Professor Kay Schaffer

Biography/ Background

Kay Schaffer is an Adjunct Professor in Gender, Work and Social Inquiry, School of Social Studies at the University of Adelaide and at the Hawke Research Centre for Sustainable Environment, University of South Australia. She works in the areas of gender studies, cultural studies, and literary studies. Her most recent work concerns the significance of personal testimony and storytelling in human rights campaigns and contexts, including narratives of recovery emanating from China, South Africa, and Australia. In 2004 she co-authored Human Rights and Narrated Lives: The Ethics of Recognition with Sidonie Smith (Palgrave, 2004). She has been invited to take up the Dr.R. Marika Visiting Chair of Australian and Indigenous Studies a the University of Cologne (Germany) in the summer semester (April-September, 2010).

Qualifications

1984  Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania, USA), (English and Cultural Studies)

        Thesis title: "The Place of Woman in the Australian Tradition: A Discourse Analysis"

1971  M.A.   University of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania, USA), Field of English

1966  B.A.   Duquesne University (Pennsylvania USA), Joint majors in History and Political Science

          

Teaching Interests

• Australian and Indigenous and non-Indigenous Literary and Visual Cultures

• Life Writing, Human Rights and Globalisation

• Narratives of reconciliation in local and global contexts Postcolonial Theory and Practice

• Research Strategies and Methodologies

Research Interests

current projects:

• De-colonisation vs postcolonial approaches to the past

• Australian life narratives and reconciliatiion

• with Xianlin Song: contemporary Chinese women writers and their engagement with feminism

Publications

Books

 丛林、性别与澳大利亚历史的重构 [The Bush, Gender and History: Australian Feminist Perspectives].  Ed. by HuangLin, trans by Huang Ping, et al. Guilin: Guangxi University Press (in press).

Human Rights and Narrated Lives: The Ethics of Recognition (with Sidonie Smith). New York: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2004, 303 pp.

The Olympics at the Millenium: Performance, Politics and the Games, with Sidonie Smith. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2000, 320 pp.

Constructions of Colonialism: Perspectives on Eliza Fraser’s Shipwreck, with Ian Mc Niven and Lynette Russell. London: Cassell/ Leicester University Press, 1998, 192 pp.

Indigenous Australian Voices: A Reader, with Jennifer Sabbioni and Sidonie Smith.  New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1998, 310 pp.

 

In the Wake of First Contact: The Eliza Fraser Stories.  Melbourne, New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995/6, 320 pp.

Women and the Bush: Forces of Desire and the Australian Cultural Tradition. Melbourne, New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987/8, 224 pp.

Captured Lives: Australian Captivity Narratives.  London: Sir Robert Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, 1993 (with Kate Darian-Smith and Roslyn Poignant), 57 pp.

Articles:

with Xianlin Song, “Unruly Spaces: Gender, Women’s Writing and Indigenous Feminism in China”, Journal of Gender Studies 16, 1 (March, 2007), 17-30.

with Xianlin Song, “Writing Beyond the Wall: Translation, Cross-Cultural Exchange and Chen Ran’s A Private Life”, Portal: Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies 3, 2 (2006). http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/

with Xianlin Song, “Narrative, trauma and memory: Chen Ran’s A Private Life,Tiananmen Square and female embodiment”, Asian Studies Review 30.2 (June 2006), 161-73.

 

with Sidonie Smith, “Human Rights, Storytelling, and the Position of the Beneficiary: Antjie Krog’s Country of my Skull”, PMLA (Publications of the Modern Language Association) 121. 3 (Oct. 2006), 1577-84.

with Sidonie Smith, “Conjunctions: Life Narratives in the Field of Human Rights”, Biography 27.1 (Win, 2004) 1-24.

with Emily Potter, “ ‘Rabbit-Proof Fence’, Relational Ecologies and the Comodification of Indigenous Experience”, Australian Humanities Review, 31-32 (2004), 24  pp. australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-April-2004/schaffer.[article translated into Danish and reprinted in The Poles of Assimilation - Greenland and Aboriginal Australia in a Postcolonial Perspective, ed. by Lars Jensen, Kirsten Holst Petersen, Sanne Kok and Lene Bull Christiansen, Roskilde, Denmark: Cultural Encounters, 2004, 29-40.]

with Sidonie Smith, “Venues of Storytelling: the circulation of testimony in human rights campaigns”, Life Writing 1.2 (2004), pp. 3-26.

