CASS Executive - Professor Howard Morphy
Biography | Contact Details | Single Author Books | CD-Roms | Edited Books | Major Reports | Journal Articles (since 1999) | Book Chapters since 1999 | Grants |
Biography
Howard Morphy (BSc, MPhil London, PhD ANU, FASSA, FAAH, CIHA) is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Research School of Humanities at the Australian National University.
Prior to returning to the Australian National University in 1997, he held the chair in Anthropology at University College London. Before that he spent ten years as a curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford. He is an anthropologist of art and visual anthropologist having co- edited two of the main source books in the respective fields The Anthropology of Art: a Reader (2006, Blackwell’s, with Morgan Perkins) and Rethinking Visual Anthropology (1997, Yale University Press, with Marcus Banks).
He has written extensively on Australian Aboriginal art with a monograph of Yolngu Art, Ancestral Connections (Chicago 1991), a general survey Aboriginal Art (Phaidon, 1998) and most recently Becoming Art: Exploring Cross-Cultural Categories (Berg, 2007). He has also produced a pioneering multimedia biography The Art of Narritjin Maymuru with Pip Deveson and Katie Hayne (ANU epress 2005). He has conducted extensive fieldwork with the Yolngu people of Northern Australia, and collaborated on many films with Ian Dunlop of Film Australia and has curated many exhibitions including Yingapungapu at the National Museum of Australia. With Frances Morphy he helped prepare the Blue Mud Bay Native Title Claim which as a result of the 2008 High Court judgement recognised Indigenous ownership of the waters over the intertidal zone under the Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act.
His involvement in e-research and in the development of museum exhibitions reflects his determination to make humanities research as accessible as possible to wider publics and to close the distance between the research process and research outcomes.
In 2008 he was one of the organising committee of the major CIHA conference in Melbourne Crossing Cultures: conflict, migration, convergence.
1991 Ancestral Connections: Art and an Aboriginal System of Knowledge.
1998 Aboriginal Art.
2008 Becoming Art: Exploring Cross Cultural Categories
2005 (with Pip Deveson and Katie Hayne) The Art of Narritjin Maymuru. ANU E-Press in association with Buku Larrnggay Mulka, and Film
2006 (with Trevor Graham and Pip Deveson) Ceremony — The Djungguwan of
Edited Books
1981 (with C. Cooper, D. J. Mulvaney and N. Peterson), Aboriginal
1984 (with M. Charlesworth, D.
1988 (with E. Edwards)
1989 Animals into Art.
1992 (with L. Mowatt and P. Dransart), Basketmakers: Form and Meaning in Native American Basketry,
1997 (with G. A. Harrison) Human Adaptation (2nd edn).
1997 (With D. J. Mulvaney and A. Petch) My Dear Spencer: The Letters of F. J. Gillen to Baldwin Spencer.
1997 (with M. Banks) Rethinking Visual Anthropology.
1999 (with M. Smith Boles) Art from the Land: Dialogues with the Kluge–Ruhe Collection of Australian Aboriginal Art.
2000 (with John Mulvaney and Alison Petch) From the Frontier: Outback Letters to Baldwin Spencer. St Leonards: Allen and Unwin.
2000 (with Kate Flint) Culture Landscape and the Environment.
2005 (with Max Charlesworth and Francoise Dussart) Aboriginal Religions in
2006 (with Morgan Perkins), A Reader in the Anthropology of Art.
In press (with Michelle Hetherington), Discovering Cook’s Collections.
Major Reports
1981 (with F. Morphy) The
2004 An Anthropological Report on the Yolngu people of
Journal Articles since 1999
2008 ‘Art as a mode of Action: some problems with Gell’s Art and Agency’ Journal of Material Culture Vol 14 (1): 5-27.
2008 ‘Re-reading Ron Berndt: exploring the depths of his Yolngu ethnography’ Anthropological Forum Vol 19(1): 73-97
2007 ‘Creating Value, Adding Value, Maintaining Value: the Complexity of Aboriginal Art as Industry’ NAVA Quaterly 07,1:10-11
2006 'The Aesthetics of Communication and the Communication of Cultural Aesthetics: A Perspective on Ian Dunlop's Films of Aboriginal
2006 Morphy, H. and F. Morphy ‘Tasting the waters: discriminating identities in the waters of
2006 ‘The Practice of an Expert: Anthropology in Native Title’, Anthropological Forum, Vol. 16, No. 2, pp 135-51.
