Rewriting God: Spirituality in contemporary Australian
women’s fiction - Elaine Lindsay,
Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA, 2000
Women are rarely if ever mentioned in commentaries upon Australian Christianity and spirituality. Only exceptional women are recognised as authorities on religious matters. Why is this so? Does it matter?
Rewriting God asks whether women have been writing about the divine and whether their insights are different from those contained in mainstream accounts of Australian Christianity and spirituality.
Analysis of the writings of popular theologians and religious commentators over the last twenty years suggests that the most popular form of spirituality among Australian theologians is Desert Spirituality. An analysis of women’s autobiographical writings, however, suggests that the desert is irrelevant to many women’s spiritual experiences.
This book, through a close investigation of the fictional writings of Thea Astley, Elizabeth Jolley and Barbara Hanrahan, attempts to posit alternative forms of women’s spirituality and to signal ways in which this spirituality is already being expressed.
From the evidence gathered here it becomes obvious that traditional expressions of Australian Christianity and spirituality are gender-specific and that they have functioned to deny women’s religious experiences and to silence their claims to equality in the sight and service of the divine.
Dr Elaine Linsay is an Australian who has had a long scholarly interest in religion and a broad experience of literature, especially Australian literature. Among her other insightful work is a study of the feminist philosopher-theologian, Mary Daly.
( Orders for this present work may be placed through any good bookstore or directly from the publisher: Editions Rodopi B.V., Tijnmuiden 7, 1046 AK Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Ph. ++ 31 (0) 20 611 48 21; Fax: ++ 31 (0) 20 447 29 79. Email: orders-queries@rodopi.nl http://www.rodopi.nl)
One Woman’s Journey: Mary Potter founder of the Little company of Mary by Elizabeth West,
Spectrum Publications, Richmond, Victoria, 2000
This publication is the result of intensive study over a number of years and of carefully researched work both in England and Australia for a M.Theol. (London) and Ph.D.(Charles Sturt).
This is indeed a biography with a difference. West has made extensive use of feminist writings dating from the nineteenth century to the late twentieth in explicating the social ambient of Mary Potter’s life (1847 – 1913).
Mary herself – woman, mystic and founder – who had to experience much negation and several mis-directions before finding her true milieu, is an apt subject for the author’s exploration of social, gender and spiritual issues. These are fearlessly analysed and brought into a cohesive whole from a contemporary standpoint.
This book is very well written, arresting the reader’s attention as it progressively discloses wide knowledge, psychological depth and a sensitive awareness of the domain of spiritual ‘otherness’.
Works in Progress:
Colonial Catalyst – Sisters of Charity, 1838 – 1858
This significant work in progress of Catherine O’Carrigan rsc is nearing completion. It is organised in seven chapters: Female Factory, Parramatta; Colonial Education; Prisons – Darlinghurst and Parramatta; Carters’ Barracks, Sydney; Catholic Orphan School (Institute for Destitute Children); Colonial Health; Van Dieman’s Land.
This is a much needed study and will help to flesh out more fully the early social history of Colonial Australia.
The cultural impact of nuns in North Western and New England New South Wales, 1890 - 1949
The independent scholar, Tom Campbell, who has an interest in the history of religion, received a NSW Centenary of Federation Research Grant to aid in researching this significant area. Included in this study are the Ursuline, Dominican, Josephite and Mercy congregations.
Previously Campbell has done work on the Anglo-Catholic community of the Sisters of the Church (the Kilburn Sisters). He has been invited to present papers on both of these topics to various historical societies and copies of these papers and some useful source material are available to anyone who would like to contact him at PO Box 63, Braddon, ACT, 2612.
The Catholic Community and Women's Suffrage in Australia - Major Research Update
As explained in our introductory Newsletter the first major research project being undertaken by the Central Project Team (CPT) is ‘The Catholic Community and Women’s Suffrage in Australia’. Being of national scope, this project offers a wide field for the exploration of a number of significant discourses, which will contribute to helping us in understanding where we are today in the Church and the wider society concerning many vital relationships in our lives. This project is designed particularly to bring to the fore those lay women in the Catholic community who were significant in the women’s suffrage era but have been overlooked by mainstream history.
This national suffrage project presented an ideal opportunity for collaboration by women historians, which is central to the aims of the projected ACU WHTS Research Centre. In this spirit of collaboration the following team has been formed to work on the project:
- Dr Rosa MacGinley ( Central Project Team (CPT) member, McAuley Campus, Brisbane) - Queensland story.
- Dr Sophie McGrath (CPT member, Mount Saint Mary Campus, Sydney) - NSW and Tasmanian stories.
- Dr Kim Power (CPT member, St Patrick’s Campus, Melbourne) - Victorian story.
