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VICTORIA ARC funding has been showered upon our colleagues, with Marilyn Lake, Dianne Kirkby and Katie Holmes being the well deserved recipients of large ARC funds. Further congratulations are to be extended to Diane who has also been promoted to the level of an Associate Professor. There is also good news to report regarding jobs. Cathy Coebourne is taking up a lectureship in History at the University of Waikato in New Zealand and Esther Faye has been appointed for another year in the history department at Monash University. Patricia Grimshaw has just returned from research in New Zealand. Marian Quartly, previously Dean of the Faculty of Arts, returns to the Monash department next year and will be taking up the editorship of the prestigious Australian Historical Studies.
NEW SOUTH WALES the launch of Oxford Companion to Australian feminisms Mary Spongberg got tenure (She says 'thank God' - it being a time of sackings) Sydney University History post-grads put on a really great Conference on Masculinities in November and a Places of the Heart Conference on History and Memory for History Week. Jill Roe gave the History Week address. Bev Kingston is becoming an Honorary Research Fellow at UNSW. Several of the History Week Prizes were won by women - including Jacinta Feltis won the Max Kelly Prize for a paper on the history of Architecture, Portia Robinson, well-known specialist in convict women's history, is retiring from Macquarie University. Paula Hamilton and Lesley Johnson convened a December conference Localising Modernity/Cultural Histories as part of the Transforming Cultures group. Meaghan Morris gave one of the keynote addresses.
AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY Fiona Paisley has been awarded a 3yr ARC postdoctoral fellowship at the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research. She will work on the history of feminism and human rights movements in Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Anita Callaway has gained an ARC postdoctoral fellowship at the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research; Anita is working on representations of the corroboree and Aboriginal performance. A batch of people from the CCR won generous ARC (small) grants - including Joan Kerr and Ann McGrath. Rozanna Lilley recently launched her book 'Staging Hong Kong: Gender and Performance in Transition'. Sarah Lloyd won the Harold White Fellowship, National Library, 6 months, to work on poverty in 18th century England. Pat Jalland is organising Australian British history association conference for Feb 1999. Stephanie Tarbin History Dept, ANU, the faculties, jointly got a CAUT grant re using electronic media in teaching. Jill Matthews and Sarah Lloyd went to sexualities workshop in Perth organised by Trish Crawford. The Oxford Companion to Australian Feminism came out, with many Canberra based contributors.
SOUTH AUSTRALIA & WA Katherine Massam is busy organising the next big Australian Historians Association Conference in Adelaide while Jan Gothard edits the Bulletin of the Australian Historians Association. Kay Schaffer and Heather Kerr convened the Conference of the Australian Cultural Studies Association, and keynote speakers included Roslyn Poignant, independent scholar, London, and Margot Neale, curator, Qld Art Gallery. Donna Merwick (affiliate of CCR) also gave a fascinating paper.
Australian Conference Proceedings of the IFRWH 1998 Conference
'Citizenship, Women and Social Justice: The Papers of the 1998 International Federation for Research in Women's History Conference' Papers given by Australian participants at the 1998 IFRWH conference are now in the process of being edited by Joy Damousi and Katherine Ellinghaus. We plan to publish these in the first half of 1999. The papers cover a range of topics related to citizenship, race, colonialism, democracy and social justice. We wish to express our thanks to those who promptly responded to our call and who have been co-operative in our efforts to release these papers as soon as possible. Anyone wishing to have their name placed on a mailing list to receive information about purchasing the proceedings once they are published should contact Katherine Ellinghaus c/ Department of History, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC 3052. Email:k.ellinghaus@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au
NEW PUBLICATIONS:
Franca Iacovetta and Wendy Mitchinson, eds. "On the Case. Exploration in Social History". (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998).
Linda Kealey, "Enlisting Women for the Cause: Women, Labour and the Left in Canada, 1890 -1920" (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998). Cloth: 0-8020-2874-8. Paper: 0-8020-7378-8.
Margaret Little, "No Car, No Radio, No Liquor Permit: The Moral Regulation of Single Mothers in Ontario, 1920-1997". (Oxford University Press,Toronto, 1998). Ruth Roach Pierson and Nupur Chauduri, eds., with Beth McAuley, "Nation, Empire, Colony. Historizing Gender and Race". (Indiana University Press, 1998). Cloth: 0-253-33398-9 29.95$USA. Paper: 0-253-21191-3.14.95$USA.
