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AUSTRALIA
IN MEMORIAUM: Vale Kay Daniels
We note with sadness the passing of Dr Kay Daniels in late 2001. She did much to promote teaching and research in Australian women's history and in Australian Studies. She was the author of Convict Women (1998). In 1977 she edited, with Mary Murnane and Ann Picot, Women in Australian History an Annotated Guide to Records and in 1980 she and Mary Murnane edited Uphill All the Way: a documentary history of women in Australia.. In 1984 she edited a collection of essays, So Much Hard Work: women and prostitution in Australian History. Kay worked for many years as a public servant and was one of the authors of Windows on to Worlds (1987), the ground-breaking report on Australian Studies. A conference in her memory, 'The Pasts and Futures of Australian Studies' will be held at the Ourimbah Campus of the University of Newcastle on 11-12th October 2002. Enquiries to lryan@mail.newcastle.edu.au
CONFERENCES/SEMINARS
Lilith Symposium 2002:'New Challenges for Feminist History', University of
Melbourne, 11 July 2002.
Since the early 1980s, the Lilith Symposium has provided a valuable forum for
new and established scholars to present research in feminist history and related
areas. This year, the symposium will focus on the broad topic of new challenges
to feminist history.
CALL FOR PAPERS:
We would welcome proposals, from both new and established scholars, for 20 minute
papers relating to the set theme. This might include papers which deal with
whether feminist history has lost its critical edge, issues of race and whiteness
and the challenges posed by cross-cultural contexts and the issue of sex versus
gender as a category of analysis. Papers presented at the Symposium may be considered
for publication in the 2003 Lilith: A Feminist History Journal. This is now,
we believe, the only fully refereed journal that is solely dedicated to publishing
feminist history in Australia.
Please send symposium abstracts of 200 words (preferably via email) by 10 June
2002, along with your full contact details,
to: history-lilith@unimelb.edu.au
To register for the symposium please email us by 5 July 2002. Registration $15
($10 students and unwaged) payable on the day.
For conference updates, or to subscribe to the journal which includes, in the
current volume, articles by Margaret Allen, Chilla Bulbeck and others, please
visit our website at www.history.unimelb.edu.au/lilith.
FRANCHISE CENTENARY
WHITE WOMEN, INDIGENOUS PEOPLE AND THE COMMONWEALTH VOTE Friday 17 May 2002, 9.30am-4pm Gryphon Gallery, 1888 Building, University of Melbourne Enquiries to John Chesterman: jhc@unimelb.edu.au.
2002 marks the centenary of Australia's first national franchise law. On the 12th of June 1902 the Commonwealth Parliament's Commonwealth Franchise Act became law. Celebrated for its enfranchisement of (most) women, the Act also disenfranchised most Indigenous Australians. The symposium will consider the ramifications of the first national franchise law and its modern political legacy.
Lilith: A Feminist History Journal and the Departments of History and Politics at the University of Melbourne will host a small event to celebrate 100 years of non-Aborignal women's vote and 40 years of Aboriginal women's vote. The Hon. Joan Kirner, Victoria's first female premier has agreed to speak briefly on women in politics. May 17, 5pm. Enquiries, Claire Smiddy (03)8344 5959.
Pamela Sharpe, QEII Research fellow at UWA, is preparing the thirteenth annual workshop of the Women's Committee of the Economic History Society, entitled 'European Families, Relationships and Money in Historical Perspective' to be held in early November 2002 in London
Symposium to celebrate 25 years of Women's Studies at ANU, 3 August 2001. former teachers in the program, including Susan Magarey and Ann Curthoys, spoke, along with current staff (Jindy Pettman and Rosanne Kennedy) and students.
RESEARCH, GRANTS AND FELLOWSHIPS
Dr Rae Frances, School of History, University of New South Wales, was awarded an ARC Discovery Grant of $107,000 for 2002-4 for her project, 'A History of Female Prostitution in Australia since 1788'.
Associate Professor Susan Magarey (Adelaide) has been awarded a 3 year ARC Discovery grant to write a biography of Dame Roma Mitchell, Australia's first woman QC, Judge and State Governor.
Professor Alison Mackinnon (UNISA) has been awarded a 3 year ARC Discovery grant for her study 'Beyond Access: women, higher education and the quiet revolution of the 1950s in Australia and the US'.
Professor Alison Mackinnon holds the Kerstin Hesselgren Visiting Professorship from February to July 2002. This funded position was created by the Swedish Parliament in 1987, is open to women from all disciplines,and is named after Kerstin Hesselgren (1872-1962) who was the first woman to be elected to the Swedish Parliament, in 1922. During many years of outstanding public service, Kerstin Hesselgren gained recognition for her eminent expertise in social policy, for her work as one of the pioneers in the women's movement, to promote women's rights, and for her commitment to the cause of international peace.' Alison Mackinnon will spend most of the period at the department of historical demography at Umeå University.
The Political Science Program at the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian
National University is hosting two projects relating to women's political history.
Marian Sawer (RSSS-ANU) has an Australian Research Council- project (2001-2004)
on the history of Women's Electoral Lobby (1972-), exploring in what circumstances
and using what strategies feminists can exercise policy influence. She is assisted
by Dr Gail Radford, inaugural WEL-ACT Convenor and by Dr Margot Harker. The
web address is:
http://wel.anu.edu.au/
The second is a project bringing together research and researchers concerned
with women's political representation in Australia and Canada. This is being
funded by the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
under the Program for International
Research Linkages. The researchers involved are Linda Trimble (University of
Alberta), Marian Sawer (Australian National University), Manon Tremblay (University
of Ottawa), Jennifer Curtin (Monash University) and Ian McAllister (Australian
National University). A research seminar laying the basis for on-going comparative
research on women's electoral representation will be held at the Research School
of Social Sciences, Australian National University, February 2003. Further information
will be available at:
http://polsc.anu.edu.au/
Dr. Hsu Ming Teo has won a 3 year ARC Fellowship to work on Romance Writing at MacQuarie University.
