Faculty of Arts and Education

School of Humanities and Social Sciences


   Prof. David Walker

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Position BHP Billiton Chair of Australian Studies (Peking University)
Email david.walker@deakin.edu.au
Area School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Phone N/A
Campus Burwood
Role and profile David Walker is Professor of Australian Studies at Deakin University. He has research interests in Australian social and cultural history. He is currently researching Australian perceptions of Asia from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. The first of three volumes on this subject was published under the title Anxious Nation: Australia and the Rise of Asia, 1850 to 1939 by University of Queensland Press in 1999. The book won the Ernest Scott prize for History in 2001. Anxious Nation has been translated into Chinese and published by China Renmin University Press, Beijing, in 2009. An Indian edition published by SSS publishing, New Delhi, was published in the same year. Professor Walker has extensive experience in the development of Australian Studies programs in PRChina, India, Japan and Indonesia and held the Distinguished Visiting Chair of Australian Studies at the University of Copenhagen in their 2010 Spring semester. He is a Visiting Professor in the School of Foreign Studies, Renmin University, Beijing. His latest book titled Not Dark Yet, examines sight, memory, family and history and has been published by Giramondo Publishing in 2011. Essays on this subject have appeared in Heat Magazine. Professor Walker is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

My Home page


Areas of Supervision


  • Australian perceptions of Asia
  • Australian publishing history
  • Late 19th and 20th century Australian cultural history

  • Qualifications

    BA (Hons) Adel., PhD ANU

    Research link View Deakin associated research data
    Additional URLs

    'Distinguished Visiting Chair of Australian Studies' at the University of Copenhagen

    Not dark yet - A personal history

    Deakin Professor named inaugural BHP Billiton Chair of Australian Studies at Peking University

    Deakin University acknowledges the traditional land owners of present campus sites.

    22nd April 2013