“Narrative Lives and Human Rights: The Stolen Generation and the Ethics of Recognition”, Dorothy Green Memorial Lecture, JASAL (Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature),  3 (2004), 5-25.

“Critical Conundrums: Representing the Historical Agency of Women in the Southern African Region” Major  review essay on ‘Women Writing Africa: The Southern Region’ (2003). Ed. by Margaret J. Daymond, Dorothy Driver, Sheila Meintjes, Leloba Molema, Chiedza Musengezi, Margie Orford and Nobantu Rasebotsa, Biography 27.2 (Spring, 2004).

with Sidonie Smith, “ ‘Land of the Free?”: Circulating Human Rights and Narrated Lives in the United States”, Comparative American Studies 1.3 (2003), 263-84. [revised and reprinted as “ ‘Land of the Free’: Circulating Human Rights and Narrated Lives in the United States”: 109-31. In Intercultural America. Ed. by Alfred Hornung  in collaboration with Winfried Herget and Klaus Lubbers. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2007 ]. 

"The Stolen Generations and Public Responsibility", Antipodes: A North American Journal of Australian Literature, 16, 2 (Dec., 2002), 4-8.

“Manne’s Generation: White Nation Responses to the Stolen Generation Report” Australian Humanities Review July-Sept, 2001), http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-June-2001/schaffer.html

 

 “Getting over the genocide question—Australian Historiography and the Stolen Generations debates: Review Essay:  Aboriginal History 25 (2001), Special Section: ‘Genocide’?: Australian Aboriginal history in international perspective”, in borderlands [electronic journal]1.2 (Dec., 2002) www.borderlands.net.au/issues/vol1no2.html

"Cultural Studies at the Millennium: tributes, themes, directions", Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 14,3 (Nov., 2000), 265-75.

 "Women and the Republic: Dancing To a Different Tune?", Hecate 25, 1 (1999), 94-101.

with Heather Kerr, “Introduction: Postcoloniality/Cultural Studies” Continuum: A Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 13, 3 (Dec., 1999), 301-4.

"Scare Words: 'Feminism', Postmodernism Consumer Culture and the Media", Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 12, 3 (1998), 321-34.

"The Contested Zone: Cybernetics, Feminism and Representation", Journal of Australian Studies, 50/51 (1996), 157-64. [Translated and reprinted in Cyberfemininizam. Ed. By Igor Markovic. Zagreb: Centre for Cultural Studies, 1999.]

"The Eliza Fraser Story and Constructions of Race, Class and Gender in Australian Culture," Hecate: Special Issue on Women/Australia/Theory 17, 1 (1991), 136-149.

"Trial by Media: The Case of Eliza Fraser" Antipodes: A North American Journal of Australian Literature, 5, 2 (Winter, 1991), 114-120.

"Australian Mythologies: Eliza Fraser, Sidney Nolan, Patrick White, 'A Fringe of Leaves' and 'Female Sexuality". Kunapipi, 11, 2 (1989), 1-16. Reprinted in Them and Us: New Literatures in English. Ed. By Gordon Collier. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi Press.

"Women and the Bush: Australian National Identity and Representations of the Feminine," Antipodes: A North American Journal of Australian Literature, 6 (June, 1989), 7-15.

"Landscape Representation and Australian National Identity", Australian Journal of Cultural Studies, 4, 2 (September 1987), 47-60.

"Stripping the Bed Bare-Again", Hecate, 13, 2 (1987/8), 158-160. An earlier version of this paper appears as a Catalogue Essay for an Art Exhibition on Sexuality entitled Stripping the Bed Bare, Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide, November, 1986.

"Critical Dilemmas: Looking for K[atharine] S[usannah] P[richard]", Hecate 10, 2 (1984), 45-52.

As Kay Iseman:

"Barbara Baynton: Woman as 'The Chosen Vessel'", Australian Literary Studies 11, 1 (May 1983), 25-37.

 "Katharine Susannah Prichard: Of an End a New Beginning", Arena 54 (1979), 70-96. Also appears in J. Docker, D. Modjeska and S. Dermody (eds.), Nellie Melba, Ginger Meggs and Friends. Melbourne: Kibble, 1982, 124-151.

