Sally Kate May

Dr.
Sally Kate May
Academic background
EducationFlinders University
Australian National University
ThesisKarrikadjurren – Creating Community with an Art Centre in Indigenous Australia
Academic work
InstitutionsUniversity of Adelaide

Sally Kate May, usually cited as Sally K. May, (born in Adelaide, 1979) is an Australian archaeologist and anthropologist. She is a Professor of Archaeology and Museum Studies at the University of Adelaide, Australia. She is a specialist in Indigenous Australian rock art and Australian ethnographic museum collections.

Education

May obtained an honours from Flinders University in 2001 under the supervision of Professor Claire Smith and Professor Mark Staniforth. Her thesis, on the 1948 American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land, was titled The Last Frontier?: acquiring the American-Australian Scientific Expedition Ethnographic Collection 1948. She obtained a PhD in 2006 from the Australian National University, supervised by Professor Howard Morphy, Professor Jon Altman and Dr Luke Taylor. Her thesis, titled Karrikadjurren – Creating Community with an Art Centre in Indigenous Australia used archaeological and ethnographic methods to explore the ongoing significance of art-making in Aboriginal communities in Arnhem Land. She carried out fieldwork collaboratively with artists from the Injalak Arts centre in Gunbalanya.

Career

After completing her PhD (2002–06), May was employed as a lecturer in archaeology at Flinders University. She was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and a Chief Investigator on the Australian Research Council funded project "Picturing change: 21st Century perspectives on recent Australian rock art, especially that from the European contact period" which ran from 2008 to 2011 and was led by Professor Paul Taçon. She was also a Chief Investigator on the ARC-funded project "Wellington Range rock art in a global context" which ran 2016–2018. In 2009, she was appointed a lecturer at the Australian National University, and in 2017 she joined the Place Evolution and Rock Art Heritage Unit (PERAHU) as a senior research fellow. She directed the project "Pathways: people, landscape, and rock art" 2018–2024.

May is best known as a scholar of rock art, particularly so-called Contact rock art traditions in Australia. She has also collaborated on research into rock art in China and Europe. More broadly, she has published monographs and edited collections concerning the archaeology of art, the archaeology and history of Macassan traders in northern Australia, and the history of collectors of Aboriginal Australian materials.

May has been involved in the management of the world heritage listed Kakadu National Park, serving on the Kakadu research advisory committee and consulting as an outside expert on the park management plan.

May's collection of filmed oral histories and other materials from her previous and ongoing research around Gunbalanya, Injalak Hill and Kakadu is archived at AIATSIS.

Selected publications

Books and book chapters

Journal articles

Commissioned reports

References

  1. ↑ May, Sally Kate (2000). The last frontier? : acquiring the American-Australian Scientific Expedition Ethnographic Collection 1948 (Thesis thesis). 2000.
  2. ↑ May, Sally (2005). "Karrikadjurren : creating community with an art centre in Indigenous Australia". doi:10.25911/5d514ae1bc7da. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  3. ↑ "Sally K May Books, Author Bio, Book Reviews & More at Alibris". m.alibris.com. Retrieved 6 November 2019.
  4. ↑ "Picturing change: 21st Century perspectives on recent Australian rock art, especially that from the European contact period". Research Data Australia. Retrieved 6 November 2019.
  5. ↑ "Wellington Range rock art in a global context". Research Data Australia. Retrieved 6 November 2019.
  6. ↑ ORCID. "Sally K. May (0000-0003-2805-023X)". orcid.org. Retrieved 6 November 2019.
  7. ↑ "Pathways: people, landscape, and rock art in Djok Country". ResearchGate. Retrieved 6 November 2019.
  8. ↑ May, Sally K.; Johnston, Iain G.; Taçon, Paul S. C.; Sanz, Inés Domingo; Goldhahn, Joakim (February 2018). "Early Australian Anthropomorphs: Jabiluka's Dynamic Figure Rock Paintings". Cambridge Archaeological Journal. 28 (1): 67–83. doi:10.1017/S095977431700052X. ISSN 0959-7743. S2CID 164788888.
  9. ↑ Taçon, Paul S. C.; Gang, Li; Decong, Yang; May, Sally K.; Hong, Liu; Aubert, Maxime; Xueping, Ji; Curnoe, Darren; Herries, Andy I. R. (February 2010). "Naturalism, Nature and Questions of Style in Jinsha River Rock Art, Northwest Yunnan, China". Cambridge Archaeological Journal. 20 (1): 67–86. doi:10.1017/S0959774310000053. hdl:10072/38856. ISSN 1474-0540. S2CID 46978830.
  10. ↑ Domingo Sanz, Inés; Fiore, Dánae; May, Sally K. (2013). "From the Form to the Artists: Changing Identities in Levantine Rock Art (Spain)". Archaeologies of Art: Time, Place, and Identity. Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315434339. ISBN 9781315434339. Retrieved 6 November 2019.
  11. ↑ Sanz, Inés Domingo; Fiore, Dánae; May, Sally K. (1 July 2016). Archaeologies of Art: Time, Place, and Identity. Routledge. ISBN 9781315434315.
  12. ↑ Clark, Marshall; May, Sally K. (2013). Clark, Marshall; May, Sally K (eds.). Macassan History and Heritage. ANU Press. doi:10.22459/mhh.06.2013. ISBN 9781922144973.
  13. ↑ May, Sally K. (16 November 2009). Collecting Cultures: Myth, Politics, and Collaboration in the 1948 Arnhem Land Expedition. Rowman Altamira. ISBN 9780759113145.
  14. ↑ "Kakadu National Park management plan 2016-2026" (PDF). 2016.
  15. ↑ Winderlich, S. (2015). "Walk the Talk: Cultural Heritage Management in Kakadu National Park" (PDF).
  16. ↑ "Sally K. May collection - Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS)". link.aiatsis.gov.au. Retrieved 6 November 2019.