Redmond Barry Fellowship

The Redmond Barry Fellowship funds research into a project using collections at the Library and the University of Melbourne. The project can be in any medium and is open to early-career creatives, researchers and graduates, as well as established professionals.

The fellowship includes:

• $15,000 funding
• desk space at the Library for 12 months
• access to collections and Library staff expertise.

The funding is based on 3 months of work in the Library, either continuous or broken up over the year.

The Library and the University of Melbourne jointly sponsor the fellowship. Your research should use the collections at both institutions. We encourage projects that highlight linkages between the collections and promote new insights on the subject or material. The Library also welcomes ideas for digital, creative or literary work that can be shared and published in the University's repository.

Find out more about the University of Melbourne's Special Collections.

2024 recipient

Dr Bridget Vincent: Germaine Greer's Classroom and the Politics of Poetic Form

Bridget will use the Library's collections to explore Germaine Greer's identity as a teacher of literature, and its relationship to her political interventions. An experienced teacher of poetry analysis, Bridget plans to offer a series of free workshops to public audiences, using the same poems taught by Greer.

Bridget Vincent is a lecturer in English at the Australian National University. Her first book was published by Oxford University Press in 2022. She writes on modern literature and ethics, and her specific research interests include public apology in 20th-century writing, ekphrasis, the lyric essay, ecocriticism, literary attention, and the political fortunes of close reading.

About Redmond Barry

Sir Redmond Barry (1813 to 1880) was instrumental in founding State Library Victoria and the University of Melbourne. He was the first chair of the Library Board of Trustees and the University of Melbourne's first and longest-serving Chancellor. Barry was also a practising lawyer and a judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria.

Barry had a lifelong interest in philanthropy and was an influential political advocate for the creation of public works throughout Melbourne. He made a significant contribution to Melbourne's social and cultural life.

Previous recipients

Learn more about the inspiring projects undertaken by past and present fellows in our fellows gallery.

• 2022: Dr Lorinda Cramer with the project Wearing Wool: Foy and Gibson, Fletcher Jones and a New Dress, which examined the importance of wool in the social, cultural and dress history of twentieth-century Australia.
• 2019: Dr Nanette Carter and Robyn Oswald-Jacobs' project, which examined Frances Burke's importance in Australia's design and cultural history, bringing her work to a new generation.
• 2018: Dr Jillian Graham worked on a scholarly biography researching important material on influential Australian composer Margaret Sutherland, housed in the State Library Victoria and University of Melbourne collections.
• 2017: Dr Luke Keogh researched the Victorian exotic nursery trade within the global network of moving live plants, resulting in a scholarly article and chapter in his book The Wardian Case.
• 2016: Dr Ross Jones re-created the story of tuberculin in Melbourne, using multiple archival and manuscript sources from the collections of both the Library and the University of Melbourne.
• 2015: Professor Jennifer Clark examined the first 10 years of the Council for Aboriginal Rights (CAR) through the lens of Melbourne University science alumnus Shirley Andrews' rich and revealing letters.
• 2014: Dr Michael Davis explored the feasibility of applying Professor Greg Dening's (1931 to 2008) theories and methods. Professor Dening was a Melbourne-based academic historian, anthropologist and prominent Pacific Studies scholar who researched and wrote 19th-century Australian Aboriginal/European environmental histories.
• 2013: Marguerita Stephens, who researched the topic Assistant Protector William Thomas and the Kulin people, 1839 to 1867: the end of things?