Unreferreed articles:

Review:The Memory Museum (Centenary of Federation Exhibition), “History Loosed from its Moorings”, Realtime 46 (Dec., 2001-Jan. 2002), 37-8. Also online: www.realtimearts.net.

“Reconstructing ‘Our’ Past: The Museum of Sydney”, The Olive Pink Bulletin, 8,2 (1996), pp. 22-5.

“Viewing Motherhood and Surrogacy through ‘A Country Practice’ ”, Australian Women's Book Review 5,3 (Sept., 1993), pp. 19-22.

“La Leyenda de Eliza Fraser”, Culture: La Nueva Espana 107 (Jan., 1991), p. 48.

“Postmodernism and History: A Reply to Marian Aveling,” Australian Feminist Studies (Aut., 1990), pp. 91-94.

“Report on the 57th ANZAAS. Conference, Townsville, Qld, August, 1987”,  Australian Feminist Studies 4, 6 (Aut. 1988), 103-7.

“Female Sexuality: Study by Correspondence”, Fem News 10 (March, 1988), pp. 16-18.

with Megan Lewis, "Review of Research on Women in Environmental Sciences" (with Megan Lewis), Women in Natural Resources (U.S.A), 9, 4 (1988), 12-14.

“Dream, Disillusion, and the Australian Tradition”, Meanjin 38, 3 (1979), pp. 275-285.

 Chapters in Edited Books:

“Testimony, Nation Building and the Ethics of Witnessing: After the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa”: 89-102  in Pathways to Reconciliation, ed. by Cleo Fleming, Paul Komesaroff and Philipa Rothfield. Princeton: Ashgrove Press, 2008.

“Memory Work and Memorialisation in the New South Africa”: 360-79  in Memory, Narrative, and Forgiveness: Perspectives on the Unfinished Journeys of the Past. Ed. by Pumla Gobodo-Madikezela and Chris van der Mewre. Cambridge Scholars Publishers, 2009.

with Emily Potter, “Beyond the Rabbit-Proof Fence: Audience Response and an Ethic of Care”: 187-201. In Australia: Who Cares? Ed. by David Callahan. Perth: Network Books, 2007.

 

“What’s Haunting the Nation?: Responding to Stolen Generation Testimony”: 127-40  in The Regenerative Spirit, Volume I1—Polarities of Home and Away, Encounters and Diasporas in Post-Colonial Literatures. Ed. by Nena Bierbaum, Syd Harrex and Sue Hosking. Adelaide: Lythrum Press, 2004.

“Transforming Trauma: Post-Tiananmen Narratives and the Chinese Intellectual Diaspora”: 145-57 in The Regenerative Spirit, Volume 1—Polarities of Home and Away, Encounters and Diasporas in Post- Colonial Literatures. Ed. By Nena Bierbaum, Syd Harrex and Sue Hosking. Adelaide: Lythrum Press, 2003.

“Legitimating the Personal Voice: Shame and the Stolen Generation Testimony in Australia”: 47-63 in Resistance and Reconciliation: Writing in the Commonwealth. Ed. by Bruce Bennett, Susan Cowan, Jacqueline Lo, Satendra Nandan and Jennifer Webb. Canberra: ASAL (Association for the Study of Australian Literature) and UNSW-ADFA, 2003.

“The Game Girls of VNS Matrix: Challenging Gendered Identities in Cyberspace”: 147-68 in Virtual Gender. Ed. by Mary Ann O’Farrell and Lynne Vallone. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999 [ reprinted in Kim M. Phillips and Barry Reay (eds), Sexualities in History: A Reader: 434-52. New York: Routledge, 2002].

"Handkerchief Diplomacy: E.J. Eyre and Sexual Politics on the South Australian Frontier":134-50 in Colonial Frontiers: Indigenous-European Encounters in Settler Societies. Ed. By Lynette Russell. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001.

with  D’Arcy Randall, “Transglobal Translations: The Eliza Fraser and Rachel Plummer Captivity Narratives”: 105-23.: In Colonial and Postcolonial Incarceration. Ed.  by Graeme Harper. Cassell/Leicester University Press, 2001.

with Sidonie Smith, “The Olympics of the Everyday”: 213-23. In The Olympics at the Millennium: Power, Politics and the Games. Ed. by Kay Schaffer and Sidonie Smith. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2000.

with Sidonie Smith, “Introduction”: 1-18. In The Olympics at the Millenium: Power, Politics and the Games. Ed. by Kay Schaffer and Sidonie Smith. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2000.

