Researcher biography

BA (Hons), University of Sydney; MA, Queen’s University, Canada; PhD, University of East Anglia, UK

Emeritus Professor Graeme Turner is the founding Director of the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies (2000-2012), and one of the leading figures in cultural and media studies in Australia and internationally. His research has covered a wide range of forms and media – literature, film, television, radio, new media, journalism, and popular culture. He has published 25 books with national and international academic presses; the most recent are (with David Rowe and Emma Waterton) Making Culture: Commercialisation, Transnatonalism and the State of ‘Nationing’ in Contemporary Australia (Routledge, 2018), Reinventing the Media (Routledge, 2016), (with Jinna Tay) Television Histories in Asia: Issues and Contexts, (Routledge, 2015), and (with Anna Cristina Pertierra) Locating Television: Zones of Consumption (Routledge, 2013). His work has been translated into 11 languages. A past president of the Australian Academy of the Humanities (2004-2007), an ARC Federation Fellow (2006-2011) and Convenor of the ARC-funded Cultural Research Network (2006-2010), Graeme Turner has had considerable engagement with federal research and higher education policy. He is only the second humanities scholar to serve on the Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council.

In collaboration with Dr Kylie Brass, Graeme Turner is the author of a major research monograph prepared for the Department of Industry and the Academies of Humanities and Social Sciences, Mapping the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences in Australia (2014). Recently, he has been a member of the Technical Working Group which developed the Engagement and Impact assessment process, and he chaired the Humanities and Creative Arts Panel for ERA in 2015 and 2018. Graeme Turner’s current research projects include studies of the growth of transnational video streaming and its impact on Australian media, and the changing condition of the relation between the media and the democratic state in the post-broadcast era. A retrospective collection of his published essays was published in December 2019.
 

Research Interests

  • Television and digital media
  • Celebrity studies
  • Nation and popular culture
  • Cultural and media studies theory

Recent Research Grants

2014 - 2016

ARC Discovery Grant 'Transforming Cultural Fields', lead CI Tony Bennett, with David Rowe, Gregory Noble, Emma Waterton, Fred Myers, Deborah Stevenson, Modesto Gayo,  Timothy Rowse, and David Carter, $735 050

2011 - 2013

ARC Discovery Grant 'Locating Television: an international study of the changing socio-cultural functions of television', with APD Anna Cristina Pertierra, $270 000.

2008 - 2011

ARC Discovery Grant 'A People's History of Australian Television', lead CI John Hartley, with Alan McKee, Chris Healy, and Sue Turnbull, $120 000.

2008 - 2011

ARC Federation Fellowship 'Post broadcast television and the construction of community', $1 500 000.

 
A list of Graeme Turner's engagement activities can be found here.

Find out more information on how to apply for a Research Higher Degree (MPhil or PhD). For all enquiries regarding research supervision, please contact us.

Areas of research