Barbara Caine - School of Historical Studies Staff

Personal History

Barbara Caine FAHA, FRHS, Professor of History.

Barbara Caine has published extensively in women's history and the history of feminism. Her sole authored books include Destined To Be Wives: The Sisters Of Beatrice Webb (Oxford University Press, 1986), Victorian Feminists (Oxford University Press, 1992) English Feminism, 1780-1980 ( Oxford University Press, 1997), and Bombay to Bloomsbury. A Biography of the Stracheys (Oxford University Press, 2005). She has also written one jointly authored book with Glenda Sluga, Gendering European History (University of Leicester Press, 2000). In addition, she edited several books: Transitions; New Australian Feminisms (Allen & Unwin, 1995) with Rosemary Pringle, and is the General Editor of Australian Feminism: A Companion (Oxford University Press, 1998), and a Companion to Women's Historical writing, (jointly edited with Mary Spongberg and Anne Curthoys), Palgrave McMillan, 2005.

Current Research

I am currently involved in a number of different individual and collaborative research projects.

I have agreed to write a book on History and Biography for the Palgrave McMillan series on History and Theory which I hope to complete by January 2007.

I am currently in the early stages of a new research project focussing on the role and activities of women in the South African liberation movement.

I am also involved in two collaborative projects. The first of these is an ARC funded one entitled La bella liberta: Women, Freedom and the History of Italy c1800-1940, with Ros Pesman and Glenda Sluga from the University of Sydney.

The second of these collaborative projects involves a large team based at Monash and working on 'The History of Friendship'. There are 12 people in the team and we have a contract with Equinox press for a book which we hope to complete by July 2006.

Major Publications

Single or jointly authored books
Bombay to Bloomsbury: the Stracheys, c 1850-1950, Oxford University Press, 2005
Gendering European History, (jointly authored with Glenda Sluga)
Leicester University Press, 2000. This book has been translated into Italian, Spanish and Swedish
English Feminism, c1780-1970, Oxford University Press, 1997
Victorian Feminists, Oxford University Press, 1992
Destined to be Wives: The Sisters of Beatrice Webb, Oxford University Press, 1986

Edited Books and Journals
Companion to Women's Historical Writing, (jointly edited with Mary Spongberg and Anne Curthoys), Palgrave McMillan, 2005
La bella Liberta: Women and the flight to Italy, Special issue of the journal, Women's Writing, 2002
A Companion to Australian Feminism, (Chief editor of book which was co- edited with Sophie Watson, Elizabeth Webby, Moira Gatens, Jan Larbalestier, Emma Graham) Oxford University Press. 1998
Transitions: New Australian Feminisms, eds B. Caine and R. Pringle, Allen & Unwin, 1995
Australian Feminisms, special issue of Women's History Review, vol.3, no. 3 eds., M. Spongberg, P. Russell, B. Caine,
Crossing Boundaries. Feminisms and the Critique of Knowledges, eds., B. Caine E. A. Grosz and Marie de Lepervanche, Allen and Unwin Sydney, 1988

Selected book chapters and journal articles
'Elizabeth Cady Stanton, John Stuart Mill and 19th century feminist thought' forthcoming in Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Feminist as Thinker, ed., Ellen Carol Dubois and Richard Candida Smith, New York University Press, forthcoming 2006
When did the Victorian period end? Questions of Gender and Generation, contribution to Round Table discussion on topic When did the 19th century end?Victorian Culture, vol.11, no.2, Autumn 2006.
'A Feminist Family: The Stracheys and feminism, c 1860-1950', Women's History Review, vol 14, nos 3 &4, 2005, pp. 385-404
'Feminist Biography', 'Feminism' 'Marriage and Family Life, Companion to Women's Historical Writing, 2005-12-22
'Journalism and women's public writing' in Joanne Shattock (ed) Women and Literature in Britain 1800-1900, Cambridge University Press, 200l
'Mothering feminism/Mothering Feminists: Ray Strachey and The Cause'Women's History Review, 9 (2) 295-310, 2000
'The Stracheys and Psychoanalysis', History Workshop Journal, Issue 45, 1998
'The Rights of Woman' in Iain McCalman Ed., The Oxford Companion to the Age of Romanticism and Revolution, Oxford University Press, 1998
'Victorian Feminism and the Ghost of Mary Wollstonecraft', Women's Writing, 4. ( 2) 1997, 261-275
'Feminism and Ageing', Australian Cultural History, vol. 8,(1995).
'Feminist Traditions, Women's Studies and the Question of History', in B. Caine and R. Pringle Transitions: New Australian Feminisms, Allen Unwin, 1995
'Feminist Biography and Feminist History', Women's History Review, 1994

Areas of Research & Supervision

Nineteenth and twentieth-century cultural history, with emphases on Europe and Australia; women's history; biography and history; life-story writing.

My principal teaching interests lie in the areas of Late Modern European cultural and social history, in debates about historiography and historical method, in questions about gender and history and in the broad area of history and biography. I supervise research in these areas, but also in work on women's history and questions of gender in European, Australian and Southern African History.

Current Supervision

• Carly Millar, A biography of Bessie Rischbieth (anticipated date of submission: March 2006)
• Richard Scully, British ideas and representations of Germany, c1870-1914
• Josie Monro, Gender in popular culture in early modern England
• Sue Speer, The concept of childhood in Australian autobiography
• Carolyn Adams, Australian nurses in the Anglo-Boer War
• Chris Child, Married women and economic independence in 19th century Victoria
• Lisa Curtis-Wendlandt, German missionary women in 19th and early 20th century
• Margaret Taft, the concept of witnessing in the Holocaust

Recent Completions

• Barbara Russell, History and the maiden: Searching for women's voices in the History of South Africa
• Jessica Lee-Ack, 'Prostitution and Feminist Theory', PhD, 2005
• Angela Argent, ' Exotic Creatures: Feminist intellectuals in Prague in the 1990s' PhD, 2003

Teaching

HSY2/3410- History of Sexuality 1800 - to the present
HSY4270 - Research methods in Biography and Life Writing
HYM4/5270 - Research methods in Biography and Life Writing