AustLit
Latest Issues
AbstractHistoryArchive Description
Contents
-
Problem Bodies and Queer Legacies : Rethinking Approaches to Trans History in the Case of Harry Crawford, Sydney, 1920,
single work
criticism
'This article offers an alternative interpretive model for queertrans antecedence, focusing on the case of Harry Crawford in 1920s Sydney. Crawford was ostensibly on trial for murder, but his court case was more concerned with the social crime of gender transgression. He had been assigned female at birth but lived, worked, and married as a man. Although scholars have noted Crawford’s relevance to emerging histories of transgender lineage, he has primarily been interpreted as a butch lesbian, a ‘passing woman’, or as a kind of gender non-conforming optical illusion. This article seeks to reframe analysis of Crawford’s gender transgression by locating him within a broader genealogy of problematised queer and transgender expression.' (Publication abstract))
-
Intersectional Feminist Friendship : Restoring Colour to the Second-wave through the Letters of Florynce Kennedy and Germaine Greer,
single work
criticism
'Situated in the context of renewed efforts to examine and expand the historical scholarship on 1970s American feminism, this article argues for the centrality of black feminism to the story of 1970s feminism, the importance of intersectional friendship for feminist work, and the critical role of intersectional awareness and consciousness about one's own identity position for feminist scholarship. Through its three-part structure, the article seeks to demonstrate and illuminate the relationship between historical scholarship, scholarly identity, and methodological choices. First, it examines the U.S. media construction of Germaine Greer as an idealised white, heterosexual feminist subject and considers the dialectical relationship between media output, scholarship that draws on it, feminist group politics, and the making of a singular hegemonic white feminist past. Second, in order to tease out the role of the historian's identity in scholarly production, I discuss my own experience of fluid, intersectional identity as a racially ambiguous woman in Australia and the United States, and the influence of this experience on my research and methodological choices. Third, through an analysis of previously unexamined letters between Germaine Greer and Florynce Kennedy, the article explores their influential and mutually supportive friendship. Allied across lines of race and nation, their intersectional friendship is a powerful example for working across difference and reconceptualising our feminist pasts and futures.' (Publication abstract)
-
[Review] Mary Lee : The Life and Times of a 'turbulent Anarchist' and Her Battle for Women's Rights,
single work
review
— Review of Mary Lee : The Life and Times of a 'Turbulent Anarchist' and Her Battle for Women's Rights 2018 single work biography ;'As a female who similarly migrated from Armagh to Adelaide, and who came to be interested in women’s suffrage—researching and writing about it rather than having to actively campaign for it, thankfully—I have always been intrigued by the figure and life of Mary Lee. With this book, Denise George uses her considerable skills to flesh out the life of this little-known activist. What results is a beautifully written, interconnecting biography of Mary Lee with a history of South Australia and its woman suffrage movement.' (Introduction)