Emerita Professor Margaret Allen

• Qualifications

  B.A. (Hons) (Adelaide) 1969

   Diploma of Education (Adelaide) 1970

  Master of Arts (History) (Adelaide) 1976

  Master of Arts (Social History) (Essex) 1979

  Ph.D (Flinders University of South Australia) 1992

• Teaching Interests

  As a Professor Emerita, I am no longer available for Postgraduate Research Supervision

   Undergraduate Subjects previously taught

  Introduction to Gender Studies

  Gender, Work and Society

  Life Stories: Australia 1850-1980

  Gender and Race in Australian History

• Publications

   

  Monographs and Edited Books

  Cosmopolitan Lives on the Cusp of Empire:  Interfaith, Cross-Cultural and Transnational Networks, 1860-1950 Palgrave Pivot, 2017 (with Jane Haggis, Clare Midgely and Fiona Paisley) 

  F. de Haan, M. Allen, K. Daskalova and J. Purvis (eds) Women’s Activism: Global Perspectives from the 1890s to the present Routledge, London, 2013.

  Intersections: Gender, Race and Ethnicity in Australasian Studies Delhi, Prestige, 2007. Co-edited with R. K. Dhawan

  Fresh Evidence, New Witnesses Finding Women's History Adelaide, Stateprint, 1989 with Alison Mackinnon and Mary Hutchison

  Limited Access: Women's Disadvantage in Higher Education Employment NTEU, Melbourne, 1995 with Tanya Castleman, Wendy Bastalich and Pat Wright

  All Her Labours 2 vols Sydney, Hale and Iremonger 1984 edited with Women and Labour Publications Collective

  Book Chapters

  'The "silver-tongued orator" advocates for Australian Indians: Srinivasa Sastri's tour of Australia in 1922', in Aliens and Subjects, eds K. Bagnall and P. Prince , ANU Press, 2023.

   

  'Circling around Pandita Ramabai and "The Little Wives of India,"' in E.Boris, S. Dawson and B.Molony (eds) Engendering Transnational Transgression: From the Intimate to the Global, New York, Routledge, 2021 pp. 66-83.

  Controlling Transnational Asian Mobilities: A Comparison of Documentary Systems in Australia and South Africa (1890s to 1930s)' with Uma Dhupelia-Mesthrie in Robert Heynen and Emily van der Meulen, eds.Surveillance Societies: Transnational Histories, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2019. pp. 133-163.  

  ‘Circuitous routes: Journeys from India to Australia by way of the sugar colonies’ in Sekhar Bandyopadhyay and Jane Buckingham (eds) Indians in the Antipodes Networks of Empire, Boundaries of Empire, Boundaries of Race,  OUP Delhi,  2018, pp. 62-93.

  '"No More Loyal Subjects" Indians contesting White Australia' in Melanie Oppenheimer, Margaret Anderson and Mandy Paul (eds) South Australia on Eve of World War One, Wakefield Press, 2017, pp. 137-152.  

  ‘Paths to social caring: researchers consider their journeys through the ‘mantra’  ‘race’, class and gender’ with Jenny Baker and Maureen Dyer in R. Harding, R. Fletcher and C. Beasley eds, Revaluing Care in Theory, Law & Policy: Cycles and Connections. Routledge, 2017. pp. 65-80.

   

  ‘A "Tigress" in the Paradise of Dissent: Kooroona critiques the foundational colonial story’ in M. Treagus (ed): Changing the Victorian Subject, University of Adelaide Press, 2014, pp. 59-81. at http://www.adelaide.edu.au/press/titles/victorian-subject/

  'Such Comrades: Fred and Katie Martin' in R Lloyd and Jean Fornasiero (eds) Magnificent Obsessions: Honouring the Loves of Hazel Rowley, 2013  Cambridge Scholars Press, pp. 68-81.