2005 ‘Style and Meaning: Abelam art through Yolngu Eyes’ RES 47 Spring ,209-230
2005 ‘Mutual Conversion? The
2002 Saltwater Country — paintings from Yirrkala. Art and
2001 Seeing Aboriginal art in the gallery. Humanities Research VII (1): 37-50.
1999 The use of anthropology in the Reeves Report. Indigenous Law Bulletin 4 (18): 13–15.
1999 Encoding the Dreaming: a theoretical framework for the analysis of representational processes in Australian Aboriginal art. Australian Archaeology 49, December: 13-22.
Book Chapters since 1999
2008 Morphy, F. and Morphy, H. ‘Afterword: demography and destiny’, in K. Glaskin, M. Tonkinson, Y. Musharbash and V. Burbank (eds), Mortality, Mourning and Mortuary Practices in Indigenous
2008 ‘Joyous maggots’: The symbolism of Yolngu mortuary rituals. In Melinda Hinkson and Jeremy Beckett (eds) Appreciation of Difference: WEH Stanner and Aboriginal Australia,
2008 The Laverty Collection: Exploring the qualities of Aboriginal art’ In (eds) Colin and Liz Laverty Beyond Sacred: Recent painting form
2007 ‘'The Aesthetics of Communication and the Communication of Cultural Aesthetics: A Perspective on Ian Dunlop's Films of Aboriginal Australia' In Beate Engelbrecht (ed) Memories of the Origins of Ethnographic Film.
2007 ‘Expressing Identity: Creativity in Yolngu Art’ In Lynne Seear and Julie Ewington Brought to Light II: Contemporary Australian Art 1966-2006 from the
2007 ‘The aesthetics of Eastern Arnhem Land art’ Hetti Perkins and Margie West (eds.) One Sun, One Moon
2007 ‘Anthropological theory and the multiple determinacy of the present’ In David Parkin and Stanley Ulijaszek (eds.) Holisitc Anthropology: Emergence and Convergence.
2007 (with Mary Eagle) ‘Three Creative Fellows’ In Mary Eagle (ed.) Three Creative Fellows: Sidney Nolan, Arthur Boyd and Narritjin Maymuru
2006 ‘Impossible to Ignore: Imants Tillers’ response to Aboriginal art’ In Deborah Hart (editor) Imants Tillers: one world many many visions National Gallery of
2006 Morphy, H and M. Perkins The Anthropology of Art: a Reflection on its History and Contemporary Practice’ In H. Morphy and M. Perkins (eds) (2005) The Anthropology of Art: a Reader: 1-32 Blackwells,
2006 ‘Aesthetics across time and place: an anthropological perspective on archaeology’ In Thomas Heyd and John Clegg (eds.) Aesthetics and Rock Art pp 51-60
2006 ‘From Dull to Brilliant: the Aesthetics of Spiritual Power among the Yolngu’ In H. Morphy and M. Perkins (eds) The Anthropology of Art: a Reader: 302-321 Oxford Blackwell (reprint of Morphy 1994).
2006 'Sites of Persuasion: Yingapungapu at
2006 ‘Djambawa Marawili’ in Charles Merewether Zones of Contact, 2006 Sydney Biennale p. 176
2006 ‘comment on Veronica Strang A happy coincidence? Symbiosis and synthesis in anthropological and indigenous knowledge’ Current Anthropology 47 (6): 996-7.
2006 ‘The Anthropology of art’ (Translated by Hayedeh Abdolhosseinzadeh) Quarterly of Khiyal - Number 17 - Spring 2006: 20-69
2005 ‘Yolngu Art and the Creativity of the Inside’ In Max Charlesworth and Françoise Dussart and Howard Morphy (eds.) Australian Aboriginal Religions pp.159-170
2004 ‘O przedstawianiu przodków’, In Monika Bakke (ed) Estetyka Aborygeow pp21-32
2004 Yingapungapu — rze´zba ziemna jako malowidfo na korze In Monika Bakke (ed) Estetyka Aborygeów pp 141-50
2004 Ogladajac sztuke aborygenskie: tozsamosc I autentycznosc pp. 151-65 In Monika Bakke (ed) Estetyka Aborygeów pp 21-32
2004 essays on Galuma Maymuru (pp. 84-5), Narritjin Maymuru(pp. 86-7), Mithinari Gurawiwi (pp. 54-5), Maw Mununggurr (pp. 96-6) In Hetti Perkins (ed) Tradition Today: Indigenous Art in Australia.
