Historian James Belich to return to Victoria

MEDIA RELEASE

14 September 2007

Award-winning historian James Belich to return to Victoria

Renowned New Zealand historian and prize-winning author James Belich is to join Victoria University's Stout Research Centre as a Professor of History.

Victoria Vice-Chancellor Professor Pat Walsh says Professor Belich's appointment will further strengthen the University's history programme – ranked the highest among New Zealand universities in the most recent Performance-Based Research Funding (PBRF) exercise.

"I am delighted to see Professor Belich join the University's leading scholars in New Zealand history, literature, Maori and Pacific studies. At Victoria he will have the opportunity to lead collaborative international research projects, and the access to funding to do so."

Currently based at the University of Auckland, Professor Belich will take up his new role in February. It is a return to the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences for the historian who left Victoria as a Reader in History in 1996 after almost ten years lecturing and researching.

Stout Research Centre Director Professor Lydia Wevers says she warmly welcomes Professor Belich's arrival. His most recent work on the British World and imperial history, the basis of a book soon to be published by Oxford University Press, fits particularly with Victoria's strengths.

Born in Wellington, Professor Belich graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in 1978, followed by a Master of Arts in 1979, both from Victoria. As a Rhodes Scholar he went on to Oxford University and graduated with a Doctor of Philosophy in 1981.

In 1987 Professor Belich won the international Trevor Reese Memorial Prize for historical scholarship for The New Zealand Wars, the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict, a book based on his DPhil thesis that has sold more than 30,000 copies. It was later turned into a major television documentary series screened in 1998.

Based on his Masters thesis, I Shall Not Die: Titokowaru's War, won the Adam Award for outstanding contribution to New Zealand literature 1989-1990. His two-volume work A History of the New Zealanders, consisting of Making Peoples (1996) and Paradise Reforged (2001) is internationally acclaimed.

The Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies was established in 1984 to encourage scholarly inquiry into New Zealand society, history and culture, and to provide a focus for the collegial atmosphere and exchange of ideas which enrich the quality of research.

ENDS

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