2020 Aotearoa New Zealand Gender History Seminar (December Programme)

Posted on by NZHeh

You are warmly invited to attend the final meeting of the 2020 Aotearoa New Zealand Gender History Seminar. Inquiries to Charlotte Greenhalgh (charlotte.greenhalgh@waikato.ac.nz)

Wednesday 9 December, 12 pm – 1 pm, via zoom (https://waikato.zoom.us/j/93806411650)

Melissa Matutina Williams, Gendering Whānau
Felicity Barnes, Shopping for Empire: Thinking beyond the Conservative Housewife
Rachel Tombs, An end to Spousal Immunity: Rape Law Reform in 1980s New Zealand (Please be aware that this talk addresses sexual and domestic violence, including prevalence statistics. It does not quote testimonies from individual women’s experiences)

Melissa Matutina Williams is of Te Rarawa and Ngāti Maru descent. Following the completion of her PhD thesis in History in 2010, she lectured for three years in Māori and New Zealand history at The University of Auckland where she now holds an honorary academic position. Melissa’s publications include her award-winning book, Panguru and the City: Kāinga Tahi, Kāinga Rua, which is based on the oral histories of her whanaunga who migrated from North Hokianga to Auckland, 1930-1970. Melissa continues to research and write in the fields of Māori and New Zealand history and is currently part of a Marsden project team researching ‘Whānau Ora with, against and beyond the state’.

Felicity Barnes is a senior lecturer in History at the University of Auckland. Her first book, New Zealand’s London: A Colony and its Metropolis examined the impact of cultural links between New Zealand and London from the late nineteenth century till the 1980s. She is currently working on a second book, Buying Britishness, to be published by MQUp in 2021, which explores the connections between commodity marketing and the construction of identity in the former Dominions. 

Rachel Tombs is a MA student at the University of Otago. Her research is focused on the role of feminist activism in the criminalisation of marital rape. Rachel will talk about some of her findings from the public submissions to the Rape Law Reform Bill.