Join us for an evening of networking with colleagues and hearing from stimulating speakers as they delve into the power of family, the importance of vulnerability and how feminism can be taught in our schools.
The event has two powerful speakers, each exploring aspects of these themes. The evening will be chaired by Dr Jill Brannock.
Prof Erica McWilliam will be discussing her new biography ‘Saving Grace’, exploring family, vulnerability and love. Told by her mother, with prim reluctance, that her Great Aunty Grace went insane when her fiancé married her younger sister, Erica sought to know the truth. What really happened to Grace and why? The book unfolds the family story just as Erica discovered it, piece by forensic piece, blending evidence taken from historical and medical records with contemporary psychiatric opinion to produce a compelling account of vulnerability and unconditional sisterly love.
Yvette Arnott, Literature teacher and Assistant Principal at The Mac.Robertson Girls’ High School, will present on the importance of unpicking the educational environment, which is often inherently patriarchal. Using the popular subject ‘Women and Madness’ as a lens this presentation will provide practical ideas and inspiration for teaching feminism in a girls school.
Dr Jill Brannock
Dr Jill Brannock enjoyed a long career as an academic at the Queensland University of Technology. Her teaching and research interests included gender and sexuality, European cultural history, and the sociology of schooling. Her interests have expanded to encompass medical ethics and European military history and for seven years she wrote and presented a weekly radio program The History Show for nation-wide community radio stations. Five years ago she was appointed to the University of Tasmanian Health and Medical Human Research Ethics Committee.
Refreshments will be provided on arrival.
Copies of Saving Grace will be available for purchase.
Thank you to our kind hosts at Melbourne Girls’ Grammar School.
