Professor Susan Magarey

Biography/ Background

Susan Magarey AM, FASSA, PhD, has degrees in English Literature and History from Adelaide University and the Australian National University. She was the Director of the Research Centre for Women's Studies at Adelaide University, where she is now Adjunct-Professor in History.

She is the Founder of the Magarey Medal for Biography and a member of the Board of History SA. She is writing a history of the Women's Liberation Movement in Australia. For fun, she gardens, cooks and listens to classical music.

She describes her life in the words of Australian poet Jennifer Maiden: 'Ambivalent, ambidextrous, ambiguous, androgynous, amorous, ironic'.

Publications

 She is the author of three monographs:

one, her prize-winning biography of Catherine Helen Spence, Unbridling the tongues of women (1986) was republished in April 2010 by Adelaide University Press, with a new Introduction http://www.adelaide.edu.au/press/titles/spence/;

the second, Passions of the first-wave feminists, was published in 2001;

and the third, Looking Backward: Looking Forward. A History of the Queen Adelaide Club 1909-2009 appeared in 2009.

She is also, with Kerrie Round, co-author of Roma the First: a Biography of Dame Roma Mitchell (Wakefield Press), Adelaide, 2007, second revised imprint 2009. 

She was the Founding Editor of the tri-annual journal, Australian Feminist Studies, which she then edited for twenty years. 

She has edited eight collections of articles - including Women in a Restructuring Australia: Work & Welfare (1995) with Anne Edwards, and Debutante Nation: Feminism Contests the 1890s (1993) with Sue Rowley and Susan Sheridan.

She has published some seventy articles and book chapters. Among the most recent are

'What is Happening to Women's History in Australia at the Beginning of the Third Millenium?', Women's History Review, Vol.16, No.1, February 2007;

'Dreams and Desires: four 1970s Feminist Visions of Utopia', Australian Feminist Studies, Vol.22, No. 53, July 2007;

'Dame Roma Mitchell's Unmentionables: Sex, Politics and Religion', the Fourth History Council of South Australia Lecture, 2007, in History Australia, 2008;

'When it changed: the beginnings of Women's Liberation in Australia', in David Roberts and Martin Crotty (eds), Turning Points In Australian History (UNSW Press) Sydney, 2008; 

Three Questions for Biographers: Public or Private? Individual or Society? Truth or Beauty?, Journal of Historical Biography (Canada), no.4, Autumn 2008;

The Sexual Revolution as Big Flop, in Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ed.), Dialogue, vol.27, no.3, 2008;

'The invention of juvenile delinquency in early nineteenth century England', first pub. Labour History, 1978, republished in John Muncie and Barry Goldson (eds), Youth Crime and Juvenile Justice, 3 vols (Sage Publications), London 2008.

'The private life of Catherine Helen Spence 1825-1910' in Graeme Davison, Pat Jalland and Wilfrid Prest (eds), Body and Mind in Modern British and Australian History: Essays in Honour of FB Smith (Melbourne University Publishing), Melbourne, 2009.

'"To Demand Equality Is To Lack Ambition": Sex Discrimination legislation: contexts and contradictions', Conference held at the Australian National University to mark the Silver anniversary of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984, October 2009, now published in Margaret Thornton (ed.), Sex Discrimination in Uncertain Times (ANU E Press) Canberra, 2010.

'Louisa Lawson' in the Dictionary of Sydney www.dictionaryofsydney.org

'The Sexual Revolution as Big Flop: Women's Liberation Lesson One', paper presented to the Network for Research in Women's History conference, University of Melbourne, July 2008, in conjunction with the conference of the Australian Historical Association (an un-edited version is attached below).

 'The 1970s Australian Girl: from "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do" to "The Winner Takes It All"', Network for Research in Women's History conference held at the University of the Sunshine Coast in conjunction with the conference of the Australian Historical Association, June 2009 (also attached below).

 'An Imagination Goes Visiting: Louisa Lawson meets Charlotte Perkins Gilman at Desley Deacon's Women's Studies Centre at the University of Texas at Austin', paper presented to a special event to honour the career of Professor Desley Deacon at the Australian National University, April 2010 (also attached below).

'Women's Liberation was a Movement, not an organisation', paper presented to Academy of the Social Sciences of Australia conference on Australian Women's Non-Government Organisations and government: An evolving relationship, 29-30 November 2011, Australian National University, to be published in a collection edited by Marian Sawer, forthcoming 2012.

'Sex and citizenship: From ballot boxes to bedrooms', public lecture in Turning Points in South Australia's History, University of Adelaide, 24 August 2011, to be published in a collection edited by Rob Foster and Paul Sendziuk, forthcoming 2012.

'Literary Friendship: a Tale of Two Catherines: a Tribute to Margaret Allen', paper presented to conference in Gender and Women's Studies, University of Adelaide, February 2011, to be published in Australian Feminist Studies, 2012 forthcoming.

'The Tampon' in Margaret Henderson and Alison Bartlett (eds), Feminist Objects, Feminist Memories: the Australian Women's Movement Re-Collects, forthcoming 2012.

Files

• An_Imagination_Goes_Visiting.doc [54.0K] (application/msword)
• Susan Magarey paper - The_Sexual_Revolution_as_Big_Flo1.pdf [41.6K] (application/pdf)
• Susan Magarey paper - The_1970s_Girl_in_Australia.pdf [43.0K] (application/pdf)
• To_Demand_Equality_Is_To_Lack_Ambition.doc [88.0K] (application/msword)

Expertise for Media Contact

Categories	Human rights and civil liberties, History
Expertise	Late 19th and early 20th century; history; feminism (history of women's movements, women's suffrage in Australia, women's liberation, equal rights)
Notes	Alt phone: (08) 8303 5611

Entry last updated: Sunday, 5 Feb 2012