Patrick Wolfe
{{Short description|Australian historian (1949 – 2016)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2024}}
{{Infobox academic
| name = Patrick Wolfe
| birth_date = 1949
| birth_place = Yorkshire, England
| death_date = {{Death date and age|2016|02|18|1949|df=y}}
| death_place = Melbourne, Australia
| occupation = Historian
| education = University of Melbourne (BA, PhD)
London School of Economics (MSc)
| doctoral_advisor = Dipesh Chakrabarty
| influences =
| workplaces = Victoria University, Melbourne, La Trobe University
| main_interests = Aboriginal history
| notable_ideas =
| influenced = Settler colonial studies
}}
Patrick Wolfe (1949 – 18 February 2016) was an English historian and scholar who lived and wrote in Australia.
Born into an Irish Catholic and German Jewish family in Yorkshire, England, his works are credited with establishing the field of settler colonial studies.{{cite journal |last1=Speed |first1=Shannon |title=Structures of Settler Capitalism in Abya Yala |journal=American Quarterly |date=2017 |volume=69 |issue=4 |pages=783–790 |doi=10.1353/aq.2017.0064}} He also made significant contributions to several academic fields, including anthropology, genocide studies, Indigenous studies, and the historiography of race, colonialism, and imperialism.{{Cite journal|last=Veracini |first=Lorenzo |date=2016 |title=Patrick Wolfe's dialectics |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/90000806 |journal=Aboriginal History |volume=40 |pages=249–260 |jstor=90000806 |issn=0314-8769}}
Biography
Wolfe was born to an Irish Catholic and German Jewish family in Yorkshire where he received a Jesuit education.{{Cite journal|last=Silverstein |first=Ben |date=2016 |title=Patrick Wolfe (1949–2016) |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/638785 |journal=History Workshop Journal |volume=82 |issue=1 |pages=315–323 |doi=10.1093/hwj/dbw039 |issn=1477-4569 |url-access=limited}} In the 1970s he collaborated with Sibnarayan Ray and Greg Dening as an undergraduate. Along with Maurice Bloch, he began his post-graduate studies in social anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He then went on to pursue his doctorate with Greg Dening under the supervision of Dipesh Chakrabarty. As a doctoral student he taught Aboriginal history at the University of Melbourne. He was associated with a number of universities in Australia as a teacher and researcher, including Victoria University and La Trobe University. Wolfe held fellowships at Harvard and Stanford among other places.{{Cite journal|last=Chakrabarty |first=Dipesh |date=2016 |editor-last=Conor |editor-first=Liz |title=Patrick Wolfe, my 'Bondhu': In memoriam |url=http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n2179/pdf/memoriam07.pdf|journal=Aboriginal History |publisher=Australian National University Press |volume=40 |access-date=18 October 2021}} He never held an academic tenure or a permanent university position.{{Cite journal|last=Russell |first=Lynette |date=2 January 2017 |title=Patrick Wolfe (1949–2016) |journal=Australian Historical Studies |volume=48 |issue=1 |pages=115–116 |doi=10.1080/1031461X.2017.1264283 |issn=1031-461X|doi-access=free }} His research spanned race and colonialism around the world.{{Cite web|last=Bullimore |first=Kim |date=29 February 2016 |title=Patrick Wolfe: scholar, activist and friend of Palestine |url=http://redflag.org.au/node/5159 |access-date=18 October 2021 |website=Red Flag |publisher=Socialist Alternative}}
Wolfe's home was Healesville on Wurundjeri country. At his memorial service, Wurundjeri Elder Aunty Joy Murphy Wandin described Wolfe as a cherished friend of the Wurundjeri.
Works
Monographs
- Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology (1999)
- Traces of History: Elementary Structures of Race (2016)
Edited collections
- The Settler Complex: Recuperating Binarism in Colonial Studies (editor Patrick Wolfe, 2016)
- Sovereignty: Frontiers of Possibility, co-edited by Julie Evans, Ann Genovese, Alexander Reilly, and Patrick Wolfe (2012)
Academic articles
- "Land, Labor, and Difference: Elementary Structures of Race" in The American Historical Review 106, no. 3 (2001): 866–905.
- "Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native" in Journal of Genocide Research, no. 8 (2006): 387–409.
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
{{wikiquote}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wolfe, Patrick}}
Category:Australian historians
Category:Australian anthropologists
Category:Historians of colonialism
Category:Historians of genocides
Category:Historians of Australia
Category:Academics from Yorkshire
Category:Alumni of the London School of Economics
Category:University of Melbourne alumni
Category:Academic staff of La Trobe University
Category:Academic staff of the Victoria University, Melbourne
Category:Australian indigenous rights activists