Patricia Smart. "Les Femmes du Refus Global. 334 pp. (Montreal: Boreal, 1998.) ISBN: 2-89052-897-9.
CALL FOR PAPERS:
1. Atlantis, A Women Studies Journal. Special issue: "Whose Canada Is It? Immigrant Women, Women of Colour, Citizenship and Multiculturalism".
Submissions are invited for a special issue planned for Spring 2000. We welcome a broad range of theoritical, disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives on such themes as: the legal, class, social and sexualized status of immigrant and migrant women in Canada, past and present; the political and ideological processes of nation-building Multiculturalism as politics and practise. We welcome papers as well as interviews, art and creative writing. Please send submissions before 15 March 1999, to the co-editors of the special issue, Tania Das Gupta and Franca Iacovetta, Atlantis A Women Studies Journal, Institute for the Study of Women, Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, NS, Canada B3M 2J6.
2. Publication.
The editorial board of A Century Stronger: Women's History in Canada 1900 to 2000 is looking for participants from across Canada to contribute essays in their field of specialization, or from the records they work with, to a millennium project documenting women's lives and achievements. Our aim is to publish a book which appeals to the general public, and could be used in undergraduate courses. This project is to be based on visual documents, oral history, and textual sources. We are looking specifically for previously unpublished materials on the following topics: women and sport, the home, science, commerce and Immigration. We are seeking several types of contributions based on archival sources.
Please send two copies of all submissions to: Women's History Project
c/o Professor Sharon Cook
Faculty of Education
University of Ottawa
145 Jean-Jacques Lussier
PO Box 450, Station A
Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5
Or e-mail your submission to Sharon Cook (scook@uottawa.ca) or Kate O'Rourke (kate.orourke@archives.gov.on.ca)
Please note, copyright will remain with the authors.
Andree Levesque
Women’s studies has been growing rapidly during the past two years. At the end of 1997 there were professors of women’s studies at ten universities & most of the chairs have been founded quite recently. In Finland women’s historians or gender historians usually publish their books in Finnish (or in Swedish). Some books are published in English, too. Sari Oikarinen’s dissertation "A Dream of Liberty". Constance Markievicz’s Vision of Ireland, 1908&endash;1927" was published by the Finnish Historical Society, Helsinki 1998.
Women’s historians may also be interested in an anthology "Gender and Folklore. Perspectives on Finnish and Karelian Culture" (edited by Satu Apo, Aili Nenola and Laura Stark-Arola) which was published by the Finnish Literature Society, Helsinki 1998.
"Gendering nationalism" was an international symposium organised by the University of Tampere in December 1997. The aim of the symposium was to explore 20th-Century nationalism in a gender perspective. The symposium analysed the ways in which different nationalisms have constructed and reconstructed gender, taking into account the dynamic social and historical contexts of national struggles. The speakers (professor Tuula Gordon, professor Eileen Boris, professor Tina Parke-Sutherland, doctor Sari Oikarinen, researcher Anu Koivunen, MA Audrone Januzyte) also discussed how the seemingly contradictory ideas of nationalism and feminism relate to each other. The theme "Gendering Nationalism" was discussed through American, English, Irish, Lithuanian and Finnish experiences. The papers presented in the symposium will be published. For more information, contact Pirjo Markkola (pirjo.markkola@uta.fi) or Sari Oikarinen (hisaas@uta.fi).
It is also possible to get more information about women’s studies in Finland through internet.