  ‘“A Breach of Confidence by Their Greatly Beloved Principal”: A Furore at Women’s Christian College, Chennai, India, 1940’  in (eds) F. de Haan, M. Allen, K. Daskalova and J. Purvis, Women’s Activism: Global Perspectives from the 1890s to the present Routledge, London, 2013. pp. 168-182.

   Introduction' in (eds) F. de Haan, M. Allen, K. Daskalova and J. Purvis, Women’s Activism: Global Perspectives from the 1890s to the present Routledge, London, 2013 with F. de Haan,  J. Purvis, and K. Daskalova, pp. 1-12. 

   'Identifying Sher Mohamad: "a good citizen"' in R . Crane, C. Vijayasree, Anna Johnston, (eds) Empire Calling: Administering Colonial Spaces in India and Australasia, OUP, New Delhi, 2013, pp. 103-119.

  'Gender Studies and Social Analysis' in N. Harvey et.al. (eds) A History of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Adelaide , University of Adelaide Press,  2012 pp. 209-234.(with Susan Magarey)

  'Eleanor Rivett (1883-1972): Educationalist, Missionary and Internationalist' in Fiona Davis, Nell Musgrove and Judith Smart (eds)   Women Leaders in Twentieth Century Australia eScholarship Research Centre, University of Melbourne, 2011. pp. 45-63 Aso at http://www.womenaustralia.info/leaders/fff/pdfs/rivett.pdf

  'Through Colonial Spectacles' in Giselle Bastin, Kate Douglas, Michele McRea and Michael X.Savvas (eds) Journeying and Journalling: Creative and critical meditations on travel writing Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2010. pp. 133-148.  

    'The deluded white woman and the expatriation of the white child' in Jane Carey, Leigh Boucher and Katherine Ellinghaus (eds) Re-Orienting Whiteness: A new Agenda for the Field   Palgrave, New York, 2009 pp. 165-179.

  'Observing Australia as the "Member of an Alien and Conquered Race" ' in Amit Sarwal and Reema Sarwal (eds) Reading Down Under: Australian Literary Studies Reader, New Delhi: SSS Publications, 2009. pp.560-570.

  'Otim Singh in White Australia' in Susan Hosking et al. (eds) Something Rich and Strange: sea changes, beaches and the littoral in the antipodes (Adelaide, Wakefield Press, 2009) pp. 195-212.

   '"A fine type of Hindoo" meets "the Australian type": British Indians in Australia and diverse masculinities'. In (eds) Desley Deacon, Penny Russell and Angela Woollacott,Transnational Ties: Australian Lives in the World ANU E-Press, Canberra, 2008, pp. 41-58 at http://epress.anu.edu.au/transnational_citation.html.

  '"The Chinaman had no fault except that they were Chinese": An Indian view of Australia in 1888' in S. Sareen (ed) Interconnections Identity, Representation and Belonging New Delhi, Mantra Press 2006, pp. 202-217.

  'So complete is "the exile of London's poorest from civilisation": Catherine Martin encounters London' in Tully Barnett, Nena Bierbaum, Syd Harrex, Rick Hosking and Graham Tulloch (eds) London was full of rooms Adelaide, Lythrum Press 2006. pp. 128-137.

  '"Innocents abroad" and "prohibited immigrants"; Australians in India and Indians in Australia 1890-1910' in Ann Curthoys and Marilyn Lake (eds) Connected Worlds: History in Transnational Perspective Canberra, ANU E Press, 2005 pp. 111-124. Also at http://epress.anu.edu.au/cw/pdf/cw_part2.pdf Republished in Ajaya K. Sahoo, Michiel Baas, Thomas Faist (eds)  'Indian Diaspora and Transnationalism, Rawat Publications, New Delhi, 2012, pp. 350-365.

  '"To put on record, as faithfully as possible": Catherine Martin (1847-1937)' in Fiona Paisley, Anna Cole and Vicki Haskins (eds) Uncommon Ground: White Women in Aboriginal History Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra. 2005. pp. 240-256.

