Associate Professor Camilla Nelson

Associate Professor in Media and Journalism
BA (Sydney) MA (Sydney) DCA (UTS)

Email: Camilla.Nelson@nd.edu.au

  • Biography

    Camilla Nelson is Associate Professor in Media and Journalism at the University of Notre Dame Australia and an EG Whitlam Research Fellow at the Whitlam Institute within Western Sydney University. She researches in the fields of gender and media cultures. Camilla is interested in voice and representation and how this shapes outcomes for people. She is an author or editor of five books, over 30 peer reviewed academic articles and book chapters, and a wide range of literary and journalistic essays, articles, and reviews. A former journalist, Camilla has a Walkley Award for her work at the Sydney Morning Herald. She has been Chair of the Douglas Stewart Prize panel for non-fiction writing in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards on two occasions. She has been short-listed for the Ned Kelly Awards and selected as one of the Sydney Morning Herald’s best young novelists. She has been awarded funding from the Australia Council and Australian Film Commission. Camilla writes regularly for The Conversation and provides commentary for a wide range of media outlets, including ABC television and radio. Her most recent books include Dangerous Ideas About Mothers, and Broken: Children, Parents and Family Courts.

    Camilla’s current research focuses on the justice system.

  • Teaching areas

    Media, Ethics and Law/Media and Journalism Studies

  • Research expertise and supervision

    Expertise:

    Media, Ethics and Law/Media, Writing, Politics and Journalism Studies

    PhD Supervisions:

    • Criminalising Coercive Control in Australia
    • Lies we tell ourselves: designing the past, writing the future
    • Transgression and Its Practice: The Role of the Cultural Provocateur in the 21st Century
    • Nevertheless, she resisted: Negotiating otherness, longing and belonging in the young adult narratives of culturally and linguistically diverse Australian girls

  • Books

    Selected Recent Books

    • Nelson, Camilla with Catharine Lumby, Broken: Children, Parents and Family Courts, Black Inc/La Trobe University Press, Melbourne, 2021
    • Nelson, Camilla with Rachel Robertson eds, Dangerous Ideas About Mothers, University of Western Australia Press, Crawley, Western Australia, 2018
    • Nelson, Camilla, with Deborah Pike and Georgina Ledvinka eds, On Happiness: New Ideas for the Twenty-First Century, University of Western Australia Press, Crawley, Western Australia, 2015 [Reprinted in translation/Arabic, 2020]

  • Book chapters

    Selected Recent Book Chapters

    • Nelson, Camilla, ‘Every Difficult Female: Women and the Family Law Act, 1975’ in Michelle Arrow ed, Women and Whitlam: Revisiting the Revolution, NewSouth/UNSW University Press, 2023, pp. 96-112
    • Nelson, Camilla, 'The Mumpreneur: Raising Kids in Consumer Culture', in Camilla Nelson and Rachel Robertson eds, Dangerous Ideas About Mothers, University of Western Australia Press, Crawley, Western Australia, 2018, pp.59-74
    • Nelson, Camilla with Rachel Robertson, 'Scrutiny: What's Behind the Rise of the Mummy Bullies?' in in Camilla Nelson and Rachel Robertson eds, Dangerous Ideas About Mothers, University of Western Australia Press, Crawley, Western Australia, 2018, pp.1-16
    • Nelson, Camilla, 'Happy Housewives and Angry Feminists: The Myths of Modern Motherhood,' in Camilla, Nelson, Deborah Pike and Georgina Ledvinka eds, On Happiness: New Ideas for the Twenty-First Century, University of Western Australia Press, Crawley, Western Australia, pp.83-95
    • Nelson, Camilla, with Deborah Pike, 'This Book Won't Make You Happy,' in Camilla Nelson, Deborah Pike and Georgina Ledvinka eds, On Happiness: New Ideas for the Twenty-First Century, University of Western Australia Press, Crawley, Western Australia, 2015, pp.1-15

  • Journal articles and proceedings

    Selected Recent Journal Articles

    • Nelson, Camilla, ‘The Most Maligned Witness and in Christopher Dawson Case: Gender, Power, Media and Legal Culture in the Digitally Distributed Live-Streamed Court, Crime, Media Culture, in press 2023.
    • Nelson, Camilla, ‘They Thought it was Safe – but it Wasn’t’: Recognising Children’s Rights as a Means of Ensuring Children’s Safety in Australia’s Family Law System, The Whitlam Institute, Sydney, 2022 https://apo.org.au/node/318020.

    Full list of journal publication and book chapters can be found here

  • Community engagement

    • Judge: Sydney Morning Herald’s Best Young Australian Novelists of the Year, 2015
    • Judge: Kathleen Mitchell Award, 2008-2014
    • Judge: NSW Premier’s Literary Awards/Chair of Douglas Stewart Prize Panel for Non-Fiction Writing, 2011
    • Governing Board: NSW Writers’ Centre, 2008-2010
    • Judge: NSW Premier’s Literary Awards/Douglas Stewart Prize Panel for Non-Fiction Writing, 2008

  • Awards

    Awards

    • EG Whitlam Research Fellow, 2021
    • Short-listed: Ned Kelly Awards, 2009
    • Walkley Award, Best All Media Online News, 2001
    • Sydney Morning Herald’s Best Young Australian Novelists, 1999

    Grants

    • Camilla has received grant funding from the Australia Council, the Australian Film Commission, the Trust Company (former trustees of the Miles Franklin Literary Awards), the Copyright Agency Ltd, The Whitlam Institute, and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade/New Columbo Plan.