"Akka-info" is a new national project to collect Finnish women's studies related information and make it accessible through www. In the following address you can find important links and news in English: http://www.helsinki.fi/akka-info/english.html
Pirjo Markkola
University of Tampere, Finland
The Irish Women's History Project has been in existence since September 1997. It is sponsored by the Women's History Association of Ireland and funded by the Department of Arts, Heritage, the Gaeltacht and the Islands. The aim of the project is to locate, list and edit sources relating to the history of women in Ireland, north and south. Under the Directorship of Dr Maria Luddy, the project currently employs five researchers. The Project recently launched its first publication: volume one of a three volume editon of the late eighteenth century correspondence of Martha McTier and William Drennan edited by Dr Jean Agnew (general editor: Maria Luddy). The final two volumes of the correspondence will appear in the summer of 999. The Project is also compiling a database of sources for women's history in Ireland. Researchers have so far visited over two hundred archival institutions and organisations throughout Ireland, identifying and listing material relating to women. It is hoped that the database will be made available in the summer of 1999 in book and CD Rom form. Researchers are also engaged in listing files relating to women in the archive of the Department of the Taioseach in the National Archives and private papers with substantial material relating to women in the National Library of Ireland and the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. The Project is managed by a Management Committee consisting of archivists and historians drawn from the Republic of Ireland as well as Northern Ireland. Further information on the Project can be obtained from The Director, Dr Maria Luddy, Women's History Project, 73 Merrion Square, Dublin 2. E-mail: whp@indigo.ie.
The tenth conference of the Women's History Association of Ireland (formerly the Irish Association for Research in Women's History) was held in the University of Limerick on the theme of women and work. The conference was organised by Dr Bernadette Cunningham who is planning to edit the conference proceedings.
Mary O'Dowd, Belfast
1998 has been a good year for women's history, marked by centennial activities that celebrated the 1898 National Exhibition of Women's Labor. Books, exhibitions, a virtual reconstruction of the 1898 event, http://www.iiav.nl/arbeid/kaartntv.html, and conferences have been organized. Teaching material was developed. The International Information Center and Archives of the Women's Movement served as a clearinghouse for information about all the projects. http://www.iiav.nl/infoeng.html).
Subsidies and small grants from the national government (Department of Emancipation policies, of the ministry of Social Affairs), from local institutions and the enthusiasm of women's historians throughout the country made this possible.
October 24th the Dutch Association for Women´s History organised a conference on the National Exhibition of Women´s Work which was held in 1898. Mary Blanchard (USA) lectured about 'Women, Europe, and the Nation' with attention to the Chicago Exposition of 1893, Eva Lous (Denmark) presented a lecture about the Danish Women´s Exposition of 1895. In the afternoon four workshops were concerned with health, citizenship, colonialism and education.
The conference 'A Nation for Women?' took place in the International Institute and Archive of the Women´s Movement, Obiplein 4, in Amsterdam. A publication in English of some of the papers presented is considered.
The centennial activities ended with the presentation of the book 'Feministische Openbaarheid. De Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid in 1898' by Maria Grever and Berteke Waaldijk to Queen Beatrix. Thus the Dutch tradition of royal interest for the women's movement that had started in 1898 was continued.
other news:
In january Professor Doctor Marjan Schwegman, who had been appointed Chair for Women's Studies at Utrecht University last year, held her inaugural lecture 'De Prima Donna. Over exemplarische vrouwenlevens' (The prima donna, on exemplary women's lives).
In september 1998 Francisca de Haan's, Gender and and the politics of office work , The Netherlands 1860-1940' was published. (isbn :9053563040). It provides those who do not read Dutch a fascinating view of Dutch gender-history.
April 29th the chair of the Dutch Association for Women's History, Maria Grever, received royal honours on behalf of Queen Beatrix. Grever was decorated for her efforts on the field of women's history. Especially her work to make women's history an essential part of the curriculum in high schools, and the international outlook of that work was mentioned.
For more information about the Dutch Association for Women's History and our journal HISTORICA you can visit our site (this includes a collection of websites for women's history) http://www.let.ruu.nl/hist/info/VVG/
Berteke Waaldijk
A focus on welfare history is evident in recent publications by New Zealand women historians. Margaret McClure's 'A Civilised Community. A History of Social Security in New Zealand 1898-1998', and Bronwyn Dalley's 'Family Matters. Child Welfare in Twentieth-Century New Zealand' were both published by Auckland University Press in conjunction with the Historical Branch of the Department of Internal Affairs. The October issue of the 'New Zealand Journal of History' (Vol.32, no.2) was a special issue devoted to welfare history edited by Margaret Tennant and Linda Bryder. Writer Jane Mander is the subject of a new biography by Rae McGregor, published by University of Otago press. Mander's novel 'The Story of a New Zealand River' was suggested by some, to be the inspiration for the film 'The Piano'.