  Catherine Martin, '"The Moated Grange", Tennyson and Alick's diaries' in Nena Bierbaum, Syd Harrex Susan Hosking (eds) The Regenerative Spirit: Polarities of Home and Away, Encounters and Diasporas, in Post-colonial Literatures volume 2 (Lythrum Press, Adelaide, 2004) pp. 179-191.

  'Catherine Martin' biographical introduction to Rosemary Campbell (ed): C.E.M.Martin 'An Australian Girl' The Academy Editions of Australian Literature, St.Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 2002 pp. 639-655.

  'Fighting the Pipeline Fallacy' in Ann Brooks and Alison Mackinnon (eds) Gender and the Restructured University Open University Press, 2001[with Tanya Castleman] pp. 151-165.

  'The Playground and the Boarding House Realities of Daily Life' in Fay Gale (ed) Making Space Women and Education at St Aloysius College Adelaide 1880-2000 Wakefield Press, Adelaide 2000 pp. 123-151

  'Fred Martin' in Martin family committee (ed)The Hatbox Letters Privately published, Adelaide, 1999 pp. 99-104

  'Introduction' to Catherine Martin: Breaking the Law, Canberra, Mulini Press, 1997 pp.i-ii.

  "Reading Catherine Martin's "An Australian  Girl"' in Philip Butterss (ed) Southwords: Essays on South Australian Writing, Kent Town, South Australia, Wakefield Press, 1995 pp. 46-61.

  'Catherine Martin: An Australian Girl?' in Debra Adelaide (ed): A Bright and Fiery Troop: Australian Women Writers of the Nineteenth Century (Ringwood, Penguin, 1988) pp. 152-164 Republished on Auslit 2002

  'Introduction' to Catherine Martin, The Incredible Journey, London, Pandora, 1987, pp.vii-xiii.

  'Domestic Ideology and Maud Jeanne Franc' in Women and Labour Publications Collective (eds) Embroidering the Framework, Sydney, Hale and Iremonger, 1984, pp.21-331.  

  Refereed Journal Articles

  '“Though an Englishman, he was a Nationalist”: Border-Crossing and Friendship in late colonial India,'  Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, 22(3) 2021.

   

  'I am a British subject': Indians in Australia claim rights, 1880-1940'  History Australia,  vol. 15 (3) 2018, pp. 499-518. This special issue is being re-published as Colonial Formations (eds) Jane Carey and Frances Steele, Routledge, 2021

   

  'Memories of Leonore Davidoff', Lilith, 21 2015 pp. 104-5.

  ‘"Most painful and humiliating": The Surveillance of Sher Mohamad' in Studies in Western Australian no. 28, 2013. Special Issue  Indian Ocean Connections edited by  J.Martens, C. Leong-Salobir and R. Morgan, pp. 68-83.

   'True Friends or False? The changing nature of relationships between Indian and British missionary women in the imperial contact zone of India, c1880-1940', Outskirts, no. 28, May 2013. with Jane Haggis. at http://www.outskirts.arts.uwa.edu.au/volumes/volume-28/margaret-allen-and-jane-haggis 

  '"Impeccable Timing" A Personal Reflection' Australian Feminist Studies, vol 27 (73) 2012, pp. 313-323.

  'Family Stories and "Race" in Australian History'  CRAWS E journal vol.7 (2) 2011,1-13. Special Issue: Future Stories/Intimate Histories. see https://acrawsa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/CRAWS-No-7-Vol-2-2011.pdf

  'Shadow letters and the Karnana letter: Indians negotiate the White Australia Policy, 1901-1921'  Life Writing, volume 8, no. 2,  June 2011 pp. 187-202.

  ‘”That’s the Modern Girl”: Missionary women and modernity in Calcutta, c1907- c 1940’  Itinerario, 34 (3) 2010, pp. 83-96. 

   ‘”Friends alongside”: feminist inter-cultural co-operation in Kolkata in early twentieth century’ Australian Feminist Studies, 25 (66) December 2010, pp. 463-473.

