SA. 'Reconciling with the Frontier: Accounting for Colonial Conflict ($330,000) 

2020-23 ARC Discovery (DP200200088). CIs Jane Lydon, Amanda Nettelbeck, Melissa Miles, Fay Anderson. 'Envisioning Australian Citizenship: Australian Histories and Global Connections' ($501,000) 

2015-18 ARC Discovery (DP150100914). CIs Lyndall Ryan, Amanda Nettelbeck, Anna Johnston, Penny Edmonds, Vicky Haskins, PI Angela Wanhalla. ‘Intimacy and Violence in Anglo Pacific Rim Settler Colonial Societies’ ($500,360)

2014-16  ARC Discovery (DP140103049). CI Amanda Nettelbeck. ‘Protection and Punishment: networks of indigenous governance in colonial Australia 1837-1911’ ($164,000)

2015     ARC LIEF (LE150100051). CIs G Greenleaf; M Finnane; J Nielsen; W Swain; A Wells; A Genovese; T Josev; R Reynolds; S Dorsett; S Ailwood; M Sainsbury; A Mowbray; C Bond; A Stuhmcke; L Ford; M Stuckey; L Certoma; J Williams; G Appleby; B Kercher; C Kelly; P Handford; M Lunney; A Twomey; M Adams; J JonesS Petrow; A Nettelbeck; W Prest. ‘Australasian Legal History Library Stage II’ ($410,000)

2012     ARC LIEF (LE120100062). CIs A.Mowbray, G.Greenleaf, L.Ford, A.Nettelbeck, R.Grantham, A. Twomey, M.Finnane, J.Williams, A.Buck, B.Kercher, M.Adams, R.Foster, S. Petrow, C.Bond, S.Dorsett, M.Lunney, P.McDermott, W.Prest, J.Jones, H.Irving, M. Otlowski, N. Peterson. ‘Australasian Legal History Library’ ($330,000)

2010-12  ARC Discovery (DP1095363). CIs Amanda Nettelbeck & Robert Foster, PIs R. Smandych (University of Manitoba) and L. Knafla (University of Calgary), ‘The Rule of Law in History and Memory: Australian and Canadian settler frontiers’ ($195,000)

2005-07 ARC Linkage (LP0560550). CIs Robert Foster & Amanda Nettelbeck, Linkage Partners SA Museum & State Records, ‘Frontier Conflict in History and Memory’ ($210,000)

Date Course Title Course Level / Code
2020 Protecting the Peace Level 3 HIST3055
2019 Violence in the Modern Western World Level 2 HIST2090

 

  • Current Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)

    Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name
    2025 Co-Supervisor Keeping House: The Role of House Museums in Bridging Domestic Heritage and Museological Practice in Australia. Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Miss Lauren Elizabeth Wallis
    2025 Principal Supervisor ‘All Wrongs to Right, All Rights to Share’: South Australia’s Single Taxers and the Politics of the Great Depression. Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Mr Tyler Robert Parsons
    2024 Co-Supervisor Remembering the Makassar in western and northwestern Arnhem Land, Australia Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Oscar Chadwick-Pask
    2024 Co-Supervisor Reconceptualising the History of Human-Saltwater Crocodile relations in Arnhem Land  Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Kerri Elisabeth Meehan
  • Past Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)

    Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name
    2020 - 2024 Principal Supervisor ‘This subject will not go away’: Memorialising frontier conflict in South Australia Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr David Charles Milazzo
    2020 - 2024 Principal Supervisor Indigenous Civic Literacy: A Comparative History of Education in Australia and New Zealand Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Julian Rawiri Kusabs
    2019 - 2023 Co-Supervisor Fashion Diplomacy at the Court of Henry VIII Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Dr Grace Waye-Harris
    2019 - 2023 Co-Supervisor Antichrist in the Indies: Anti-Catholic Discourse and English responses to Roman Catholic Missions in the Americas and East Asia, c. 1558-1660 Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Mr Alexander Timothy Pring
    2015 - 2018 Co-Supervisor The Administration of Justice in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands: A Front Line in Tensions between Traditional Aboriginal Culture and the Criminal Law Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Peter Gilbert Whellum
    2015 - 2018 Co-Supervisor Volume 1: Belly of the Beast
    Volume 2: The Road to Nowhere: Myths of Homeland and Expulsion in Australian Road Stories
    Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Liz Allan
    2014 - 2017 Co-Supervisor Volume 1: 'Irrelevant Bodies'. Volume 2: 'Violent, Antagonistic, Morally Ambiguous: Anti-Heroines and the Female Gothic' Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Miss Michelle Caroline Jager
    2013 - 2015 Co-Supervisor The interplay of trauma and the sublime in four fictions by Ian McEwan Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Mr Steven Thomas Havis
    2013 - 2016 Co-Supervisor The Life and Work of George Isaacs Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Anne Elizabeth Black
    2013 - 2016 Principal Supervisor Representations of Belonging in Asian Australian Writing Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Miss Wan Nur Madiha Ramlan
    2013 - 2021 Co-Supervisor The Violet Hours Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Miss Annabel Edwina Evitts
    2012 - 2018 Co-Supervisor More than Just a Roof over Their Heads: Migrant Accommodation Centres and the Assimilation of "New Australians" 1947-1960 Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Dr Karen Agutter
    2012 - 2018 Co-Supervisor For The Sentiment: Emotions as Practice in the Development of Eighteenth-Century British Abolitionism Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Stefania Chiro
    2011 - 2014 Co-Supervisor The Writer as Mapmaker - Volume One: The Journeyman Years - Volume Two: Mapping a Postmodern World Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Mr Benjamin Alexander Crisp
    2011 - 2017 Co-Supervisor Self-Writing in the Age of the Internet: A Novel and Exegesis Vol 1 & Vol 2 Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Connor Tomas O'Brien
    2010 - 2015 Principal Supervisor The Many Lives of Douglas Mawson & Negotiating Biographical Boundaries Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Dr Emma Louise McEwin
    2009 - 2015 Co-Supervisor Unintelligible: A Memoir of Unassumable Inheritance
    Volume 1 Creative work
    Volume 2 Exegesis After-words: Postmemory and writing perpetration
    Master of Arts Master Part Time Dr Anna Szorenyi
    2007 - 2008 Co-Supervisor 'The White Distance', a Novel and Reframing the Past for the Present: Writing 'The White Distance' Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Dr Susan Jane Errington
    2003 - 2006 Co-Supervisor Gifts from Catherine Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Kaye Cleave
    2002 - 2007 Co-Supervisor Critical Fictions/Fictional Critiques: Angela Carter and Decadent Iconographies of Woman Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Dr Maggie Tonkin
    2000 - 2005 Principal Supervisor A Critical Edition Of William Cawthorne's The Kangaroo Islanders Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time APrf Richard Hosking
    1999 - 2004 Principal Supervisor SIGNIFICANT SHADOWS Ethics and Affect in Australian Cross-Cultural Research Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Dr Robyn Dunlop
  • Committee Memberships

    Date Role Committee Institution Country
    2020 - ongoing Member Australian Historical Association Executive Committee University of Adelaide Australia
    2018 - ongoing Vice-President Australian & New Zealand Law and History Society - Australia
    2015 - 2017 Chair School of Humanities research committee University of Adelaide Australia
    2015 - ongoing Member Barbara Kidman Women’s Fellowship selection committee University of Adelaide Australia
    2015 - 2017 Representative Faculty of Arts Research Committee University of Adelaide Australia
    2015 - ongoing Member Research Centre for the History of Violence University of Newcastle Australia
    2014 - ongoing Board Member International Association of Australian Studies - Australia
    2013 - 2015 Member School of Humanities Executive Committee University of Adelaide Australia
    2010 - 2012 Co-Founder Faculty of Arts Postgraduate Coursework committee University of Adelaide Australia
    2006 - 2012 Member Executive Dean’s Advisory Committee and Faculty Board (Faculty of Arts) University of Adelaide Australia
    2006 - 2009 Co-Founder Faculty of Arts Internationalisation Committee University of Adelaide Australia
  • Editorial Boards

    Date Role Editorial Board Name Institution Country
    2019 - ongoing Board Member Australian Historical Studies University of Adelaide Australia
    2015 - ongoing Board Member Australian History Series Anthens Press United Kingdom
    2014 - ongoing Board Member Law and History - Australia

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