[ANU Pacific.Institute] In memoriam Stephanie Morton (Anderson)

[Peter Brown]

If I may add just a brief statement to Serge Tcherkézoff’s moving testimony. I had the privilege to be Stephanie’s PhD supervisor at the ANU. Her brilliant thesis, on Michel Leiris and masculinity, was recommended for publication by her panel of examiners, leading scholars from three continents. Her achievement and courage in working her way through the intricacies of a difficult subject, outflanking Leiris at his own game, was the greater in that she was already facing troubling health issues.

Stephanie’s renowned modesty, which sometimes seemed to border on a strange kind of diffidence driven no doubt by the high standards she set herself, inclined her to think that she would need to rewrite her work significantly in order to make it worthy of being published. Neither the unequivocal examiners’ reports nor my own encouragement succeeded in shifting her assessment.

Years later, at the launch of her book on Pelletier, I asked her if she would now think of revising her view about her thesis. In my opinion, her analyses and insights remained valid and likely to be of great interest to readers in a number of fields, from literary studies to gender studies to anthropology and psychoanalysis. She sighed and after thanking me for my interest again said with a soft, somewhat pained smile that she doubted that it was worth it. She even expressed grateful surprise that her work for which we were gathered that evening had made it into print.

I am delighted that it continues to attract not just readers but publishers, and that a French translation of this book, to which Stephanie was contributing as consultant as recently as a few weeks ago, will soon appear posthumously. It makes an ex-supervisor wonder whether a French translation of her thesis on Leiris might yet see the light of day for the benefit of readers who would undoubtedly prove Stephanie wrong, on that count at least. This would only enhance her reputation as a scholar and person, bound in any case to grow in the years ahead.

Peter Brown, Université de la Polynésie française


________________________________
From: Pacific.Institute <pacific.institute-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au> on behalf of Christopher Ballard <Chris.Ballard at anu.edu.au>
Sent: Friday, 3 May 2019 6:22:59 PM
To: pacific.institute at anu.edu.au
Cc: Serge TCHERKEZOFF
Subject: [ANU Pacific.Institute] In memoriam Stephanie Morton (Anderson)


Dear Colleagues of the Pacific Institute

         Some of you already know the sad news: Dr. Stephanie Catherine Morton, née Anderson, passed away the 16th of April, 2019. We worked together as recently as early March (through e-mail) and she told me she was feeling well, although she told me a couple of years ago that she needed to adopt a slower pace in her work, as she had to begin some major medical treatment.

        Allow me to say few words in her memory. I met Stephanie in October 2001 in Canberra at a symposium. She was a Research Assistant with Bronwen Douglas and, that year, helped Bronwen and Chris Ballard in the organization of the symposium “Foreign Bodies: Oceania and Racial Science 1750-1940…” (18-19 October 2001) which brought together several papers that became the bulk of the 2009 book under the similar title, co-edited by the same Colleagues, with Vicki Luker’s contribution for editing the volume (ANU Press).

         Immediately, I was impressed with Stephanie’s knowledge of the French literature on Pacific People and especially about the First Australians (see her paper in that 2009 book: ‘Three Living Australians’ and the Société d’Anthropologie de Paris, 1885 (PDF, 602KB)<http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p53561/pdf/ch057.pdf>. Over the years I have been privileged to benefit immensely from Stephanie’s expertise on two levels, first as a scholar who worked on the history of early encounters between Australian/Pacific peoples and Europeans, and especially the French (many would know her Pelletier : The Forgotten Castaway of Cape York, Melbourne Books, 2009), and second, as a scholar who had an extraordinary command of the French language, both classical and modern.

In this capacity, Stephanie helped me many times with translations into English and with editing, as she did again for a paper in early March without letting me know that her condition was worsening. Every time, for works as varied and highly specialized as translations of sociological papers on the theory of gender by the French sociologist Irène Théry (see http://www.pacific-dialogues.fr/op_irene_thery_article_ouvrage_eng.php), or translations of juridical analyses by French Professors of law or Judges on « customary law » in New Caledonia (see http://www.pacific-dialogues.fr/op_france_pacific_sept2014_debates_studies.php), or my analyses on the Tahitian and Samoan early encounters with the French (chapters in several ANU Press books), or last March on a paper “The French Pacific in 2019: From Colonies to Autonomy” (see http://www.pacific-dialogues.fr/operations_programmes_news_pacific_18.php), Stephanie’s expertise for translation or editing has been decisive and brought an immense help for fostering several « Pacific Dialogues » between the Francophone and the Anglophone worlds.

Stephanie also edited the final text of a CREDO book on Kago, Custom…  (M. Abong  & M. Tabani eds.), and translated the main pages of a submission for the creation of the Pacific Studies Center in Tahiti (Maison des Sciences de l’Homme).

Some years ago, Stephanie gave me a paper, to be disseminated within the French anthropological circles, expressing her deep concern with the “primitivist” vision drawn by a French novelist, F. Garde in his Ce qu’il advint du Sauvage Blanc, about First Australians, even if that vision were within the context of a fiction novel reinventing the journal of the forgotten castaway Pelletier. (Stephanie’s critique will soon be on line in pacific-dialogues).

Several ANU Colleagues knew of her knowledge and interest in the historical sources on “race” and European voyages but very few outside ANU knew how much she helped several French language authors with making their studies available to the English-speaking audience. Some of her translations of papers and books are still being finalized, as in my case. Even fewer researchers would know how passionate she was in tackling the intricacies of French-English translation. Over the years I had long emails from Stephanie about the various traps that are to be avoided in this kind of work.

Stephanie was a passionate historian and linguist. Many, many thanks, dear Stephanie!

(Serge Tcherkézoff, 3rd May 2019)

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