[Anthropgrad] Work-in-Progress Seminar - May 22 - Kim Rubenstein

[Sharon Komidar]

The Research School of Humanities presents,
Work-in-Progress Seminar Series 

1- 2.30 pm, Friday 22nd May, Theatrette, Old Canberra House

Memory and Connection: Challenges in Writing Joan Montgomery's Biography


Professor Kim Rubenstein.

Professor and Director of the Centre for International and Public Law
(CIPL) in the ANU College of Law

 

In this seminar, Kim Rubenstein explains the motivations for her writing
of this biography and shares some of the challenges she is facing in
writing about a living subject. She will tease out some of the broader
issues about the challenges of memory, context and perspective in the
writing about any events from the past, and more personally, about her
own connections to the subject and the impact it has on the project.
Finally, she will share some of the interesting stories she'll be
including in the book. Joan Montgomery is the legendary Melbourne PLC
Principal who was ousted in dramatic circumstances by a Presbyterian
patriarch Max Bradshaw during the Presbyterian/Uniting Church split and
asset carve-up in the 1980s. The book centres on the struggle over the
school (power versus reason) and uses it as a prism to develop the
layered themes of Joan's life, the nature of biography writing,
professional women in 20th century Australia, religion and education, to
name just a few.

 

Kim Rubenstein is Professor and Director of the Centre for International
and Public law in the ANU College of Law. She is a graduate of Melbourne
and Harvard Universities and in her legal work concentrates upon
questions about citizenship and nationality and feminism and
constitutional law. She is the author of Australian Citizenship law in
Context (2002) and many articles and chapters. Kim has also appeared in
the High Court in several citizenship cases. In 2008 she was appointed
by the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship to be part of the
independent committee to review the Australian Citizenship Test which
reported to the Minister later that year.

 

Convenors: Ken Taylor and Stephen Foster

For general enquiries please contact: 
Phone: 6125 2434
Email: administration.rsh at anu.edu.au 
Web: http://rsh.anu.edu.au/
All Welcome