- Dr Margaret Press (Catholic Institute of Sydney) - South Australian story
- Dr Katharine Massam (United Faculties of Theology, Melbourne) - Western Australian story.
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The analysis from a national perspective of the material generated by this study will be shared by the team and Dr Shurlee Swain, senior lecturer in History on the Victorian campuses, who has been an invaluable and generous mentor to Kim . It is going to be interesting to see what explicit and implicit philosophies, ideologies, theologies and spiritualities emerge from this analysis.
Profiles of Research Project Team
Profiles of Rosa, Sophie and Kim were given in the introductory Newsletter in November. The following are profiles of Margaret and Katharine:
Dr Margaret Press
Margaret’s tertiary studies were in the fields of history and classics. She graduated from the University of New England with a M.A., first class honours and the University Medal for Classics. She was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Education by the Charles Sturt University for her services to the University on its Council during its development from a College of Advanced Education to the status of University.
Margaret’s published historical work has centred on South Australia and includes the history of the South Australian Catholic Community from 1836 to 1962. Although commissioned by the Diocese, this is not in the triumphalist mode but has been judged a truly scholarly book by reviewers, and historians who have had occasion to use it. Emanating from this work is a study of the Catholic convert and women’s suffrage advocate, Bessie Baker, which was published in 2000 by the South Australian Wakefield Press in Three Women of Faith. This study of Baker gives Margaret a ready entry into the South Australian Catholic women’s suffrage story.
Margaret continues to teach classics at the Catholic Institute of Sydney
Dr Katharine Massam
Katharine comes from Western Australia where she undertook her tertiary education majoring in history. Subsequently she taught in universities in Western and South Australia. Presently she is Professor of Church History at the United Faculty of Theology, Melbourne College of Divinity and Principal Fellow, Department of History, University of Melbourne.
Katharine has carried the study of the history of religion into the secular arena with such publications as : ‘The Politics of Spirituality Down Under: Belief, Piety and Devotion in Catholic Australia’, Working Papers in Australian Studies, No. 63, Sir Robert Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, University of London, 1991. She is most widely known for her doctoral work which was published in 1996 by the University of New South Wales Press as Sacred Threads: Catholic Spirituality in Australia 1922 – 1962. This book was nominated for the W.K.Hancock Prize in Australian History; included in the Sydney Morning Herald review of Best Books of 1996; and identified as ‘the outstanding piece of religious historiography of the decade’, Australian Review of Books, July 1999.
This strong awareness of the integration of the sacred and the secular in the life of people individually and collectively, and her familiarity with the history of Western Australian provides Katharine with a strong background for research into the WA Catholic Community and women’s suffrage story.
Catholic Social Welfare History
The USA based international Journal of Women’s History in Vol. 12 No. 1, 2000 published an essay on Catholic Welfare History, entitled: ‘Catholic Nuns and the Invention of Social Work: The Sisters of the Santa Maria Institute of Cincinnati, Ohio, 1897 – 1929.’
This article features the two Sisters of Charity, Justina Segale and her sister Blandina, who is well known for her earlier missionary activities in the 1870s in the American Southwest. These she began at the tender age of twenty-two and spent eighteen years working in Colorardo and New Mexico. During this time she built a school and a hospital, ended the lynch law in New Mexico, tamed Billy the Kid and built the tallest building in the territory. It was after this that she rejoined Justina to meet the needs of the needy immigrants in Cinncinnati.
Anderson places the social welfare activity of the Seagle sisters within the context of the wider philanthropic women’s movement of the times and has produced a well researched well documented essay, of interest to anyone working in the field of comparative social welfare studies between USA and Australia.
Christine Anderson (a non-Catholic) is assistant professor of history at Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio and her email contact is andersmc@xavier.xu.edu
Australian Women’s Archives
The National Foundation for Australian Women is setting up an archival web based register of women, their organisations and important events that have contributed to the Australian women’s movement. They are inviting women to contribute to this register. Ring 03 8344 9286 to obtain the relevant forms.
Australian Religious History Review, 1980 – 2000
Recommended: Journal of Religious History, Volume 24, No. 3, October 2000 and Volume 25, Number 1, February 2001. This excellent international Journal is an Australian initiative worthy of support. The first of the two issues mentioned above contains Part One of a review of publications in the field of religious history in Australia from 1980 - 2000 and consists of surveys, bibliographies and religions other than Christianity; the second of the two issues contains Part Two of the review and covers Christian Denominations.
[This Newsletter is produced by the Central Project Team. Please send all correspondence to the WHTS Project Coordinator (Dr Sophie McGrath), Australian Catholic University, Locked Bag 2002, NSW 2135; email: smcgrath@mary.acu.edu.au]
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