  'Imperial Emotions: Affective communities of Mission in British Protestant Women's Missionary Publications c1880-1920' (with Jane Haggis) in Journal of Social History, Spring 2008, pp. 691-716

  'The Australian horse traders winter in Calcutta 1930', JOSA Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia October 2008, Vol. 39-40 Part One pp. 37-49.

  'Betraying the White Nation: The case of Lillie Khan' in Athanor: Semiotica, Filosofia, Arte, Letteratura, special issue White Matters/Il Bianco al Centro della Questione 17(10) 2006-7, pp. 346-353. Also in Historicising Whiteness: Transnational Perspectives on the Construction of an Identity; pages: 80-88. Boucher, Leigh (Editor); Carey, Jane (Editor); Ellinghaus, Katherine (Editor). Melbourne: RMIT Publishing in association with the School of Historical Studies, University of Melbourne, 2007.

  'Making Spaces: Women teachers and students in two Adelaide high schools around 1955', History Australia vol. 2 (2) pp. 37- 1-11. 2005.

  '"She seems to have composed her own life": thinking about Catherine Martin' Australian Feminist Studies vol. 19 (43) March 2004. pp. 29-42.

  'Homely stories and the ideological work of "Terra Nullius"' Journal of Australian Studies no 79 2003, pp. 104-115 and 234-236.

  'The gendering of professional careers for young Australians: some early findings of a longitudinal study', Special Issue Australian Journal of Labour Economics, Dec 2003 pp. 49-66. with Rosslyn Reed, Tanya Castleman and Darryl Coulthard.

  'The Brothers up North and the Sisters down South: The Mackay family and the frontier', Hecate vol. XXVII (2) November 2001 pp. 7-31.

  'Thinking Back Through Our Aunts: Emily and Matilda Sturge', Lilith November 2001 pp.41-57.

  'Learning our Shared Histories: Reconciliation and Aboriginal Galleries in the Western Australian and South Australian Museums' Cultures of the Commonwealth Essays and Studies 'Reconciliation' no.7 Winter 2000-2001 pp. 133-148 ] with Chilla Bulbeck

  Editorial 'Gender in the Contact Zone' Special Issue of Australian Feminist Studies Vol. 15 no.31, March 2001 pp. 4-8.

  '"White Already to Harvest" South Australian Women Missionaries in India' Feminist Review (UK) no 65 June 2000 pp. 92-107 republished in Amit Sarwal and Richard Hosking (eds) Wanderings in India: Australian Perceptions Monash Asia Publications, 2012, pp. 36-51.

  'The Author's Daughter, the Professor's Wife, Harriet Miller Davidson' Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia no. 27 1999 pp.103-124.

  'Matilda Sturge '"Renaissance Woman"' Women's History Review (UK) volume 7 (2) 1998 pp. 209-226

  'The "Pipeline Fallacy" and Gender Inequality in Higher Education Employment'. Policy, Organisation and Society no. 15, Summer 1998 pp. 23-44 (with Tanya Castleman).

  'Offices and Services: Women's Pursuit of Sexual Equality within the Society of Friends, 1873-1907' Quaker Studies (UK) vol.2 (1) Summer 1997 pp. 1-29 (with Sandra Stanley Holton)

  '"Natives of four or five kingdoms", Mount Gambier around 1870', Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia, no. 24 1996 ,pp.72-88. 

  The Forgotten Workforce: femal general staff in higher education.' Australian Universities' Review, v. 38 (2), 1995, pp. 65-69. 

  'Catherine Martin, Writer: Her Life and Ideas', Australian Literary Studies, vol. 13 (2) October 1987, pp. 184-197.

  'A Touch of Nostalgia at the Women and Labour Conference,' Pakistan Journal of Women's Studies : Alam-e-Niswan, vol.2(2) 1995, pp.27-34.  

   

  'A   'The Domestic Ideal and the Mobilisation of Womanpower in World War Two' Women's Studies International Forum,(UK) vol. 6. no. 4, 1983.pp. 401-412

  Other Publications
  Pamphlet
  Catherine Martin's Library: With a list of the Books Bibliographica Historica Australiae no.12 (Canberra, Mulini Press, 2002) 60pp.

