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Network for Research in Women's History Conference
Adelaide University 4 July 2000

The theme for the one day conference organised by the Network for Research in Women’s History was ‘Gender in the Contact Zone’.

Most of the papers presented were works in progress and indicated the great variety of interests among women historians. The papers were presented in five categories: Memory and History; Sex, Bodies and Marriage; Looking In, Looking Out; Women and Colonialism; and Massacres and Protection. It was good to see the number of young women academics doing challenging work in the area of women’s history.

Australian Historical Association
Conference Adelaide University,
5-9 July, 2000

The theme of the Conference was ‘Futures in the Past’. To illustrate the significance of the study of history to human affairs, Professor Jill Roe, the President of the Australian Historical Society, recalled that at the first conference of the Association held in Adelaide, Henry Reynolds came running up the steps of Adelaide Town Hall, where the Conference was being held, clutching some papers and yelling ‘I’ve found it!’ - ‘It’ being documents relevant to the aboriginals’ claim to ownership of their land.

It was great to see that the Religious History Society integrated its conference within the wider general one. Adrian Hastings (known to readers of the English Tablet), gave the keynote address: ‘Christianity and nationhood: congruity or antipathy?’

Three firm supporters of our WHTS ACU Research Project presented papers at the conference: Dr Shurlee Swain (ACU, Victoria): ‘In these days of female Evangelists and Hallelujah Lasses’: women and Australian churches, 1850-1910’; Dr Anne O’Brien (University of New South Wales): ‘ “A man size job”: women, faith and work NSW 1880-1960’; Dr Katharine Massam (Uniting Church Theological Hall, Victoria): ‘ I could not speak, but I could dance: Spanish Benedictine women and missionary methods in Western Australia.’

All of these papers aroused considerable interest. There is a growing recognition of the strong religious influence in Australian history.

Shurlee’s postdoctoral ACU student, Richard Rue, gave a well-researched and entertainingly presented paper on ‘Asia, missionaries and Australian identity.’

The AHA Conference was indeed rich fare with as many as nine alternative categories being offered at each session. It was good to see so many doctoral students presenting as well as, at the other end of the spectrum, retired academics now free to pursue more fully their research interests.

Orientale Lumen:
Australasia and Oceania
Conference July 2000

St Patrick’s campus of ACU was the venue for this Jubilee Year international, ecumenical conference presented by the Centre for Early Christian Studies directed by Pauline Allen. The conference was convened and coordinated by Rev. Laurence Cross and supported by several orthodox and eastern churches. Its patrons were the patriarchs of Antioch, His Holiness Ignatius IV of the Orthodox church and His Holiness Maximos V of the Melkite Greek-Catholic church.

Keynote speakers included:

His Eminence, Metropolitan Serafim Joanata, the Romanian Orthodox Archbishop of Central Europe and Germany;

His Eminence Mar Aprem of the Assyrian church of the east, Metropolitan of India;

Most Reverend Nicholas Samra, Melkite Greek- Catholic Bishop of Gerasa and Auxilary Bishop of Newtown, USA;

Most Rev, Bishop Suriel, Coptic Bishop of Melbourne;

Rev. George Tavard AA of the USA; and Mrs Betty Pike of the Aboriginal Catholic ministry in Melbourne, who was distinguished by receiving a standing ovation from the conference delegates.

The conference was illuminating, highlighting moves towards both reconciliation and ecumenism amongst the eastern churches, but also alienation that can be traced back millennia. A moral that could be drawn from this situation is that when we are divided by doctrines defining the nature of God, the most creative stance might be silence in the face of mystery, rather than centuries of alienation, rejection and conflict. Hindsight, however, always has 20-20 vision and such statements are easier to make than to live when one is passionately involved in the search for truth.

Australian Catholic Theological Association (ACTA) Conference: 6-9- July 2000

The 2000 conference of ACTA was held at St Mary’s College, Parkville. The theme this year was ‘Reconciliation in its Contexts’. The papers were rich and varied. Frank Fletcher explored the nexus of Aboriginal spirituality and Christianity; Gideon Goosen spoke on Australian versus universal theology and Kerrie Hide explored Reconciliation through the cross using the lens of Australian art.

The signs of the times were apparent in Veronica Rosier’s paper on ‘Liturgical catechesis of Sunday celebrations in the absence of a priest’; Dennis Edward’s paper on ‘Extra terrestrial life and Jesus Christ’; Matthew Ogilvie’s paper on Darwin and reconciliation, and Richard Lennan’s prescient paper, ‘SOCOG, the government and the church: monopolies, apologies and reconciliation.’

The roundtable on ‘Women and Man: One in Christ Jesus’ led to the decision to make this consultation the theme of the ACTA 2001 meeting.

Participants held a joint session with the Catholic Biblical scholars and librarians on theological libraries, and celebrated a joint Eucharist presided over by Bishop Michael Putney.

An added bonus was the afternoon gathering of women scholars the afternoon before the official opening of the ACTA and ACBA (Australian Catholic Biblical Association) conferences.

Australian Theological Forum (ATF) 10-14 September 2000

The ATF is an ecumenical association dedicated to the dialogue between theology and other disciplines. These dialogues are committed to engaging with indigenous theologians. The commitment and energy that created and now sustains this Forum is extremely impressive.

Forty to fifty people gathered at John XXIII College, Canberra, to consider the question of ‘A Trinitarian Theology for the Antipodes.’ The proceedings were set in a context of prayer, with shared prayer each morning.

