Benjamin T. Jones
@DrBenjaminJones
Historian based in Townsville. Senior Lecturer in History at Central Queensland University. Australia on the World Stage (Routledge, 2022).
I've never bought into this idea that you stop being a citizen when you become an academic. A post-truth world is well served by more, not less, academic voices in the public sphere.
John Ross this morning: "If protecting university humanities courses from oblivion means chopping out the difficult bits, it’s hard to see the point." Precisely what I've been saying for more than a year now! timeshighereducation.com/news/decades-o… via @timeshighered
Good to see this open letter calling for the abolition of the Jobs Ready Graduate package - something @NTEUnion members have been calling for since its misguided and cynical introduction by the previous Liberal government. theguardian.com/australia-news…
Wonderful! The HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse will be arriving shortly to reinforce Singapore. UK delivers AUKUS reassurance in the face of US review via @crikey_news crikey.com.au/2025/07/28/uk-…
‘People at the top of the university also point out that the critics of change rarely come up with their own proposals to save the hundreds of millions of dollars the ANU needs to save.’ BS we’ve been clear what needs to happen from a governance pov canberratimes.com.au/story/9023672/…
"The problem is ANU leadership applied these strategies like they’re running BHP, not a university." reddit.com/r/Anu/comments…
You might have seen me talk about Max Stirner, but have you seen me talk about green open access? The "Bring out your dead" green Open Access competition youtu.be/aMj4FTRMjQ4?si… via @YouTube
CFP: 19th Biennial Conference, The Spirit of 1975: Transformations in Australian Labour History, will be held in Melbourne 26 – 28 November 2025. Keynote speakers @palaceletters, @fbongiornoanu, and @MichelleArrow1 Papers on a range of topics are welcome. labourhistory.org.au/asslh-conferen…
New article from me which I hope is of some use in the world. Open access. Full article: Seeing the signs: thinking historically about coercive control tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
Progress shouldn’t be rationed - abundance should be the goal. In the inaugural edition of “Inflection Points”, I outline a vision for an Australia with more homes, faster trains, and sensational universities: inflectionpoints.work/articles/the-a… #auspol @inflectionptswk
‘Professor Chris Wallace argues the decline in both enrolments in, and the offering of history and other humanities subjects at Australian universities has resulted in a loss of capacity for historical thinking.’ Have a listen. abc.net.au/listen/program…
A call for papers for a Canberra conference (2-3 December 2025) on generative intelligence and scholarship: inke.ca/re-defining-op…
People’s town hall at ANU yesterday was incredible! People took turns on the mic talking about how cuts will impact them. Spill and fills, colleagues having to compete with each other in hunger games, forced redundancies. This national treasure👇was phenomenally powerful. ✊
Looks scary.
‘…I have not seen such a lack of vision, such a vacuum of ideas, such general disorganisation, nor such cavalier decision-making about institutions and programs built up through hard work over decades’ - @fbongiornoanu (national treasure) on ANU cuts canberratimes.com.au/story/9015168/…
A few thoughts from me on the Australian Citizenship Test. aristotlesaustralia.substack.com/p/whats-missin…
I've had the pleasure of publishing an article with Amanda. She's a world-class academic doing vital work, unique to Australia. This kind of scholarship is why the ANU was created.
The ANU proposes to abandon the study of Australian English - but cybernetics is on the up and up! Truly, the worst University leadership in my lifetime. From bluey to bogans: Researchers who help define how the nation speaks to lose their jobs smh.com.au/national/from-…
“Protein goals” are everywhere on TikTok and Instagram, and now social media is on about “fibre goals”. CQU nutritionist Dr @skhalesi shares his expert take with @ConversationEDU. READ MORE: ow.ly/qAlH50WmIG5
All richly deserved. Well done one and all 👏
Congratulations to our 2025 Prize Winners, announced last week at the AHA conference in Townsville!
The $800,000 hoovered up by the Chancellor would pay the salaries of all staff in three centres that the ANU is proposing to abolish- the Humanities Research Centre, the Europe Centre and the Australian National Dictionary Centre.
The governance crisis at ANU is a national scandal. Julie Bishop must go. We need sector-wide reform. afr.com/politics/feder…
A brilliant evening to cap off a brilliant conference. Despite the challenges the discipline is facing, the solidarity and collegiality among Australian historians fills me with hope. #OzHA2025 #AHA2025
Delighted to have attended AHA 2025 in Townsville, hosted by JCU and CQU. Here I am with the marvelous Ben Jones from CQU, with Paul Pickering AM who received a richly deserved AHA Lifetime Achievement Award.
That's a wrap on #OzHA2025 thanks everyone for four wonderful days of rich intellectual exchange and warmest congratulations to all our prize winners. It's been a genuine pleasure for @CQU to work with @jcu to cohost this great event. See you in Sydney next year! #AHA2025