2003 Some concluding anthropological reflections. In W.S.F. Pickering (ed.), On Prayer.
2003 Synergies. In Howard Morphy and Nigel Lendon (eds.) Synergies.
2003 Imants Tillers and the dislocation of the avant-garde. In Howard Morphy and Nigel Lendon (eds.) Synergies.
2002 Dundiwuy Wanambi. In A. Gray (ed.), Australian Art in the National Gallery of
2002 Encountering Aborigines. In S. Thomas (ed.), The Encounter, 1802: Art of the Flinders and Baudin Voyages.
2002 Narritjin Maymuru. In A. Gray (ed.), Australian Art in the National Gallery of
2002 (with F Morphy) The spirit of the plains kangaroo. In T. Bonyhady and T.
2000 Elite art for cultural elites: adding value to Indigenous arts. In Claire Smith and Graeme K. Ward (eds), Indigenous Cultures in an Interconnected World.
2000 The Problem of Meaning and the Appreciation of Aboriginal Art. In Margie West (ed.), Transitions: 17 years of the National Aboriginal and
2000 (with Kate Flint) Introduction. In Kate Flint and Howard Morphy (eds), Culture Landscape and the Environment.
2000 Kinship, family and art. In Sylvia Kleinert and Margo Neale (eds.), The
2000 Art and Politics: the Bark Petition and the Burunga statement. In Sylvia Kleinert and Margo Neale (eds.) The
2000 Inner landscapes: the Fourth Dimension. In Sylvia Kleinert and Margo Neale (eds.) The
2000 (with Mandawuy Yunupingu) A balance in Knowledge — respecting difference. In Sylvia Kleinert and Margo Neale (eds.) The
2000 7 shorter contributions to Sylvia Kleinert and Margo Neale (eds.) The
1999 From hunting to mining: The history of human–environmental relations in eastern
1999 Life through art: Religion and society in eastern
1999 Manggalili art and the Promised Land. In L. Taylor (ed.), Painting the Land Story.
1999 The Reeves Report and the idea of the region. In J. C. Altman, F. Morphy, and T. Rowse (eds.), Land Rights at Risk? Evaluations of the Reeves Report.
1999 Australian Aboriginal concepts of time. In K. Lippincott (ed.), The Story of Time.
1999 (with John Mulvaney) Andrée Rosenfeld: an appreciation. Archaeology in
Grants
|
Year |
Grant | Amount |
| 1988 | News Limited, for |
£30,000 |
| 1991 | ESRC Research Project Award, landscape in |
£80,000 |
| 1992 | £15,000 | |
| 1993 | £20,000 | |
| 1994 | £15,000 | |
| 1994 | British Academic small research grant for archival research in |
£2,500 |
| 1994 | Leverhulme grant for catalogue of the original Pitt Rivers Collection | £80,000 |
| 1995 | ESRC Research Project Award, cross-cultural curation of photographs | £80,000 |
| 1997 | ARC Senior Research Fellowship for five years | $A400,000 |
| 1999 | ARC Major Award Narritjin Biography | $A103,000 |
| 2000 | ARC SPIRT for three years |
$A300,000 |
| 2003 | ARC Linkage for three years Indigenous Knowledge and Science | $A330,000 |
| 2003 | $A120,000 | |
| 2003 | ARC networks award | $A30,000 |
| 2005 | e-research award, collections search engine prototype | $A80,000 |
| 2006 | ARC Linkage for three years, |
$A900,000 |
| 2007 | ARC Discovery the Yolngu material record | $A400,000 |
| 2008 | ARC Linkage grant for three years | $A450,000 |
Contact Details
| Name: | Professor Howard Morphy |
| Position: | Director |
| Phone: | +61 2 6125 3395 |
| Email: | Howard.Morphy@anu.edu.au |
| Address: | Research School of Humanities Building 73, Old Canberra House The Australian National University ACT 0200 Australia |