Professor Anne Pender from Adelaide University will visit Harvard University’s Division of Arts and Humanities as the Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser Chair of Australian Studies in the 2027-2028 academic year.
As a leading scholar of modern and contemporary Australian literature and theatre, Professor Pender will contribute to the Theatre, Dance and Media programme of study at Harvard University.
She will offer courses on comedy and satire in Australian literature, theatre and performance, while also continuing with her own research on satire and comedy in the United States.
“The opportunity to engage with students and colleagues at Harvard University is a rare one,” said Professor Pender from Adelaide University’s College of Creative Arts, Design and Humanities.
“I am honoured to be offered the privilege of working at Harvard University, alongside some of the world’s leading scholars in literary and theatre studies and to explore some of the connections between Australia and the United States in the world of comedy on stage and television.”
Professor Pender brings a wealth of experience in Australian Studies from both within and outside Australia, having previously taught at two Australian Studies Centres abroad: at King’s College London and at the University of Copenhagen.
The Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser Chair in Australian Studies at Harvard University was established in 1976 to mark the Bicentennial celebrations in the United States.
Over the years, the Chair has been occupied by some of Australia’s best-known scholars, including Alison Bashford, Manning Clark, Nicholas Jose, D. J. Mulvaney, Marilyn Lake, Mick Dodson, Tim Flannery, Jill Roe and Tim Rowse.
This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Chair.
About Professor Anne Pender
Professor Pender holds the Kidman Chair of Australian Studies at Adelaide University. She is known for her wide-ranging research in Australian literary and theatre history, especially on satire and comedy in literature and theatre, and in the field of biography.
Professor Pender is the author of the ground-breaking biography of Barry Humphries entitled One Man Show (2010) and Seven Big Australians: Adventures with Comic Actors (2019).
Currently Professor Pender is a Chief Investigator on a large project called ‘Comedy Country: Australian Performance Comedy as an Agent of Change’. The project is funded by the Australian Research Council.
Educated at the Australian National University (BA Hons), Harvard University (Master of Education) and the University of New South Wales (PhD), Professor Pender took up the Kidman Chair at the University of Adelaide in 2020 and served as Director of the JM Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice from 2022 until 2025.
Before taking up the Chair in Adelaide, Professor Pender was Professor of English and Theatre Studies at the University of New England from 2003. Professor Pender was National Library of Australia Fellow in 2021-2022, Fulbright Senior Fellow at Harvard University in 2018, and is a former Australian Research Council Future Fellow 2012-2016.
Professor Pender’s other books include The Cost of Comedy and the Future of the Arts in Australia (2025), Players: Australian Actors on Stage, Television and Film (e-book, 2016), From a Distant Shore: Australian Writers in Britain 1820-2012 (2013), Nick Enright: An Actor’s Playwright (2008) and Christina Stead: Satirist (2002).