Researchers

Specialisations

• Queensland politics
• Queensland-Japan relations
• Queensland arts policy
• Political thought and ideas

Dr Donna Weeks has been Chair of the Queensland Branch of the Australasian Study of Parliament Group (ANSOG).  She is taking up a position in Japan, having been a lecturer in Japanese Studies and International Relations at the University of the Sunshine Coast.  Her areas of expertise include Japanese politics and foreign policy, Australia–Japan relations and teaching Japanese language. She has also taught language and politics at the University of Queensland and Griffith University, and held appointments as Project Officer in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and research officer for a Queensland Senator. She also lived in Japan as a graduate research student at Daito Bunka University Tokyo (Law Faculty), the University of Tokyo Graduate School and Visiting Research Fellow at Waseda University.

Dr Weeks' publications include chapters and articles on Australia–Japan relations, Japanese politics and auxiliary texts for young learners of Japanese language. She is writing a book on the East Asia security community, 'unpopular culture' in Australia–Japan relations, and whaling. In 2010, she was a Harold White Fellow at the National Library of Australia, where she examined the Japanese language collections for early Japanese impressions of Australian political and cultural life; and she was selected to participate in the inaugural Asia Policy Assembly, through the National Bureau of Asian Research in Washington DC. She undertakes regular commentary in the media and writes for the website Online Opinion.