The Australian Women's Register

4 sound files (194 min.) Professor Curthoys recalls her youth, including her parents’ Communist Party membership; her education at Broken Hill; Newcastle and Sydney; her and her mother’s involvement in the Union of Australian Women which gave them both a background in feminism and Aboriginal issues; Eureka Youth League; Labor Club; International Students Association; her career as an academic and historian. She talks about her position as Foundational Lecturer in Women’s Studies at the Australian National University, Canberra, A.C.T. (1976-77), her position as lecturer at the New South Wales Institute of Technology (1978-1986), and her appointment as Professor in 1986. In 1988 when the Institute became the University of Technology, Sydney, she was reappointed as Professor of Social History; her return to the Australian National University in 1995 as Manning Clark Professor of History and Head of the History Department. Professor Curthoys recalls her student days at the University of Sydney,where she took part in anti-war demonstrations and the 1965 Freedom Ride in NSW that raised awareness of Aboriginal issues and racism in Australia; in 1970 she joined Glebe Women’s Liberation Group; 1971 helped establish Women’s Liberation newspaper Mejane and the journal, Refractory Girl. She speaks about being closely involved with teaching and developing public history (applied history); the bicentennial work, Australians: a historical library (one of the first great collaborative projects amongst historians throughout Australia; National Museum of Australia; Australian Research Council. Professor Curthoys also discusses her own views on postwar Australian history and historiography.