Centre for Critical and Creative Writing

Dr Melissa Harper

Honorary Fellow
School of Communication and Arts
+61 7 334 69454
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Researcher biography

Melissa's research interests include Australian cultural history, representations of landscape, attachments to place, recreational use of land, environmental issues, national identity, food and dining out in Australia.

Her current research interests include a history of bushwalking and environmental politics, with a particular focus on the period from 1945 to the present. She is exploring the way bushwalkers have faced a number of challenges to their self-apointed position as custodians of the Australian 'wilderness'. Challenges have come from other recreational users, governments, developers and and from Indigenous Australians.

She is the author of:

  • 'Sensuality in Sandshoes: Representations of the bush in the walking and writing of John Le Gay Brereton and Percy Grainer'.
  • 'A Boy's Own Adventure: George Morrison on Foot Across Australia'.
  • 'A Battle for the Bush: Bushwalking versus Hiking between the Wars'.
  • 'The Ways of the Walker: Bushwalking in Australia, 1788-1940' (PhD thesis).

Publications

Books (2)
Book Chapters (6)
Journal Articles (15)
Conference Paper (1)
Creative Work (1)

Books

Harper, Melissa (2020). The ways of the bushwalker: on foot in Australia. Updated ed. Sydney, NSW, Australia: NewSouth Publishing .
Harper, Melissa J. (2007). The Ways of the Bushwalker: On Foot in Australia. Sydney, NSW: University of New South Wales Press.

Book Chapters

Harper, Melissa (2014). Outdoor magazines. A companion to the Australian media. (pp. 326-327) edited by Bridget Griffen-Foley. Kew, VIC, Australia: Australian Scholarly Publishing.
Harper, Melissa and White, Richard (2012). How national were the first national parks? Comparative perspectives from the British settler societies. Civilizing nature: national parks in global historical perspective. (pp. 50-67) edited by Bernhard Gissibl, Sabine Höhler and Patrick Kupper. New York, NY, United States: Berghahn Books.
Harper, Melissa (2010). Billy. Symbols of Australia. (pp. 83-92) edited by Melissa Harper and Richard White. Sydney, N.S.W., Australia: UNSW Press.
Harper, Melissa and White, Richard (2010). Land of symbols. Symbols of Australia. (pp. 1-11) edited by Melissa Harper and Richard White. Sydney, N.S.W., Australia: UNSW Press.
Harper, Melissa (2009). Saving the Franklin River: The environment takes centre stage. Turning points in Australian history. (pp. 211-223) edited by Martin Crotty and David Andrew Roberts. Sydney, NSW, Australia: University of New South Wales Press.
Harper, Melissa (1999). A boy's own adventure : George Morrison on foot across Australia. Playing the man : New approaches to masculinity. (pp. 110-122) Annandale, NSW, Australia: Pluto Press Australia.

Journal Articles

Harper, Melissa (2018). Writing Home: Walking, Literature and Belonging in Australia's Red Centre. Australian Journal of Politics and History, 64 (3), 512-514. doi: 10.1111/ajph.12498
Harper, Melissa (2017). Locating histories of bush-based recreation in Australia. History Compass, 15 (4) e12377. doi: 10.1111/hic3.12377
Harper, Melissa (2015). The bushwalkers’ diet: The relationship between food, walking practice and identity. Food, Culture and Society, 18 (3), 419-440. doi: 10.1080/15528014.2015.1043106
Harper, Melissa (2014). Strong, Beautiful and Modern: National Fitness in Britain, New Zealand, Australia and Canada, 1935-1960. By Charlotte Macdonald. Australian Historical Studies, 45 (1), 146-148. doi: 10.1080/1031461X.2014.877796
Harper, Melissa (2012). Feeding the public stomach: dining out in 1970s Sydney with restaurant critic Leo Schofield. History Australia, 9 (3), 43-66. doi: 10.1080/14490854.2012.11668430
Croke, Christopher and Harper, Melissa (2011). The rise of the baggy green as an Australian symbol: The modern invention of an age-old tradition. Sport in Society, 14 (5), 685-700. doi: 10.1080/17430437.2011.575113
Harper, Melissa (2010). National parks in Queensland. Queensland Historical Atlas.
Harper, Melissa (2010). Bushwalking in Queensland. Queensland Historical Atlas.
Harper, Melissa (2010). Tasmanian Visions: Landscapes in Writing, Art and Photography, by Roslynn D.Haynes, Polymath Press, Sandy Bay, 2006, 392 pp., ISBN 097757380X. Journal of Australian Studies, 34 (2), 247-248. doi: 10.1080/14443051003724548
Crotty, Martin and Harper, Melissa (2008). Editors' note. Journal of Australian Studies, 32 (1) doi: 10.1080/14443050801993776
Harper, M.J. (2007). Pedestrian prose: The travel writing of William Mogford Hamlet, bushwalker. Studies in Travel Writing - Australian Travel Writing, 11 (1), 37-58.
Harper, Melissa (2007). Review of the Council of Australian State Libraries’ National Treasures from Australia’s Great Libraries. History Australia, 4 (2), 51.1-51.2. doi: 10.2104/ha070051
Harper, M. (2005). Review: Bin Laden in the Suburbs: Criminalising the Arab Other, Poynting, Scott, Noble, Greg, Tabar, Paul and Collins, Jock. Media International Australia, 116, 134-135.
Harper, Melissa (2000). Sensuality in Sandshoes: Representations of the bush in the walking and writing of John Le Gay Brereton and Percy Grainer. Australian Historical Society, 31 (115), 287-303. doi: 10.1080/10314610008596132
Harper, Melissa (1995). The Battle for the Bush: Bushwalking versus Hiking between the Wars. Journal of Australian Studies, 19 (45), 41-52. doi: 10.1080/14443059509387226

Conference Paper

Harper, Melissa (2012). Materiality and the bushwalker’s diet: the influence of food on walking practice. Cultural Studies Association of Australasia Annual Conference (CSAA 2012), Sydney, Australia, 4-6 December 2012.

Creative Work

Harper, Melissa and Hetherington, Michelle (2009). Symbols of Australia. Canberra, Australia: National Museum of Australia.