Tim Soutphommasane

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Tim Soutphommasane is an Australian political philosopher, writer and public official. He is currently Australia's Race Discrimination Commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission. He has previously been a columnist with The Age and The Australian newspapers, and an academic at Sydney University and Monash University.

Early life

Tim Soutphommasane was born in Montpellier, France, to Chinese and Lao parents who had fled Laos as refugees in 1975.[1]

He spent his childhood in Sydney's southwest suburbs, [2] and was educated at Hurlstone Agricultural High School.[3]

Academia

He graduated from the University of Sydney with a first class honours degree. He was then a Commonwealth Scholar and Jowett Senior Scholar at Balliol College of the University of Oxford where he completed a Master of Philosophy with Distinction and a Doctor of Philosophy in political theory.

From 2010 to 2012 he was a Lecturer in Australian Studies and a Research Fellow at the National Centre for Australian Studies of Monash University. He was also a Chief Investigator on an Australian Research Council Linkage project studying the history of ANZAC Day.

Journalism

Soutphommasane was a regular columnist for The Age and The Australian newspaper, to which he contributed feature articles and the Ask the Philosopher column each Saturday. He also wrote for The Monthly magazine. While living in England, Soutphommasane was a freelance journalist and was an editorial writer for The Guardian and The Financial Times.[4]

Writing

Tim is the author of three books: The Virtuous Citizen: Patriotism in a Multicultural Society (Cambridge University Press, 2012), Don't Go Back To Where You Came From: Why Multiculturalism Works (New South Books, 2012), and Reclaiming Patriotism: Nation-Building for Australian Progressives (Cambridge University Press, 2009).

He was also co-editor (with Nick Dyrenfurth) of All That's Left: What Labor Should Stand For, edited with Nick Dyrenfurth (New South Books, 2010).

Political activity

Soutphommasane joined the Australian Labor Party in 1998, aged 15. He later worked on the speechwriting staff of then New South Wales Premier Bob Carr, and in late 2007 he returned from Oxford to work in the office of Kevin Rudd during that year's federal election campaign. Soutphommasane is no longer an ALP member.

Books

  • Reclaiming Patriotism: Nation-Building for Australian Progressives (2009)
  • Don't Go Back To Where You Came From: Why Multiculturalism Works (New South Books, 2012)
  • The Virtuous Citizen: Patriotism in a Multicultural Society (Cambridge University Press, 2012)

References

External links

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