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History Program
Staff Profiles
Dr Clare Wright
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ARC Postdoctoral Fellow
Room: David Myers Building E305
Tel: (61 3) 9479 2037
Fax: (61 3) 9479 1942
Email: clare.wright@latrobe.edu.au
Qualifications: MA (Monash), PhD (Melb) |
Clare Wright is an award-winning historian and author who has worked in politics, academia and the media. Clare’s doctoral research was the subject of her debut book, Beyond the Ladies Lounge: Australia’s Female Publicans (Melbourne University Publishing, 2003).
Clare’s doctorate was the co-winner of the Inaugural Serle Award, presented by the Australian Historical Association, for the best postgraduate contribution to Australian History. Clare was winner of the Max Kelly Medal, presented by the History Council of NSW, for her article ‘Of Private Lives and Public Houses’. Beyond the Ladies Lounge was short-listed for the Victorian Community History Awards.
Clare has written for the Age and The Bulletin, worked as a political speechwriter and consultant historian, been an editorial advisor for Australian Book Review, and is a ubiquitous public speaker. She is a frequent contributor to ABC Radio and a regular member of 'The Brains Trust' on ABC TV’s The Einstein Factor. Clare has judged the Age Book of the Year awards (2005) and the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards (2006).
Clare’s postdoctoral research allowed her to make a major contribution to the 'Eureka 150' commemorations in 2004 and has been cited in Victorian and ACT Hansard.
Eureka’s Women: An Intimate History of Sex, Class and Culture on the Victorian Goldfields
This ARC-funded postdoctoral research project will be the first systematic study of the role of women in one of the most iconic event in Australian history, the Eureka Stockade. The research will challenge the prevailing representation of Eureka as a hyper-masculine episode — male passions inflamed, male blood shed, manhood suffrage won — by providing a unique gender perspective to a familiar narrative. Clare's hypothesis is that women were intimately and inextricably involved in the events at Eureka, as they were more generally in the political and cultural life of the Victorian goldfields. The research findings will contribute to ongoing debates about the meaning of the Eureka story for Australian identity, citizenship and democracy.
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Selected publications include:
Books
- Beyond the Ladies Lounge: Female Publicans in Australia, Melbourne University Publishing, 2003.
Book Chapters and articles
- “Labour Pains: A female perspective on the birth of democracy”, in Alan Mayne (ed.), Eureka 1854-2004: Reappraising an Australian Legend, Curtin University Books, forthcoming.
- 'The Eureka Stockade: An Alternative Portrait', Making Australian History: Perspectives on the Past Since 1788, Ed(s). Deborah Gare and David Ritter, Australia, Thomson, 2008, pp. 213-221.
- ‘’Doing the Beans’: Women, Community and Drinking in the Ladies Lounge, 1925-1975’, New Talents 21C – Voicing Dissent, special issue of Journal of Australian Studies, vol 76, 2003, pp.7-17.
- ‘Of Private Lives and Public Houses: Female Publicans as Domestic Entrepreneurs’, Australian Historical Studies, vol. 116, April 2001, pp.57-75.
- ‘Why Fanny Power, Ida Beer and Susan Hussey Didn’t Join the VULVA: The Politics of Pub-lic Housekeeping’ in Chris McConville and Lynette Finch (eds), Images of the Urban: Conference Proceedings, Sunshine Coast University Press, 1999, pp.217-221.
Scholarly articles
- Clare Wright, “Golden Opportunities: The Early Origins of Women’s Suffrage in Victoria”, Victorian Historical Journal, vol. 79, no. 2, November 2008, 1-13.
- Clare Wright, “’New Brooms They Say Sweep Clean’: Women’s Political Activism on the Ballarat Goldfields, 1854”, Australian Historical Studies, 39, 2008, 305-321.
- Clare Wright, “The Eureka Stockade: An Alternative Portrait”, in Deborah Gare and David Ritter (eds), Making Australian History: Perspectives on the Past Since 1788, Melbourne, Thomson, 2008, 213-218.
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