Associate Professor Natalie Harkin

Associate Professor

College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

place Yungkurrinthi Trruku
GPO Box 2100, ADELAIDE, SA, 5001

I am a Narungga woman and poet from South Australia, and have worked in the Aboriginal higher education sector in South Australia since 1995. I joined Flinders Universtiy in 2014 with the Office of Indigenous Strategy and Engagement, and now with the Indigenous Studies team in the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.

My current ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) project centres on Aboriginal women's labour histories in SA, particularly domestic service stories and decolonising the state's colonial archive. This research engages 'archival-poetics' as creative praxis which also informs my contribution to the creative arts research/praxis of the Unbound Collective. My poetry has been installed and projected in exhibitions comprising text-object-video projection, including through a series of five 'Sovereign Acts' with Unbound: The National, the Museum of Contemporary Art, NSW (2019); Samstag Museum of Art (2019); Climate Century with Vitalstatistix (2017-2018); TARNANTHI, Art Gallery of South Australia (2015, 2019).

I have been an invited speaker to discuss my poetry at international and national conferences, including: University of California, Berkeley (keynote); Ottawa International Writers Festival, Canada (masterclass and speaker); The Emerging Writers Festival, Melbourne (keynote); Queensland Poetry Festival (panel, workshop and speaker); Poetry On The Move Festival, University of Canberra, and the Sydney Writer's Festival (panel). I have participated in creative residencies including with The University of Sydney; RMIT, Melbourne and Vitalstatistix, Port Adelaide. I have published in a number of poetry anthologies and literary journals including: Overland, Southerly, The Lifted Brow, Westerly, Wasafiri International Contemporary Writing, TEXT, Rabbit Journal for Nonfiction Poetry, and Cordite Poetry Review. I was guest-editor for Cordite Poetry Review's 89: DOMESTIC and my manuscripts include Dirty Words with Cordite Books in 2015, and Archival-Poetics with Vagabond Press in 2019.

Qualifications

Doctor of Philosophy, School of Communications, International Studies and Languages, University of South Australia

MA Environmental Studies, University of Adelaide

BA Communications Studies, Univerisity of South Australia

Honours, awards and grants

2020:  Archival-Poetics, Winner John Bray Poetry Award, Adelaide Festival Awards, Literature.

2020:  Archival-Poetics, Shortlisted Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, NSW Premier's Literary Awards

2020:  Archival-Poetics, Highly Commended Poetry Category, VIC Premier's Literary Awards.

2020:  Archival-Poetics, Australian Literary Society Gold Medal Longlist 2020

2019:  Archival-Poetics, Books of the Year 2019, John Hawke, Australian Book Review, No. 417.

2018:  ARC Discovery Early Career in Research Award.

2017:  Contributing author to Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, 39(3), awarded the international, Best Special Edition Award, Council of Editors of Learned Journals 2017.

2017:  Published in Best Australian Poems 2017, Black Inc., Melbourne.

2017:  Tina Kane Emergent Writer Award, Mildura Writers Festival.

2016:  Dirty Words, Shortlisted Indigenous Writer's Prize, NSW Premier's Literary Awards.

2016:  Published in Best Australian Poems 2016, Black Inc., Melbourne.

2016:  Dirty Words, Recommended List, Small Distribution Press, Berkeley, California, USA.

2015:  Dirty Words, Commended Anne Elder Poetry Award, The Fellowship of Australian Writers Victoria Inc., National Literary Awards.

Topic coordinator
AUST1004 Introduction to Aboriginal Studies