University of Sydney / Faculty of Arts / Department of French Studies / Staff / Associates

Associate Professor Bronwyn Winter

PhD, LèsL, MèsL (ParisIII), RSADip TEFLA (Lond)
Associate Professor
Director, International and Comparative Literary Studies
Associate Dean, Undergraduate Matters, Faculty of Arts
Room 747, Brennan MacCallum Building A18

+61 2 9351 4653

Research areas

  • Colonisation, decolonisation and the postcolonial French-speaking world (esp. North Africa and the Caribbean)
  • Twentieth century political theories and social movements, esp. antiracist, feminist, gay/lesbian and anti-globalisation movements, in France, Australia, North Africa, the Philippines and Israel/Palestine
  • Feminist theory esp. transnational feminism
  • Culture, religion and politics esp. although not solely in relation to the Muslim world and diaspora
  • Women and political participation
  • The State, nationalism and internationalism, esp. in relation to human rights, women, war, globalisation, and ethnicity/cross-cultural issues in a “post-9/11” world
  • Comparative literature in particular postcolonial, feminist and lesbian literature, and the history, esthetics and critiques of orientalism in literature and in dance
  • Gay and lesbian studies
  • The ideals and ideology of the French republic

Major Research Projects

  • Book 9/11 Emergency: Has September 11, 2001 changed the world for women?

    The politics of homosexuality, feminism and ethnicity in France, Turkey, Australia, Israel/Palestine and the Philippines
  • Women writing transgression and exile

Other Research Projects

  • “Foulard or cocarde? Gendered imagery of racialised women in postcolonial France” (Book chapter)
  • “Guns, money and justice : the 2005 Subic rape case”
  • “Lily pads and leisure meccas : the gendered political economy of post-base and post-9/11 Philippines”
  • “The epistemology of a prefix : is ‘trans-’ the new ‘inter-’ ?”
  • “Interdisciplines : the locations and politics of knowledge production”
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Selected publications

Books

  • 2008a. Hijab and the Republic: Uncovering the French Headscarves Debate. Sycracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. In press, forthcoming November 2008.

Edited Books

  • 2002a (contributing ed., with Susan Hawthorne). September 11, 2001: Feminist Perspectives. Melbourne: Spinifex.

Chapters in Books

  • 2011. “Politicising the personal: questioning the public/private divide.” In A Cultural History of Women in the Modern Age, ed. Liz Conor, Vol. 6 of A Cultural History of Women, ed. L. Kalof. Oxford: Berg Publishers. (Forthcoming)
  • 2009a. “One hijab does not fit all: recontexualising the case for secularism.” In Beyond the hijab debates: new conversations on gender, race and religion, ed. Christina Ho and Tanja Dreher, 195-207. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
  • 2006a. “The Social Foundations of the Sacred: Feminists and the Politics of Religion.” In Handbook of Gender and Women’s Studies, ed. K. Davis, M. Evans and J. Lorber, 92-108. London: Sage Publications.
  • 2002b. “Pauline and Other Perils: Women in Australian Right-Wing Politics”. In P. Bacchetta and M. Power (eds). Right-Wing Women: from Conservatives to Extremists Around the World. New York: Routledge, 197-210.
  • 2000a. “Women and Human Rights in Europe: Views from France.” In Rewriting Rights in Europe, ed. Linda Hancock and Carolyn O’Brien. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 25-52
  • 1998a. “Adherence or Appropriation? Images of Maghrebian Women and the French Ideal of Nationhood.” In Shifting Bonds, Shifting Bounds: Women, Mobility and Citizenship in Europe, ed. V. Ferreira, T. Tavares and S. Portugal. Oeiras, Portugal: Celta Editore, 149-163.

Articles in refereed journals

  • 2010a. “Défauts et indignités : burqa et politique en France.” Actes de l’histoire de l’immigration, Nº spécial: “Politique et administration du genre migrant.” (Forthcoming)
  • 2009b. “Women and the ‘Turkish paradox’: what the headscarf is covering up.” Modern Greek Studies Australia. (Forthcoming)
  • 2007a. “Pre-emptive fridge magnets and other weapons of masculinist destruction: the rhetoric and reality of ‘Safeguarding Australia’.” Signs: A Journal of Women, Culture and Society 33(1): 25-52.
  • 2006b. “Religion, culture and women’s human rights: Some general political and theoretical considerations.” Women’s Studies International Forum 29(4): Special issue on Islam, gender and human rights in Asia and the Pacific: 381-93.
  • 2006c. “Secularism Aboard the Titanic: Feminists and the Debate over the Hijab in France.” Feminist Studies 32(2): 279-98.
  • 2002c. with Sheila Jeffreys and Denise Thompson. “The UN Approach to Harmful Traditional Practices: Some Conceptual Problems.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 4: 72-94.
  • 2002d. “Women's rights, globalisation and the nation-state: are human rights and democracy enough?” Australian Feminist Law Journal 17, December 2002: 1-16.
  • 2001a. “Fundamental Misunderstandings: Issues in Feminist Approaches to Islamism”, and “Naming the Oppressor, Not Punishing the Oppressed: Atheism and Feminist Legitimacy.” Journal of Women’s History 13(1): 9-41 and 53-57 respectively (featured piece in “Theoretical Issues” section of journal, and my rejoinder to the three responses by Badran, Moghadam and Hassan).
  • 2000b. “Who Counts (or Doesn’t Count) What as Feminist Theory? An exercise in dictionary use”. Feminist Theory 1(1): 105-114.
  • 1999a. “L’essentialisation de l’Altérité et l’invisibilisation de l’oppression: l’histoire bizarre mais vraie de la déformation d’un concept”. Nouvelles Questions Féministes 20(4): 75-102.
  • 1997a. “(Mis)representations: What French Feminism Isn’t.” Women’s Studies International Forum. 20(2): 211-224 (10,000 words).
  • 1994a. “Women, the Law and Cultural Relativism in France: the Case of Excision”. Signs: A Journal of Women, Culture and Society. 19(4), 939-974 (10,000 words).

