Henry Reese

I am a historian and earlier career researcher. I work as a research assistant and sessional tutor at the University of Melbourne. My PhD thesis passed without corrections in 2019. Entitled 'Colonial Soundscapes,' it the first cultural history of early sound recording in Australia. I explore the spread of gramophones and phonographs across the continent from 1880 to 1930, when this 'old technology was new.' Influenced by interdisciplinary Sound Studies theory as well as urban history, economic and business histories and the history of race and anthropology, my research explores the relationship between the senses, place and culture in a settler colonial society.

My research has won several awards to date, including the Ken Inglis Postgraduate Prize (2019), the Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand Postgraduate and Early Career Researcher Development Prize (2019), the Wyselaskie Scholarship in History (2015), National Library of Australia Summer Scholarship (2015), CHASS Australia Prize for a Student in the Humanities and Social Sciences (2014), University Medal (2013) and Australian Student Prize (2008).