Speakers at Arts and Humanities Conference 2026

Paul Arthur speaks and publishes widely on major challenges and changes facing 21st-century society, from the impacts of technology on communication, culture and identity to migration and human rights. He has over 100 publications including 13 books, and has received A$10M in grant funding, individually and in collaboration. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, he has held visiting positions in Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America, and given more than 50 keynote and plenary talks in 20 countries.

Paul Arthur was Australia’s first Professor in Digital Humanities (Western Sydney University, 2013–16) and is known as a leading figure in the development of the field in Australia and internationally. He was appointed to Edith Cowan University as Chair in Digital Humanities and Social Sciences in 2016 and has been director of the Edith Cowan Centre for Global Issues (2016–21) and leader of ECU’s university-wide Society and Culture research theme (2021–22). He was previously Deputy Director of the ANU Centre for European Studies and the National Centre of Biography at the Australian National University where he oversaw the digital production of the largest collaborative project in the humanities and social sciences in Australia as Deputy General Editor, Australian Dictionary of Biography (2010–13). Paul Arthur’s publications include Open Scholarship in the Humanities (2024, with Lydia Hearn), Virtual Voyages: Travel Writing and the Antipodes, 1605–1837 (2010), and the edited volumes Border Crossings: Essays in Identity and Belonging (2019, with Leena Kurvet-Käosaar), Migrant Nation: Australian Culture, Society and Identity (2018), Private Lives, Intimate Readings (2015, with Leena Kurvet-Käosaar), Advancing Digital Humanities: Research, Methods, Theories(2014, with Katherine Bode), Framing Lives (2014), International Life Writing: Memory and Identity in Global Context (2013), Australian Dictionary of Biography, volume 18 (2012, Deputy General Editor), Voices from the West End: Stories, People and Events That Shaped Fremantle (2012, with Geoffrey Bolton), and Recovering Lives (2011).

He has served on the executive boards and councils of the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO, Steering Committee 2011–19); centerNet—the worldwide network of digital humanities research centres (Co-Chair, 2015–2019); the International Auto/Biography Association (IABA, Executive Committee 2010–); the Australasian Association for Digital Humanities (founding President 2011–15, Vice-President 2018–22); the Australasian Consortium of Humanities Research Centres (founding board member 2010–19); and the National eResearch Collaboration Tools and Resources (Nectar) Super Science initiative of the Australian Government (2012–18).

Paul is also a violinist. He has a long connection with ECU that goes back to the first years of its establishment, when he completed an undergraduate Music sub-major at WAAPA