School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses

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End date: 2023 × Start date: 2020 × Type: Honours thesis × Subject: Australia ×

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    Ruby Rich: A Transnational Jewish Australian Feminist
    Rubenstein Sturgess, Cohava ( 2023)
    This thesis examines the life of Ruby Rich (1888-1988) - a leading figure in Australian and international feminist movements and a leading campaigner for women's rights. Alongside her feminist work, she was also a leader in the Australian Jewish community, internationally renowned pianist, peace campaigner and racial hygiene advocate. Rich lived in Australia, London, Paris, Berlin and Switzerland, and attended conferences in Palestine (later Israel), Turkey, Germany, Iran, Denmark, India, England and Italy. These trips imbued within her a cosmopolitan outlook, contributing to her social consciousness. Through a focussed study of key flashpoints in Rich’s life, this thesis analyzes Rich’s mobile life in tandem with her Jewishness in order to provide a nuanced cultural understanding of how Australian and international feminism intersected with a Jewish diasporic self. By connecting disparate sub-disciplines of history, this thesis reveals how Rich operated and positioned herself as an active transnational Jewish-Australian feminist.
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    “A Great and Beautiful Force”: The Making of Political Identities Among Women Activists on the Far Left in Australia, mid-1930s to early 1950s
    Saxon, Abbey ( 2023)
    This thesis examines the political identities of women activitists in the Communist Party of Australia and affiliated organisations from the mid-1930s to the early 1950s, focusing on the interventions of World War II. It suggests that political interactions between women within and beyond the far-left, women developed political identities shaped by gender and feminist issues, along with class. It explores their positioning in the domestic sphere, their political organisations, and the workplace, as spaces which were key to shaping female political identities, complicating suggestions that the time period of study, and the Communist Party throughout the 20th century, were lacking in women-focused activism. It utilises varied sources from the period, drawing on the Women's Sections of left-wing newspapers, feminist and Communist materials, and the novels of Communist women authors Katharine Susannah Prichard and Jean Devanny as sites of cultural framings of gender.