Dr Karen Fox
Areas of expertise
- Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander History 210301
- Australian History (Excl. Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander History) 210303
- Biography 210304
- Maori History 210309
- New Zealand History 210311
- Culture, Gender, Sexuality 200205
Research interests
Karen's research and supervision interests include
- famous lives, reputations, and biographies;
- media and cultural history, especially about representations of gender and race;
- women’s, gender, and feminist history;
- comparative and transnational history of settler societies, particularly Australia and New Zealand;
- political and legal history, particularly relating to issues of gender and race;
- cross-cultural encounters, colonialism, and imperialism;
- Aboriginal Australian and Maori history;
- nineteenth- and twentieth-century Australian and New Zealand history.
Biography
Karen Fox is a research fellow in the National Centre of Biography and a research editor for the Australian Dictionary of Biography. Karen joined the NCB in 2011, after completing her PhD at the Australian National University and her MA at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. Her PhD thesis was a study of the shifting ways in which ideas about race, gender, and nation were reflected and constructed in print media depictions of prominent Aboriginal and Maori women during the second half of the twentieth century. Her MA thesis was a history of knighthoods and damehoods in New Zealand since 1917, with particular emphasis on the awarding of titles to women.
Karen’s research interests include Australian and New Zealand history, imperial and colonial history, gender and feminist history, media history, the history of fame and celebrity, and biography and life writing. She has taught Australian and imperial history and biography at the Australian National University, and her research has appeared in national and international journals, including the Australian Journal of Politics and History, the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, History Australia, and the Women’s History Review. Karen has two current major research projects, a history of the Australian honours system and a history of fame in Australia.
Current teaching (2020):
HIST8011 Writing Biography (member of teaching team)
Researcher's projects
Karen is currently writing a history of imperial and national honours in Australia, exploring the transformation of the honours system from an instrument of imperial unity to a national institution rewarding service and achievement in a uniquely Australian mode. The project emphasises issues of gender, race, and class; the evolving nature of Australia’s national identity; and the nation’s imperial history and post-imperial inheritance. She is also interested in the transnational and comparative history of imperial honours, and has researched the use and abandonment of imperial honours in other settler societies, especially New Zealand and Canada.
Karen is fascinated by questions of significance and reputation in the representation of famous lives, and is also developing a major research project on the history of fame, celebrity, and heroism in Australia.
Publications
- Fox, K 2019, 'The Cultural Journeys of Dictionaries of Biography', in Karen Fox (ed.), 'True Biographies of Nations?': The Cultural Journeys of Dictionaries of National Biography, ANU Press, Canberra, Australia, pp. 1pp-18pp.
- Fox, K, ed., 2019, 'True Biographies of Nations?' The Cultural Journeys of Dictionaries of National Biography, ANU Press, Canberra, Australia.
- Fox, K 2018, 'White, Sir Frederick William (Fred) (1905-1994)', Australian Dictionary of Biography (Online), vol. Online.
- Fox, K 2018, 'Heroes, Legends and Divas: Framing famous Lives in Australia', in Paul Longley Arthur (ed.), Migrant nation : Australian culture, society and identity, Anthem Press, Australia, pp. 212-234pp.
- Fox, K & Furphy, S 2017, 'The Politics of National Recognition: Honouring Australians in a Post-Imperial World', Australian Journal of Politics and History, vol. 63, no. 1, pp. 93-111.
- Fox, K 2015, 'Australian Legal Dynasties: The Stephens and the Streets', Australian Dictionary of Biography (Online).
- Fox, K 2014, 'An 'imperial hangover'? Royal Honours in Australia, Canada and New Zealand, 1917-2009', Britain and the World, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 6-27.
- Fox, K 2014, 'Ornamentalism, Empire and Race: Indigenous Leaders and Honours in Australia and New Zealand', The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, vol. 42, no. 3, pp. 486-502.
- Fox, K 2013, ''A pernicious system of caste and privilege' Egalitarianism and official honours in Australia, New Zealand and Canada', History Australia, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 202-226.
- Fox, K 2013, 'A City and its People: Canberra in the ADB', Australian Dictionary of Biography (Online), vol. 1, no. 1, pp. online.
- Fox, K 2012, ''Housewives' Leader Awarded MBE': Women, Leadership and Honours in Australia', in Rosemary Francis, Patricia Grimshaw and Ann Standish (ed.), Seizing the Initiative Australian Women Leaders in Politics, Workplaces and Communities, University of Melbourne, EScholarship Research Centre, pp. 171-184pp.
- Fox, K 2012, 'Globalising Indigeneity? Writing Indigenous Histories in a Transnational World', History Compass, vol. 10, no. 6, pp. 423-439.
- Fox, K 2012, 'Representing Lives', in Keir Wotherspoon and Erik Ropers (ed.), Written into History - Celebrating Fifty Years of the Melbourne Historical Journal, 1961-2011, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, pp. 425-426.
- Fox, K 2012, 'An Encounter With The White World of Wimbledon: Evonne Goolagong and Representations of Race and Gender in Australia', in Keir Wotherspoon and Erik Ropers (ed.), Written into History - Celebrating Fifty Years of the Melbourne Historical Journal, 1961-2011, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, pp. 427-442.
- Fox, K 2012, 'Knights and Dames in Australia', Australian Dictionary of Biography, http://adb.anu.edu.au/essay/2
- Fox, K 2012, 'Matriarchs, Moderates and Militants: Press Representations of Indigenous Women in Australia and New Zealand**', Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in the Asia and the Pacific, no. 28, 13pp, http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue28/fox.htm
- Fox, K 2011, Maori and Aboriginal Women in the Public Eye: representing difference, 1950-2000, ANU ePress, Canberra Australia.
- Fox, K 2010, 'Grand Dames and Gentle Helpmeets: women and the royal honours system in New Zealand, 1917-2000', Women's History Review, vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 375-393.
- Fox, K 2009, 'Rosalie Kunoth-Monks and the making of Jedda', Aboriginal History, vol. 33, no. 2009, pp. 77-95.
- Fox, K 2008, 'Oodgeroo Noonuccal: media snapshots of a controversial life', in Peter Read, Frances Peters-Little, Anna Haebich (ed.), Indigenous Biography and Autobiography, ANU ePress, Canberra, Australia, pp. 57-68.
- Fox, K 2007, 'An Encounter with the White world of Wimbledon: Evonne Goolagong and Representations of Race and Gender in Australia', Melbourne Historical Journal, vol. 35, pp. 35-49.
- Fox, K & Pickles, K 2005, 'Success in Their Own Right: Dames on Top of the New Zealand Royal Honours System, 1917-2000', History Now, vol. 11, no. 1 & 2, pp. 24-30.