  Edited Works

  'The Cosmo-Politics of Friendship in Imperial Contact Zones 1870-1950' special issue of the Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, 22 (3) 2021 with Jane Haggis. 

  "Two Decades of Gender and Difference' Special Issue of Australian Feminist Studies, December 2010 woth Chilla Bulbeck.

  ‘T 'Gender in the Contact Zone' Special Issue of Australian Feminist Studies, Vol. 15 no.31, March 2001, pp. 1-111. sole editor

  Special issue of Outskirts feminisms along the edge an on-line journal 2000-2001. sole editor

   'Between Rationality and Revelation: women, faith and public roles in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries'. Special Issue Women's History Review vol. 7(2) 1998 (with Sandra Stanley Holton and Alison Mackinnon).

  'Women, Religion and Citizenship: Intersections'. Special Issue Australian Feminist Studies vol. 13 no. 28 1998 (with Sandra Stanley Holton and Alison Mackinnon).

  'Women and Citizenship', Special Issue of Australian Feminist Studies no 19, 1994 (with Alison Mackinnon).

  Entries in Biographical Dictionaries/Historical Companions

  New entries on Christobel Mattingley, Rosemary Wighton and Deborah McCulloch  Revised entries on WCTU Marriage and Divorce and Social Structure in W. Prest (ed) The Wakefield Companion to South Australian History(Adelaide, Wakefield Press, 2nd edition, forthcoming  2023)

   

  John Hereford Portus (1913-1997) in Australian Dictionary of Biography, forthcoming 

   Rosemary Wighton 1925-1994,  in Australian Dictionary of Biography, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/wighton-rosemary-neville-wody-27655

  'Christina Smith' in Elizabeth Rwan, Rose Pipes, Jane Rendall and Sian Reynolds (eds) Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, revised and expanded edition, in press 2018.

   Ruby Hammond (1936-1993) in Australian Dictionary of Biography, online 2017 (with Judith Raftery).

  ‘Australian Women Missionaries serving overseas’ in Judith Smart and Shurlee Swain (eds), Australian Women and Leadership: Online Encyclopedia, 2014 at http://www.womenaustralia.info/leaders/biogs/WLE0442b.htm

  Entry on 'Mary Smith', Child psychologist for Australian Dictionary of Biography, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 2012, pp. 432-3.

   'John Medway Day', journalist and editor for Australian Dictionary of Biography, Supplementary Volme, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 2005, p. 97.

  Entries on C.E.M.Martin, C.H.Spence, H.M.Davidson, L.Miller and the Greig sisters for S.Reynolds and S.McInnes (eds) Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2005.

  Entry on 'Matilda Sturge' Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, London, 2004 vol. 53 pp. 141-142.

  Entries on Marriage and Divorce, Social Structure, WCTU and Cheer Up Society in W. Prest (ed) The Wakefield Companion to South Australian History (Adelaide, Wakefield Press, 2001) pp. 336-8, 493-6, 587-8, 100-101.

  'M. Veta MacGhey', educationalist and unionist, Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 15 (Melbourne University Press, 2000) p. 214

  Entries on 'Matilda Jane Evans', 'Catherine Martin' and 'Marian' in Lorna Sage (ed) Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999 pp. 226, 420, 423-4.

  Conference Reports
  'Women's Studies into Gender Studies - will it go?' Report on Sixth Newcastle Interdisciplinary Gender Studies Conference 1999 Australian Feminist Studies, no. 30 1999

  Public History Reviews

  Review of ‘Blue Jeans Jungle Greens: Revisiting the Sixties and Seventies’ History Trust of  SA in Australian Historical Studies, 40, 2009, 251-2 

   Review of 'Every Stitch Tells a Story Migration Museum, Adelaide Australian Historical Studies 2004 with Chilla Bulbeck

   Review of 'Western Australia: Land and People, Western Australian Museum' Australian Historical Studies no. 119, 2002 pp.193-4. (with Chilla Bulbeck)

  'Australian Aboriginal Cultures Gallery at the South Australian Museum' Australian Historical Studies no. 115 October 2000 pp. 345-7 (with Chilla Bulbeck)

   

  Other recent reviews 

  Review Meera Kosambi, Crossing Thresholds: Feminist Essays in Social History, (New Delhi and Ranikhet, Permanent Black, 2007) in Australian Feminist Studies v.26 (60) June 2009, pp. 295-6. 