Dr Barbara Baird, Coordinator of Women's Studies at the University of Tasmania, will be visiting the University of Adelaide and Macquarie University during second semester 2002, pursuing research about the history of abortion in Australia. She's particularly interested in relating the history of abortion, including recent crises and changes in the law and provision of abortion services, to current Australian debates about population, and race and racism. Anyone interested in these themes can contact her at Barbara.Baird@utas.edu.au.
Dr Christina Twomey is working on a history of Australian women interned by
the Japanese in World War II and will speak on this at the conference "Remembering
1942" at the Australian War Memorial in June 2002, and at a conference
on the
Homecoming of Prisoners of War at the International Committee for the History
of the
Second World War at Hamburg, also in June 2002.
Pauline Cockrill, curator@pioneerwomen.com.au curator of the National Pioneer Women's Hall of Fame in Alice Springs was 2000/01 recipient of the N.T. Women's Fellowship. She spent 3 months studying the history, management and organisation of both real and virtual women's museums around the world. A list of 40 museums with links etc is at WorldWideWomen on the NPWHF's website (www.pioneerwomen.com.au).
Andrea Gaynor (History) Uni of Western Australia is researching suburban food production (including its gendered dimension) in Australia.
Susan Broomhall, (History) Uni of Western Australia has an ARC
Research Fellow to work on women's participation as medical practitioners in
France, 1450-1650.
Professor Ann Curthoys (ANU), Dr Mary Spongberg, Macquarie University and Professor Barbara Caine, Monash University are working on a companion to women's historical writing.
EXHIBITIONS
'Public Moments, Private Lives: Costume from the Davey Family' an exhibition currently at the Migration Museum in Adelaide, South Australia presents the history of three generations of women from a single South Australian family through their clothes. The scripting uses recorded interviews with Margaret Davey and her sister Jean Lang, and the clothing and family memorabilia which they have kept, to explore differences across time through themes such as childhood, weddings, public and private lives, and creative expression. Curator: cfinnimore@history.sa.gov.au
PUBLICATIONS
D.Scott and S.Swain, Confronting Cruelty: Historical Perspectives on Child Protection in Australia, Melbourne University Press, 2002.
Susan Magarey (ed) Dame Roma: Glimpses of a Glorious Life Axiom, Adelaide, 2002.
Susan Magarey Passions of the First Wave Feminists UNSW Press, Sydney 2001
Diane Kirkby and Catharine Coleborne (eds) Law, history,colonialism: The reach of empire (Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2001)
Margaret Thornton (ed) Romancing the Tomes: Feminism Law and popular culture (Cavendish ,forthcoming August. 2002)
Christina Twomey, Deserted & Destitute: Motherhood, Wife Desertion and
Colonial Welfare (Australian Scholarly Publishing, forthcoming 2002)
Patricia Crawford and Philippa Maddern (eds) Women as Australian Citizens: Underlying Histories. (Melbourne University Press ) 2002 The book contains articles by Joan Eveline, Jane Long, Rita Farrell, Cheryl Lange and by the editors. It explores the legacies of many debates over and theories of citizenship relevant to Austrr\alia's past and present, and argues that citizenship is not necessarily an ideal category promoting equality for women. The book is a welcome addition to the histories of gendered and racialised citizenship in Australia.
Susan Broomhall Women and the Book Trade in Sixteenth-Century France London, Ashgate forthcoming June 2002
Michelle Arrow (MacQuarie) has just completed a book on Women Playwrights in Australia Currency Press
Mary Spongberg's book on Women Historians , Palgrave forthcoming late 2002
Barbara Baird, 2001. 'Abortion, Questions, Ethics, Embodiment', History Workshop Journal, Issue 52, pp. 197-216.
Susan R Allan, 'Irish Convicts - Hampdens or Hardened Criminals? A Review of the Work of Lloyd Robson and John Williams: A Comparative Case Study, Tasmanian Historical Studies, Vol.7, No.2, 2001, pp.95-118
Fiona Paisley, 'Race Hysteria, Darwin, 1938', Australian Feminist Studies, vol. 16, no. 34, (March 2001), pp. 43-60.
Fiona Paisley, Edited special issue of Australian Feminist Studies, New Comparisons/International Worlds, vol 16, no. 36, November 2001.
Constance Backhouse, Ann Curthoys, Ian Duncanson and Ann Parsonson, '"Race", gender and nation in history and law', in Diane Kirkby and Catharine Colborne, eds, Law, history, colonialism: the reach of Empire, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2001.
Margaret Allen 'The Brothers up North and the Sisters down South: The Mackay family and the frontier' Hecate vol. XXVII (1) May 2001 pp.7-31
Margaret Allen, 'Thinking Back Through Our Aunts: Emily and Matilda Sturge' Lilith November 2001
Rae Frances, 'Gender, Federation and Working Life', in G. Patmore and M.Hearne (eds) Working the Nation: Working Life and Federation, 18909-1914, Pluto Press, Sydney, 2001, pp. 32-47.
Susan Magarey, 'Louisa Albury Lawson 1848-1920' in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol.230: Australian Literature 1788-1914, First Series (Bruccoli Clark Layman/Gale Group), Detroit., 2001, 10pp.
The State Library of South Australia has published a bibliography of Catherine Helen Spence (1825-1910) on the web at http://slsa.sa.gov.au/spence/index.html
-compiled by Margaret Allen
Archive Fund