Dr Kate Ariotti is an ARC DECRA Fellow in the School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry at the University of Queensland. Her research examines the social and cultural impacts of war in Australia. She has published on wartime captivity and the experiences of Australian prisoners of war – including the 2018 book Captive Anzacs: Australian POWs of the Ottomans during the First World War (Cambridge University Press), which was nominated for the inaugural Les Carlyon Literary Award – as well as the ways in which Australians have historically remembered and commemorated wars. In 2017 she edited with Dr James Bennett Australians and the First World War: Local-Global Connections and Contexts (Palgrave).
Her current ARC-funded project ‘Between Death and Commemoration: An Australian History of the War Corpse’ will provide the first comprehensive account of the changing policies, practices and attitudes that have shaped the treatment of the physical remains of Australian war dead between the First World War and recent wars in the Middle East (1915-2015). This project will provide a valuable new perspective on the realities of Australian participation in war and a critical understanding of the place of death in war in the Australian past and present.
Kate teaches 19th and 20th century Australian history, and supervises both honours and postgraduate students working on research projects within this rich field. Several of her students have won prestigious national prizes for their work.
Kate has been a participant in several writer’s festivals, public symposia, and museum exhibitions. Before commencing her position at the University of Queensland, Kate worked as a Historian in the Military History Section of the Australian War Memorial and, most recently, in the School of Humanities and Social Science at the University of Newcastle.