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Researcher

Professor Ruth Balint

Fields of Research (FoR)

Historical studies

Biography

I teach and write on transnational histories of migration, displacement, refugees and family, with a current focus on the refugee family during the years of 1933 to 1954. I currently lead two Australian Research Council - funded projects: Russian Immigrants and Anti-Communism in Cold War Australia, 1946-1966, and The Holocaust as an Australian Story, 1933-1954: An Intimate History.

My recent monograph Destination Elsewhere: Displaced Persons...view more

I teach and write on transnational histories of migration, displacement, refugees and family, with a current focus on the refugee family during the years of 1933 to 1954. I currently lead two Australian Research Council - funded projects: Russian Immigrants and Anti-Communism in Cold War Australia, 1946-1966, and The Holocaust as an Australian Story, 1933-1954: An Intimate History.

My recent monograph Destination Elsewhere: Displaced Persons and their Quest to Leave Postwar Europe is published with Cornell University Press (November 2021) https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501760228/destination-elsewhere/#bookTabs=1. It explores the encounters of refugees with the international aid agencies, western migration agents and Allied forces on European soil during the war's aftermath, and the struggle to redefine refugees as migrants to the West. I have also written extensively on the impact of immigration policies on the displaced family, and on women and children.

My other main interest is in Australian migration history. My co-authored book with Julie Kalman, Smuggled: An Illegal History of Journeys to Australia (NewSouth Publishing, 2021), explores the histories of refugees and their people smugglers since the Holocaust: https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/smuggled/ 

My background as a filmmaker has also led me to become increasingly interested in the importance of making Australian history in accessible and creative ways. In 2019, my radio documentary 'Cooking for Assimilation' aired on ABC Radio National's Hindsight program: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/the-history-listen/cooking-for-assimilation/10595470. It is about the migration of my grandmother as a Jewish refugee to Australia, and more broadly, about the expectations and challenges women migrants faced in postwar Australia.

I am the co-lead of the UNSW Forced Migration Research Network


My Qualifications

PhD (University of Sydney) 2004.


My Awards

The Ernst Keller European Fellowship, Australian Academy of the Humanities, 2011.

The National Film and Sound Archive, Scholar-In-Residence, 2010.

The Centre for Media and History (Mediale Historiographien), Bauhaus University, Weimar, Germany, 1 March, 2008 – 30 June, 2008.

The Centre for Pasts Inc, Historical Studies, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary, 1 July, 2008 – 1 November, 2008.

Australian Vogel Literary Award 2004

Dendy Documentary Award 2002


My Research Supervision


Supervision keywords


Areas of supervision

I welcome higher degree research students in the fields of migration history, refugee studies, Australian history and Jewish studies as well as histories of humanitarianism and the family.  

 


Currently supervising

I am currently supervising two HDR theses as primary supervisor.

  1. Gender and Perpetration in Histories of the Holocaust: Enduring Misrepresentations. An Analysis of the absence of female perpetrators at memorial and perpetrator sites of the Holocaust.
  2. The growth, commercialisation and decline of the jewellery business in Sydney between 1901-1929.


My Engagement

Australian Historical Association

Australian Feminist History Group

Australian Studies Research Network


My Teaching

I teach across all level of the Bachelor of Arts degree.

ARTS1271: The History of the Present

ARTS2271: Inventing Modern Australia

ARTS3289: Documentary Film and History.

ARTS3292: Migrants and Refugees in Australian History.

 

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