Papers were given by philosophers, theologians, biblical scholars, ethicists, historians, poets and ecumenists. They included Rev. Rodney Horsfield,Rev. Anastasios Bozikos, Dr Renate Howe, Bishop Michael Putney, Dr Elaine Wainewright, Rev. Vic Pfizer, Prof. Rochard Campbell, Rev Walker Fejo and Dr Wendy Mayer.

Topics included: Patristic doctrine on the Trinity; naming of divinity; Trinity and ecumenism; pastoral care in the early church and its implications for today, the ethical implications of stem cell research, and the role of religion in the university of the future. It was a rich and provocative few days with papers evoking interesting questions.

One significant theme that emerged from the conference was that of the Trinity as a dance of persons, a dance of loving, self-giving and receiving. This was reinforced by the workshop and prayer led by Rev Walter Fejo, principal at Nungalinga Indigenous College in Darwin, who reminded us that God has given us each our own dance to dance and our own song to sing.

Spirituality of Nursing

While institutional religion may be being neglected in contemporary society, interest in spirituality would appear to be on the rise. It was reported in Pointers - The Bulletin of the Christian Research Association, March 2000, that the School of Nursing, University of Ballarat, invited John Fisher, who has recently completed a doctoral thesis on the nature of Australian spirituality, to present a paper on spirituality and health.

There is also growing recognition of the spirituality that motivates and sustains the nurse. Indeed, as is now being well documented, Florence Nightingale, a founder of modern nursing, a reformer in the field of public health and a pioneer in the use of statistics, was deeply religious. The primary aim of her life was not to reform social institutions but to serve God. The University of Pennsylvania Press has published Suggestions for Thought by Florence Nightingale. This three-volume work consists of selections and commentaries edited by Michael D. Calabria and Janet A. Macrae.

In presenting her spiritual views, Florence Nightingale was motivated by the desire to give those who had turned away from conventional religion an alternative to atheism. Also recently given prominence is the firm spiritual friendship between Florence Nightingale and Sister Mary Clare Moore rsm, who had been a strong support to Florence when they served at the Crimean war (1853-6). Previously attention had been given in the literature mainly to the discord between Florence and the Irish Sister of Mercy, Mary Francis Bridgeman.

The University of Pennsylvania Press has now also published The Friendship of Florence Nightingale and Mary Clare Moore. This consists of the letters between the two women and others letters and manuscripts relevant to their friendship. They are edited by Mary Sullivan, Professor of Language and Literature at the Rochester Institute of Technology, USA. Sullivan also supplies helpful contextual material.

It is interesting to note that Clare lent Florence many books including the writings of such mystics as Catherine of Siena, Catherine of Genoa, Gertrude the Great of Helfta, Theresa of Avila, and John of the Cross. These and many others Florence mentions in her letters and they clearly influenced her thinking and writing.

Social Welfare History

Professor Jill Roe (Macquarie University), who has a special interest in social policy, has for many years lamented the paucity of research being done in the field of Catholic social welfare history.

It was good then to see in The Australasian Catholic Record, April 2000, the well-researched and documented piece by Damian Gleeson: ‘Professional Social Workers and Welfare Bureaus: The Origins of Australian Catholic Social Work.’ This study, among other things, puts into context and recognises the pioneering social welfare work of the Western Australian women Norma Parker, Constance Moffit and Eileen Davidson.

Also in the area of social welfare history, Lesley Hughes, from the University of New South Wales, is completing her doctoral thesis on an analysis of the charitable work of nuns (women religious) in late nineteenth century Sydney within the context of religious-inspired female philanthropy.

Data Bases

In 2001 we intend to start work on a data base of researchers and their work relevant to the forthcoming Centre for Women’s History, Theology and Spirituality.

Another possible data base, which would be most useful to ACU and the wider community, would be one providing basic information about the various Catholic archives in Australia.

(This Newsletter is produced by the Central Project Team. Please send correspondence to The WHTS Project Coordinator (Dr Sophie McGrath), Australian Catholic University, Mount Saint Mary Campus, 179 Albert Road, Strathfield NSW 2135; Ph. 02 9739 2100]

Major Research Project

The Central Project Team are undertaking as their first major research project: The Catholic Community and Women’s Suffrage in Australia. This project has the advantages of being nationally oriented and focusing on lay women. With some notable exceptions, most of Catholic women’s history in Australia up-to-date has been concerned with women religious. Many such publications have been associated with centenary celebrations.

This project will also give the opportunity to focus on relationships, most significantly between the sexes, clergy and laity, and State and Church . Hopefully, too, it will bring together other scholars from around the country.

A comprehensive study of the suffrage question posits a good knowledge of regional Australia. Situating context is supplied by local studies of the quality of Beverley Zimmerman’s doctoral thesis on the Maitland diocese, recently published by Melbourne University Press

History of Australian Feminism – recommended reading

Marilyn Lake’s Getting Equal – The history of Feminism in Australia was published in 1999 by Allen and Unwin. In this study Lake, Professor of History at La Trobe University, has performed a great service for women’s history in Australia.. Significantly it illustrates how rapidly women’s history is lost. The Australian leaders of the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1970s (such as Anne Summers, Susan Ryan and Marilyn Lake herself) had no idea of the important political work which had been done by the feminists of the 1930s.

Religion, theology and spirituality do not feature in Lake’s book. This is not surprising. A few years ago after Lake had presented a public lecture in Sydney, Julia Baird, a journalist with an interest in the Church and religion generally, asked a question relating to the churches. Lake responded that this was an area that was foreign to her.

This study of feminism by Lake provides a much needed contextual source for women historians analysing women’s history within the churches in Australia.

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