Eureka Henrich

Having previously been Wellcome Trust Research Fellow in Medical Humanities at the University of Leicester and Rydon Fellow in Australian Politics and Political History at King's College London, I joined the History Group at the University of Hertfordshire in 2018 as Research Fellow in Conflict, Memory and Legacy. I teach across the History undergraduate programme, coordinate the award-winning Oral History Teamand supervise research students in the broad areas of heritage, public history and migration history. You can find the profiles of my History colleagues here.

Current projects

Healthy Citizens? Migrant Identity and Constructions of Health in Post-War Australia

An ongoing Wellcome Trust funded research project investigating the intersections between health and migration during Australia’s mass post-Second World War immigration scheme (1945-1970). Three research strands address medical, migrant and governmental perspectives and bring together source bases including medical literature, oral histories and material culture.

A public engagement programme, 'Migration, Health & Wellbeing: Past & Present' was developed to showcase objects held in Australian museum collections and to share the research findings with UK-based audiences.  The virtual exhibition, ‘A Full Healthy Life’? Migration and Health in Post-War Australia, is hosted on the website. Events have included public talks and a mini workshop series with residents of an assisted housing scheme.

History and the Immigration Debate

This project originated in my doctoral research at the University of New South Wales (Sydney), which examined the representation of migration history in Australian museums. I became interested in representations of migration history internationally, and particularly in the widespread politicisation of migratory pasts and presents and the paucity of historically-informed perspectives in these debates. Whilst at King’s College London in 2014 I convened the symposium Immigration, Nation and Public History. The event brought together academics, students, community groups and heritage professionals to address the question, ‘where is history in debates about immigration?’ Since then I have worked with Julian M. Simpson on an edited volume which addresses the historian’s role in immigration debates across the world. History, Historians and the Immigration Debate: Going Back to Where We Came From was published by Palgrave Macmillan and launched at the Migration Museum Project in London in February 2019.                                                                                          

Eureka is interested in the following broad areas:

• Australian History
• Migration History
• Migration and Memory (including museums and memorials of migration, and oral histories)
• Social History of Medicine and Health 
• Heritage and Public History

Eureka teaches on the following modules in 2019/20:

4HUM1147 Historians' Toolkit

4HUM1145 The Heritage Industry in Britain

5HUM1165 Postcards from the Empire: Experiences of British Imperialism

6HUM1205 The American Pacific Rim: Colonisation, Conflict and Connections 1800 - Present

Previous teaching includes:

4HUM0179 English Heritage, 1500-1900

5HUM1135 Doing History: Investigating The Historian's Craft (Guest lecturer for Oral History)

6HUM1131 Thinking With History: Applying Historical Insight To Real-Life Issues (Guest lecturer for Case Study IV: The Immigration Debate)

6HUM1153 How The Victorians Saw The World Abroad