Paul Arthur is Vice-Chancellor’s Professorial Research Fellow and Chair in Digital Humanities and Social Sciences, at Edith Cowan University, Western Australia. He speaks and publishes widely on major challenges and changes facing 21st-century society, from the global impacts of technology on communication, culture and identity to migration and human rights. Paul Arthur has over 100 publications including 13 books, and has received A$10M in grant funding, individually and in collaboration. His latest book is Open Scholarship in the Humanities (Bloomsbury 2024, with Lydia Hearn). A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, he has held prestigious 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, 2013–2016), director of the Edith Cowan Centre for Global Issues from 2016–2021, and leader of ECU’s university-wide Society and Culture research theme in 2021–2022. 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 (2010–2013). He has served on the executive boards and councils of the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO, Steering Committee 2011–2019); 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 2011–2015, Vice-President 2018–2022); the Australasian Consortium of Humanities Research Centres (founding board member 2010–2019); and the National eResearch Collaboration Tools and Resources (Nectar) Super Science initiative of the Australian Government (2012–2018).
A member of the editorial board of Open Book Publishers and the advisory board for Digital Scholarship in the Humanities (Oxford University Press), 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).
Since 2015 Paul Arthur has been a Visiting Professor annually at the Centre for Australian Studies, University of Cologne, Germany, and from 2016 an Adjunct Professor of the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. In 2016–2017 he was KNAW Visiting Professor at Huygens ING (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences). He was selected for the inaugural Indian Government Global Initiative for Academic Networks (GIAN) Program for Distinguished International Faculty in 2015. Paul Arthur was Dr R. Marika Chair of Australian and Indigenous Studies at the University of Cologne in 2013–2014. He has been a Visiting Fellow at the ANU Centre for European Studies, Australian National University (2013–2019); the Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London (2010–2011); HUMlab, the digital research centre at Umeå University, Sweden (2009–2010); the Center for Cultural Analysis, Rutgers University, USA (2009); the Centre for Historical Research, National Museum of Australia (2007); Manning Clark House, Canberra (2007); and the Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University (2006, Adjunct Research Fellow 2007–2009). In 2004 he was Helen and John S. Best Research Fellow at the American Geographical Society Library and an International Associate of the Center for 21st-Century Studies, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. In the same year he received an Australian Academy of the Humanities Fieldwork Fellowship.
Paul Arthur has a PhD from the University of Western Australia (English, Communication, and Cultural Studies), Bachelor of Arts double major in English and Comparative Literature and Communication Studies with First Class Honours (Murdoch University, Western Australia), and diplomas of Leadership and Management (University of Western Australia Business School) and Teaching English as a Foreign Language (International Learning Centre, Edinburgh). Paul is also a violinist, with an Associate of Music (AMusA, High Distinction, Australian Music Examinations Board). Classically trained, he has performed and recorded with international artists Yothu Yindi, Andrew Farriss, Tania Kernaghan, Billy Thorpe, José Padilla, and Mark Eden.
