[csaa-forum] Vale Professor Emerita Kay Schaffer, past president CSAA

Elspeth Probyn elspeth.probyn at sydney.edu.au
Wed Jan 1 19:00:13 ACST 2020


How very sad. She was such a force for women’s studies. Vale.

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From: csaa-forum-bounces at lists.cdu.edu.au <csaa-forum-bounces at lists.cdu.edu.au> on behalf of Rob Cover <robcover at gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 1, 2020 7:38:56 PM
To: csaa-forum at lists.cdu.edu.au <csaa-forum at lists.cdu.edu.au>
Subject: [csaa-forum] Vale Professor Emerita Kay Schaffer, past president CSAA


We are very sad to note the passing of Emerita Professor Kay Schaffer on 27 December 2019.

A founding member of the Department of Women’s Studies (now Sociology, Criminology and Gender Studies) at The University of Adelaide, Kay had a long and distinguished academic career. She will be greatly missed by colleagues and friends.

Kay was born in Pittsburgh and graduated BA (1966) Duquesne University, and MA in English (1971) Pittsburgh University. She became involved in the nascent women’s movement and had completed her doctoral course work when, after the re-election of Richard Nixon, she migrated to Australia with her husband, Robert Iseman, and their two young daughters. Both Kay and Robert taught at Mitchell CAE in Bathurst for two years, where Kay ran a most successful Women in Education conference. In 1975 the family moved to Adelaide and Kay was appointed lecturer in English at Salisbury CAE. The International Women’s Day grant that she brought with her was used to establish the Adelaide Women’s Studies Resource Centre (1975-2015), a feminist library for women teachers and students.

At Salisbury CAE she developed and taught feminist literature and popular culture subjects and with colleagues developed a successful Graduate Diploma program in Women’s Studies. She was deeply involved in the development of Women Studies in secondary schools.

Kay continued her doctoral studies part-time and in 1984 gained her PhD through Pittsburgh. This led to her first book, Women and the Bush: Forces of Desire and the Australian Cultural Tradition. CUP (1987), later translated into Chinese.

Kay and colleagues from Women’s Studies joined the University of Adelaide in 1991, following the CAE’s amalgamation into the university. Appointed Associate Professor, Kay played a leading role in the newly established Women’s Studies Department. She served as head on a number of occasions; taught in the MA Women’s Studies course-work program; undertook doctoral supervisions; and was highly regarded as a creative and innovative teacher. Her research career was rich and prolific during the 1990s, leading to numerous publications including:
-- Captured Lives: Australian Captivity Narratives (with Kate Darian-Smith & Roslyn Poignant), Menzies Centre, London, 1993.
-- In the Wake of First Contact: The Eliza Fraser Stories, Melbourne, New York and Cambridge: CUP, 1995.
-- Indigenous Australian Voices: A Reader (with Jennifer Sabbioni and Sidonie Smith), Rutgers,1998.
-- Constructions of Colonialism: Perspectives on Eliza Fraser’s Shipwreck, with Ian McNiven & Lynette Russell, Cassell/ Leicester UP, 1998.
-- The Olympics at the Millennium: Performance, Politics and the Games (with Sidonie Smith), Rutgers, 2000.

In 2002 Kay was appointed Professor in Gender Studies. Taking early retirement that year, Kay’s research career continued to flourish. She developed a number of exciting collaborations which culminated in the following publications,
-- Human Rights and Narrated Lives: The Ethics of Recognition (with Sidonie Smith), Palgrave/Macmillan, 2004.
-- Decolonizing the Landscape: Indigenous Cultures in Australia (with Beate Neumeier), Rodopi, 2014.
-- Women Writers in Post-socialist China (with Xianlin Song), Routledge, 2014.

Kay held visiting positions at ANU, Curtin University and at the Institute for the Study of Law, Literature and Culture at the University of Osnabrueck from 2010. She was the founding Dr. R. Marika Visiting Chair of Australian and Indigenous Studies at the University of Cologne.

Kay will be remembered as a lively and engaging teacher, a generous and involved supervisor, and an innovative and intellectually daring scholar, who contributed greatly to feminist, cultural and literary studies. Her dynamic personality and great sense of humour will be missed.

During her long and brave struggle with cancer, Kay continued to live life to the full, taking special trips to connect with family and friends in the US. Kay had a great talent for friendship and developed many close, dear and life-long friends in the US and Australia. She is survived by her husband, Robert, her daughters Laura and Juliet their partners, and her two beloved grandsons.

Details of Kay’s memorial service will be available in the new year.

------- (Tribute written by Margaret Allen, Pam Papadelos, Ros Prosser and Kathie Muir).




Rob Cover, on behalf of the CSAA Executive.
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Rob Cover
Professor of Digital Communication
RMIT University, Melbourne Australia

ph.  0437 902 967
Profile:    http://www.uwa.edu.au/people/rob.cover<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/zmdzC6X13RtpzRDrcpsBI7?domain=uwa.edu.au>
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