Other publications include articles by Barbara Brookes, 'Women and mental health: an historical introduction', Sarah Romans, ed, 'Folding back the shadows. A perspective on women's mental health', University of Otago Press, 1998, pp.15-22, and Barbara Brookes and Margaret Tennant, 'Clio gets the monthlies: menstruation, politics and historical practice', R DuPlessis and L. Alice. eds, 'Feminist thought in Aotearoa/New Zealand', OUP, 1998.
A call for papers is out for the next NZ Historical Association conference:'Forgotten Peoples, Missing Dimensions', 3-5 December 1999, University of Waikato, Hamilton. Contact: Conference
Convenor Anna Green at agreen@waikato.ac.nz.
The French History Rudé XII Conference will be held at Victoria University of Wellington, in early July 2000. Contact Conference Convenor Susan Grogan at Susan.Grogan@vuw.ac.nz.
Associate Professor Margaret Tennant, History, Massey University, will succeed Dr Charlotte Macdonald, History, Victoria University of Wellington, as President of the NZ Historical Association on 1 January 1999.'
Charlotte MacDonald
The National Association of History (SKOGH) had its annual meeting 6th and 7th of November. The theme this year was "Gender and Politics" and five speakers presented their research (Audur Magnusdottir, Iréne Andersson, Mikael Sjogren, Camilla Norrbin and Yvonne Hirdman) The second day there were four workshops where participants could discuss gender and work, gender and sexuality, gender and politics and gender and ideology. The annual meeting is also an arena for information and networking. Reports from IFRWH Summer Conference in Melbourne was on the programme as information on new conferences in Linkoping (April 1999), Scandinavian Women's History Meeting in Denmark ( Aug 1999) Berkshire (June 1999) and Oslo (2000). An electronic News Letter has now started and it is edited by Josefin Ronnback, Stockholm University - email: josefin.robert@swipnet.se
New dissertations
Christina Romlid, (1998) Power, Resistance and Change. The History of Swedish Health CareReflected Through the Official Midwife System 1663-1908. Uppsala University: Uppsala.
Annika Akerblom (1998)Industrial Welfare for Women. The Female Factory Inspectorate in Sweden 1913-1948. Uppsala University: Uppsala.
Asa Karlsson Sjogren (1998) The Judicial Status of Women in the 17th-Century Gavle. Umea University: Umea
New Professors
Marja Taussi Sjoberg, social history, Umea University
Britt-Marie Thurén, gender science, Umea University
Drude Dahlerup, political science, Stockholm University
Gunnel Forsberg, cultural geography, Stockholm University
Christina Florin
The Women's History Network held its annual conference in Glasgow in September 1998 on the theme of 'Borders and Frontiers', ostensibly to reflect current debate on the state of the Union and especially to draw attention to the issue of women's identity within and outside nation states. Plenary lectures were given by Christine Stansell, Sandra Stanley Holton and Sîan Reynolds and speakers and participants came from all over the UK as well as from Europe, North America and Australasia. A selection of the papers will be published in a forthcoming issue of Women's History Review.
Call for Papers
The 1999 conference will be held on 12-13 September at Staffordshire Unibversity, Stoke on Trent on the theme of Re-presenting Women. Anyone interested in presenting a paper should contact Shirley Good, School of Social Sciences & Humanities, Staffordshire University, Stoke on Trent. Email: artpe@staffs.ac.uk
WHN Clare Evans Memorial Prize
This year was the first time this prize - for the best original, unpublished essay in women's or gender history - had been awarded. The winner was Tessa Stone (Cambridge) with her essay entitled, 'Creating a (gendered) military identity: the Women's Auxiliary Airforce in the Second World War'.
The winning essay will be published in Women's History Review.
Fawcett Library
International readers might wish to know that the Fawcett Library has a new website address: http://www.lgu.ac.uk/fawcett/main.htm
National Library of Women
The Fawcett Library will shortly be known as the National Library of Women following its successful bid for Lottery funding which will help to finance a new library building and conference centre. It is hoped that the new facility will be open in 2001.
Lynn Abrams