School of Humanities
Being human is an amazing journey
The study of humanities equips you to ask and answer the big questions, challenging you to explore where we came from, who we are and where we’re going.
Human experience is made meaningful through culture, language, literature, history and philosophy. Enrich your whole life by gaining a deep understanding of these threads that tie us all together.
Exploring the humanities provides you with the skills to power lifelong career success in any field, with enduring skills in critical thinking, communicating and influencing.
Our disciplines
Classics and Ancient History
This covers the study of Latin and Ancient Greek, as well as the literature, history, art and archaeology of these ancient civilisations, and their contributions to the modern world.
Find out moreEnglish and Literary Studies
Studying English and Literary Studies enriches our understanding of major literary, cinematic and theatrical traditions across the globe.
Find out moreEuropean Languages and Cultures
We study languages and cultures of Europe: French, German, Italian and Spanish, and look at social and cultural aspects of contemporary Europe.
Find out morePhilosophy
Philosophy involves thinking about some of the big questions we ask in our lifetime.
Find out moreTranslation Studies
Translation Studies explores a multitude of areas including cognitive translation studies, machine translation and cultural translation studies.
Find out moreGender Studies
Gender is an everyday and embodied experience that shapes our public and private lives.
Find out moreBecome a bilingual citizen of the world at the largest language hub in WA
With four European, four Asian and two Classical languages on offer, UWA is the leading institution in WA for language learning.
Immerse yourself in another language. Learn to see the world in a new way. Move between cultures with ease.
Welcome from the Head of School Alexandra Ludewig
Hear about our courses
Bachelor of Human Rights
The Bachelor of Human Rights is a unique, interdisciplinary program of study that equips you with the knowledge and skills necessary to engage with real-world issues in human rights. Hear about hands-on learning, practical experience and what you can expect to prepare you for a career in a range of areas.
Bachelor of Modern Languages
The Bachelor of Modern Languages enables students with a particular interest in world languages and cultures to study two languages in depth. Choose from Chinese, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish.
Our courses
Award-winning teaching
Our staff are consistently acknowledged as the best teachers at UWA. Our award-winning lecturers have been recognised, both nationally and at UWA in the Student Guild’s Student Choice Awards, for their innovative approaches to teaching and supervision. This is backed by membership of some of the world’s most learned academies and a host of international honours.
- Dr Dale Adams
- Dr Miri Albahari
- Dr Kate Averis
- Associate Professor David Barrie
- Dr Kaz Bland
- Associate Professor Ethan Blue
- Professor Susan Broomhall
- Dr Chantal Bourgault du Coudray
- Dr Josh Brown
- Dr Marinella Caruso
- Dr Joseph Christensen
- Dr Ned Curthoys
- Professor Tanya Dalziell
- Dr Kirk Essary
- Dr Giuseppe Finaldi
- Maria Rosaria Francomacaro
- Professor Andrea Gaynor
- Dr Paul Gibbard
- Professor Tony Hughes-d’Aeth
- Dr Daniel Juckes
- Associate Professor Nin Kirkham
- Associate Professor Shino Konishi
- Sabine Kuuse
- Dr Chris Letheby
- Professor Alexandra Ludewig
- Iris Ludewig-Rohwer
- Professor Jane Lydon
- Dr Jeremy Martens
- Associate Professor Christopher Mallan
- Dr Andrew Milne
- Dr Jessica Murray
- Dr Kate Noske
- Dr Lara O’Sullivan
- Dr Neil O’Sullivan
- Dr Shalmalee Palekar
- Assistant Professor Michael Rubin
- Dr Joseph Steinberg
- Associate Professor Bonnie Thomas
- Associate Professor Kati Tonkin
- Dr Lachlan Umbers
- Associate Professor Jacqueline Van Gent
- Dr Clas Weber
- Professor Rob Wilson
Research excellence
The School of Humanities has a breadth of research expertise and hosts several internationally acclaimed journals and national centres, ensuring a vibrant research and postgraduate culture.
Scholar of the Month
- Scholars of the Month
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September Scholar of the month | Hamish Russell
Hamish has joined the School of Humanities this semester in a teaching-intensive position. He’s from Aotearoa/New Zealand but he’s just spent a decade in Toronto, Canada, where he completed his PhD in philosophy and then worked as a lecturer. Hamish is teaching for the school’s interdisciplinary degrees in Human Rights and Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE). He’s very happy about this fit, since he found his way into philosophy via a PPE program.
July Scholar of the month | Dara Acosta Vizcaino
A lifelong enthusiast of languages, Dara is deeply passionate about understanding societies and cultures through the lens of their linguistic expressions. Initially, she intended to focus her postgraduate studies on Phonetics, including etymology and dialectology. However, she soon discovered a profound interest in sociolinguistics, neurolinguistics, and psycholinguistics, prompting her to revise her thesis and shift her research focus.
June Scholar of the month | Chris Letheby
Chris Letheby is a philosopher of mind and cognitive science with a long-standing interest in the nature and significance of mystical and spiritual experience. His research to date has focused mainly on a single, endlessly fascinating case study: transformative experiences induced by psychedelic drugs.
Chris teaches a range of units at UWA, from formal logic and first-year “intro to philosophy” to philosophy of mind and philosophy of artificial intelligence.
May Scholar of the month | Kate AverisKate Averis has joined UWA recently as Lecturer in European Languages after having taught at universities in the UK, France and Colombia.
Kate's research spans Spanish and French studies, literary studies and gender studies. She researches literary texts written in and between Spanish, French and English that disrupt conventional understandings of regional and national literary systems by disturbing the monolingual pact between language, nation and culture. Kate studies these effects in contemporary women’s writing, which provides a particularly rich terrain for observing the disruptive crossing of boundaries, whether linguistic, literary, spatial, social, gendered, racialised, or other.
Centres and Journals
Centres
- Centre for Western Australian History
- ARC Centre for Excellence for the History of Emotions (Europe 1100 - 1800)
- Digital Humanities Research Cluster
- Ecology, People and Place (EcoPeoPle)
- Medieval & Early Modern Studies Research Group (MEMs)
- The Digitisation Centre of Western Australia
- Translation and Transcultural Research Cluster
- Westerly Group
- Australian Studies Research Network
Journals
News
Rhodes scholar candidates living large
A mathematician with a penchant for long-distance swimming and a multilingual musician with a love of ballroom dancing have been named Rhodes Scholarship Australia-at-large candidates.
Read moreNavigating threats and embracing opportunities: the impact of generative AI
Generative AI is rapidly reshaping industries and society, offering new opportunities and risks, though its full potential remains years from being fully realised.
Read moreElegantly and chaotically, Rodney Hall falls into the vortex of history
Rodney Hall’s Vortex is the 13th novel in a long and distinguished career that includes two Miles Franklin Literary Awards for his earlier novels.
Read moreFacilities
Contact
Access
Weekdays 8.00am to 4.00pm