   Review of Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line White Men’s Countries and the International Challenge of Racial Equality (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008) in Social History  35:1 (February 2010) pp. 82-84.

   

• Professional Associations

  Member of Australian Historical Association

  Board Member and Newsletter Editor International Federation for Research on Women's History 2005-2010

  Member Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association

• Professional Interests

  Margaret Allen is interested in transnational, postcolonial and feminist histories and whiteness. Her ARC funded research (2004-7) 'Links Across Empire: Australia and India 1880-1925,' focused upon relationships between India and Australia and Indians and Australians in the late 19th and early twentieth centuries. She has published  on Australian women missionaries in India as well as exploring the ways Indian men domiciled in Australia negotiated the White Australia Policy. She continues to publish in this area. Gender and notions of difference are central in her work. She has also researched 19th century Australian women writers and the making of a colonial culture. Professor Allen is working on a biography of the writer, Catherine E.M. Martin. She has long experience in oral history, and participated in a project on oral histories of older women of Non English Speaking Backgrounds. She has done some interviews as part of the Don Dunstan Oral History Project.

  Her latest ARC grant is SR200200900 '"Slow digitisation, community heritage and the objects of Martindale Hall 'with Professor Jane Haggis,  Dr Tully Barnet, Professor Heather Burke, Professor Penelope Edmonds, Professor Claire Smith, Dr Anna Kotarba. 

  She is a Chief Investigator on an ARC funded Project, DP 170104310, 'Beyond Empire transnational religious networks & liberal cosmopolitanisms’ with Associate Professor Jane Haggis (Flinders), Professor Fiona Paisley (Griffith) and Professor Clare Midgley (Sheffield Hallam). With these scholars she recently published, Cosmopolitan Lives on the Cusp of Empire:  Interfaith, Cross-Cultural and Transnational Networks, 1860-1950, Palgrave Pivot, 2017. With Jane Haggis she co-edited  'The Cosmo-Politics of Friendship of Imperial Contact Zones 1879-1950' a special issue of the Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 22(3) 2021. 

  She was a Chief Investigator on the ARC funded Australian Women's Archives Project from 2003. see  http://www.womenaustralia.info/

  She is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Fay Gale Centre for Research on Gender, see http://www.adelaide.edu.au/gender/

  During 1995-1997 she was involved in an ARC funded project 'Quaker Families and the Construction of Social Difference' and later was engaged in a longitudinal survey of the 'Professional Career Experiences of Young Australian Graduates'. In 1997 she carried out a feasibility study of the establishment of Women's Studies at the National University of Laos for the Swedish International Development Agency and the Laos Ministry of Education. She is on the editorial boards of Australian Feminist Studies, Critical Race and Whiteness Studies,  Hecate and Outskirts.

• Community Engagement

  2007-2020 2001-7	Member Catherine Helen Spence Scholarship Committee, Chair 2013-20  Board Member, History Trust of South Australia, from 2013-16-Board Member HistorySA
  2005-	Member Australian Dictionary of Biography Working Party for SA.
  2005	Member Expert Reference Group, Review of State Government Office for Women
  1995-	Life Member, National Tertiary Education Union

• Media Expertise

  Categories	History
  Expertise	Women (especially Australian women's history); 19th century Australian women writers; India - Australian links in the late 19th-early 20th century History of Indians living Australia c 1880-1940 Women and work Critical Race and Whiteness Studies
  Notes	Alt phone: (08)83522925

Entry last updated: Monday, 23 Oct 2023