Refereed conference proceedings

  • 2009c. “Marianne goes multicultural: Ni putes ni soumises and the republicanisation of ethnic minority women in France.” French history and civilization: Papers from the George Rudé Seminar Vol. 2. www.h-france.net/rude/rudeTOC2009.html
  • 1999b. “Liberté, égalité, parité: women as political actors in France, two hundred years down the track.” In The Sphinx in the Tuileries and other essays in Modern French History: papers presented at the Eleventh George Rudé Seminar, ed. R. Aldrich & M. Lyons. University of Sydney: Department of Economic History, 386-399.
  • 1998b. “Pauline Hanson and the ‘dilemmas’ of right-wing women for feminism.” Proceedings of the 7th Australian Women’s Studies Association 1998 Conference (selected refereed papers). Adelaide: University of South Australia, 192-204.
  • 1996a. “Learning the Hard Way: the debate on women, cultural difference and secular schooling in France”. In Europe: Retrospects and Prospects: Proceedings of the Australasian Association of European Historians Tenth Biennal Conference. Manly: South End Press, 203-213.

Encyclopædia entries

  • 2010b. “The Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan” and “Awa Thiam” (pioneering Francophone African feminist scholar). In History of Feminist Thought, ed. Tiffany K. Wayne. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. (Forthcoming)
  • 1996b. “Colette Guillaumin”. In Feminist Writers, ed. Pamela Kester-Shelton. Detroit: St James’ Press.

Other publications

Non-fiction
Fiction
  • 2009e. "Freeway", "Blood Poisoning", "The Attic", "Moments in a Saga" and "Tango". Short stories and poetry in 2Flaunt. www.lesbian-ebooks.com.au.
  • 2007b. “When Did You Know” and other poems. Perverse Verse 2007. www.gay-ebooks.com.au
  • 2006d. “Imprint” and other poems. Perverse Verse 2005-6. www.gay-ebooks.com.au
  • 2002g. “Kabul 2002.” In An Eye for an Eye Makes the Whole World Blind: Poets on 9/11, ed. Allen Cohen and Cliver Matson. Oakland, CA: Regent Press, 156-62.
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Areas of teaching and research supervision

  • Colonisation/decolonisation/postcolonialism
  • Francophone Studies: The Maghreb, West Africa, The Caribbean
  • The politics and theory of race and gender in France
  • Post world-war-II social movements
  • Le grand siècle (17th century)
  • The ideology of the French Revolution and of the First and Third Republics
  • Comparative literature esp. history and theories of the discipline; orientalism in literature and dance; lesbian and gay literature; literature, culture and politics; and representations of Paris in literature
  • International and Global Studies, esp. international institutions, transnational social movements and the politics of transculturation
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Other professional contributions

Research Organisations

  • Co-convenor, “Transcultural Mappings: Emerging Issues in Comparative, Transnational and Area Studies”, University of Sydney, April 2010
  • Member of organising committee, 17th George Rudé seminar on French history and civilization, University of Sydney, July 2010
  • Co-convenor, “History, Modernity and the Muslim World between Europe and Asia”, Symposium, University of Sydney, September 2008
  • Member of organising committee, 2008 conference of the Law and Society Association of Australia and New Zealand, University of Sydney, December 2008
  • Co-convenor, “Homosexual Histories”, University of Sydney 2004
  • Membre du comité scientifique international. 3ème colloque international de la recherche féministe francophone: “Ruptures, Résistances et Utopies” Toulouse, 17-22 septembre 2002
  • Member of organising committee of "Workers Out!", the Second International Conference on Trade Unionism and Homosexuality: University of Sydney Oct 31 - Nov 2, 2002

Invited lectures and seminars

  • Keynote speaker, Brisbane International Feminist Conference, September 2008
  • “Simone de Beauvoir”. Public lecture, University of Sydney Research Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences “Key Thinkers” lecture series, September 2005
  • Howard Falls memorial lecture in French Studies, University of Maryland, 2005
  • Panel member, “Where were you in 1984” keynote panel, Brisbane Women’s Legal Service Conference to mark the 20th anniversary of the Sex Discrimination Act, Brisbane, October 2004
  • Plenary speaker on violence against women, Pacific regional NGO preparatory conference for the UN ten-year review of the Beijing Platform for Action, co-organised by HREOC, the University of NSW and the Australian National Council for Refugee Women, UNSW, June 2004
  • Keynote Speaker, international conference “Poverty, Violence and Women's Rights: Setting a Global Agenda”, James Cook University,Townsville 3-7 July 2002
  • Plenary speaker, international conference “Cinquantenaire du Deuxième sexe de Simone de Beauvoir”, Paris, 1999
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