Professor Marilyn Lake FBA

Modern political history with a focus on the transnational history of settler colonialism - especially in Australia and the United States - with a focus on race relations and gender politics. Labour history and the politics of war commemoration.
Headshot of Professor Marilyn Lake FBA
Fellow type
International Fellow
Year elected
2025
Honours
AO, FAHA, FASSA, FBA

Summary

Marilyn Lake D.Litt. FAHA FASSA AO is Honorary Professorial Fellow at The University of Melbourne, where she directed the ‘Australia in the World’ series of seminars, symposia and lectures between 2013 and 2016. Her areas of research include settler colonialism and the British empire, campaigns for racial and gender equality, labour history and the impact of war on the home front.

She took her first degrees at the University of Tasmania and completed her PhD in History at Monash University. Before her appointment at Melbourne, she was the Charles Latrobe Professor in History at La Trobe University and visiting professor at ANU, the University of Sydney, Stockholm University and the University of Maryland.

Between 2001 and 2002 Professor Lake served as Chair in Australian Studies at Harvard University.

She has published widely, both locally and internationally, in daily newspapers as well as scholarly presses. Her books include the prize-winning ‘Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men’s Countries and the International Challenge of Racial Equality’ ( Cambridge University Press, 2008) and ‘Progressive New World: How Settler Colonialism and TransPacific Exchange Shaped American Reform’ ( Harvard University Press, 2019).

Between 2010 and 2014 Professor Lake served as President of the Australian Historical Association. She was elected to the Australian Academy of Humanities in 1996 and the Australian Academy of Social Sciences in 1998, awarded a Centenary Medal in 2003 and appointed Officer in the Order of Australia in 2021."

Current post

University of Melbourne Honorary Professorial Fellow, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies

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