“ ‘Strictly Ballroom’ or ‘Dances with Wolves’?  How Australian Feminisms Negotiate with Australia’s Nationalist Histories and Mythologies: A Pas de Deux about Identity and Difference”: 29-46 in Australian Nationalism Reconsidered: Maintaining a Monocultural Tradition in a Multicultural Society, Ed. by Adi Wimmer, Tubingen: Stauffenberg Verlag, 1999.

with Ian Mc Niven and Lynette Russell, “Introduction”: 1-12. In Constructions of Colonialism: Perspectives on Eliza Fraser’s Shipwreck. Ed. by Ian Mc Niven, Lynette Russell and Kay Schaffer.  London: Cassell/Leicester University Press, 1998.

 

“‘We are like Eliza’: Twentieth Century Responses to the Eliza Fraser Saga”: 79-96 in Constructions of Colonialism: Perspectives on Eliza Fraser’s Shipwreck.  Ed. by Ian Mc Niven, Lynette Russell and Kay Schaffer. London: Cassell, 1998.

“Whose Cannibalism?: Consumption, Incorporation and the Colonial Body”: 85-108 in Culture and Colonialism. Ed. by Maíre Ní Flauthúin. Galway: Galway University Press, 1998.

 

“Barbara Baynton: Woman as ‘The Chosen Vessel’”: 13-19 in Twentieth Century Literary Criticism.  New York: Gale Research, 1995. [Reprint of previously published article].

“The Bush and Women” in Studying Australian Culture: An Introductory Reader: 193-224. Ed. by Graeme Turner and Franz Kuna.  Munich, Germany: Kovacs Press, 1994. [Reprint of previously published chapter in Women and the Bush].

“Colonising Gender in Colonial Australia: The Eliza Fraser Story”:101-­20 in Writing, Women and Space.  Ed. by Gillian Rose and Alison Blunt.  New York: Guilford Press, 1994.

“Audience Positioning: Viewing Motherhood through A Country Practice’ ”: 42-52 in Tomorrow Never Knows: Soap Opera and Australian Television.  Ed. by Susan Turnbull and Kate Bowles.  Canberra: Australian Film Institute, 1994.

“Henry Lawson, The Drover's Wife and the Critics”:199-210 in Debutante Nation: Feminism Contests the 1890s.  Ed. by Susan Magarey, Sue Rowley and Susan Sheridan.  Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1993.

“Australian Mythologies: The Eliza Fraser Story and Constructions of the Feminine in Patrick White’s ‘A Fringe of Leaves’ and Sidney Nolan's Eliza Fraser Paintings,”: 371-83 Them and Us: Translation, Transcription and Identity in Post-Colonial Literary Cultures. Ed. By Gordon Collier. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi Press,1992.

As Kay Iseman:

"Barbara Baynton: Woman as 'The Chosen Vessel' ": 97-101. In Not the Whole Story.  Ed. by Sneja Gunew and Ian Reid, Geelong, Vic.: Deakin University Press, 1984.

"Narrative and Gender: Panel Discussion": 103-9. In Not the Whole Story.  Ed. by Sneja Gunew and Ian Reid. Geelong, Vic.: Deakin University Press, 1984.

“Katharine Susannah Prichard: Of an End a New Beginning”:124-151. In Nellie Melba, Ginger Meggs and Friends.  Ed. by  J. Docker, D. Modjeska and S. Dermody. Melbourne: Kibble, 1982.

“Our Father's Daughters: The Problem of Filiation for Women Writers of Fiction”: 107-118. In Australian Women: Feminist Perspectives . Ed. by N. Grieve and P. Grimshaw. Melbourne: Oxford University Presss, 1981.

“Why Settle for Second Best?”: 16-21 in Social Development and Schools. Ed. By Robin Maslin. Adelaide: SA. Education Department, 1977.

  

 

Expertise for Media Contact

Categories	Human rights and civil liberties, Aboriginal & Indigenous issues
Expertise	Contemporary life writing; race; racism; reconciliation; Australia; Australian culture; women (representations of women in the media - film, magazines, TV, television); human rights campaigns (South Africa, Australia, China); feminism; storytelling and human rights
Notes	Alt phone: (08) 8303 3715
After hours	(08) 8431 5195

Entry last updated: Sunday, 5 Feb 2012