Professor Bruce Scates

Bruce Scates (born Sunshine, Victoria, 1957) is a historian, novelist and documentary film producer.  Prior to joining the Australian National University, he held the Chair of History and Australian Studies at Monash University and was the Director of the National Centre for Australian Studies.  He has held teaching  positions at the University of New South Wales, the University of Auckland, Murdoch University and the University of Melbourne.

A Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, Bruce’s many publications include Return to Gallipoli, A New Australia, the Cambridge History of the Shrine of Remembrance and the recently republished Women and the Great War (co authored with Raelene Frances). The last of these won the NSW Premier’s History Award. Professor Scates is the lead author of Anzac Journeys (also published by Cambridge University Press and short listed in the Ernest Scott Prize for 2014) and a contributor to the Cambridge History of the First World War.  He has also written a novel, On Dangerous Ground, retracing CEW Bean’s steps across Gallipoli.  Described by Tom Kennelly as ‘eloquent and engrossing’, it was listed on Australia’s first national curriculum for literature, set on university courses in Germany, Turkey and Australia, and awarded special commendation in the Christina Stead Awards.  Other titles include The One Hundred Stories: A History of the First World War (with Rebecca Wheatley and Laura James) and The Last Battle: A History of Soldier Settlement in Australia (with Melanie Oppenheimer). 
 
Committed to communicating history to the widest possible audience, Bruce has devised a 12 part documentary in collaboration with the National Museum of Australia and co-presents the same with his colleague from Monash University, Dr Susan Carland.  He played a major role in the production of the award winning ABC mini series ‘The War that Changed Us’, his work on pilgrimage was featured in an ABC Compass program and his study of frontier violence profiled in the first report of the Council for National Reconciliation.  Bruce was a historical consultant to the new interpretive centre at the Australian National Memorial at Villers Bretonneux, advised the National Museum of Australia and the National Anzac Centre on the content of their galleries and served on a host of high-level state and national committees advising government on the history of commemoration and military heritage.  This engagement with cultural institutions has proved highly influential: Bruce’s submissions to government agencies led to the mass digitisation of repatriation records, opening up a vast archive to a global community and effecting a sea change in how the Great War will be remembered. 

Bruce is a frequent contributor to writers’ festivals, history events and diverse public forums.  In 2005, he delivered the Tenth Annual History Lecture at Government House, Sydney, marking the 90th anniversary of the Gallipoli Landing; in 2008 he delivered the Sir Keith Sinclair address at the University of Auckland on Australia’s and New Zealand's shared experience of war; he has also delivered the Alan Martin and Russel Ward lectures on forgotten aspects of Australia’s military past.  Many of these addresses have been broadcast and Bruce’s interviews have been podcast by the ABC (Hindsight, Margaret Crosby), the BBC, and the Guardian.  In 2015, he delivered both the Menzies Lecture in London and the Annual History Lecture in Sydney.  Bruce Scates has been a keynote speaker at several international forums and presented his work at the Sorbonne and UNESCO sponsored forums.  An advocate of teaching innovation and public engagement, he led the development of a MOOC (Mass Open Online Courseware) examining the fraught memory of war.  https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/ww1-stories and devised a series of digital narratives for public exhibition.  He has also presented keynote addresses National conferences of the History Teachers Association of Australia.