Penelope Ann Russell, FAHA (born 20 March 1961) is an Australian social historian. She is Bicentennial Professor of Australian History at the University of Sydney.
Penelope Ann Russell was born in 1961 in Maryborough, Queensland,[1] to teacher/librarian Mary Gertrude Russell (née Thompson) and dentist Gerald Victor Russell.[2] As a young child, she moved with her family to Ballarat and attended primary school and then Ballarat East High School, where she sat the Higher School Certificate in 1978.[2] She completed a Bachelor of Arts with HonoursatMonash University in 1982 with her thesis "'Mothers of the Race': A Study of the First Thirty Women Medical Graduates from the University of Melbourne".[2] She was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in 1990 by the University of Melbourne and her first book, A Wish of Distinction, published in 1994, was developed from her PhD thesis.[2]
Russell spent two years in the Australian Public Service before beginning her PhD. She lectured at the University of Melbourne, RMIT and Victorian College Rusden before moving to the University of Sydney as an Australian history lecturer in 1990. She was appointed senior lecturer in 1995, associate professor in 2006 and full professor in 2013, shortly afterwards becoming Bicentennial Professor of Australian History.[2] With Richard White, Russell was co-editor of the journal History Australia from 2009 to 2012.[3]
Russell, Penny (1994). A Wish of Distinction: Colonial gentility and femininity. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. ISBN9780522845525.
Russell, Penny; White, Richard, eds. (1994). Pastiche I: Reflections on nineteenth-century Australia. St Leonards, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin. ISBN1-86373-535-6.
Russell, Penny; White, Richard, eds. (1997). Memories and Dreams: Reflections on twentieth-century Australia: Pastiche II. St. Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin. ISBN1-86373-536-4.
Franklin, Jane (2002). Russell, Penny (ed.). This Errant Lady: Jane Franklin's overland journey to Port Philip and Sydney, 1839. Canberra: National Library of Australia. ISBN0-642-10749-1.
Deacon, Desley; Russell, Penny & Woollacott, Angela, eds. (2010). Transnational lives : biographies of global modernity, 1700–present. Palgrave Macmillan.
Russell, Penny (2010). Savage or Civilised? Manners in colonial Australia. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press. ISBN978-1-74224-546-1.
Worden, Nigel; Russell, Penny (eds.): Honourable Intentions?: Violence and Virtue in Australian and Cape Colonies, c. 1750 to 1850. (London: Routledge, 2016)
^ abcdefHarrison, Sharon M. "Russell, Penelope (Penny) Ann". The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia. Retrieved 28 September 2020.
