Testament of Mentors: Feminist Engagement in Academia

On Friday 31 August, the Australian Collaborators in Feminist Theology, together with Pilgrim Theological College and the University of Divinity, will host this event dedicated to exploring the concept of a mentor, especially concerning the value of mentoring in helping women and other non-traditional leaders to emerge. The Inaugural Janette Gray Lecture (7:30pm) will conclude an afternoon and evening of inspiring conversation, workshops and encouragement.

Event Details

Registration

Registrations close on 24 August.

Lecture only: please make a donation to the Janette Gray RSM Fund.

*book asap, dinner places are limited

MENTORING: A Conversation

Afternoon session 2-5pm
Professor Joy Damousi and Alexandra McMullen

What does it mean to accompany one another? To enable each other to flourish? Has mentoring helped more women and other non-traditional leaders emerge? How does theology compare to the wider academy?

With these and other questions to consider, this will be an afternoon of input and conversation with Joy Damousi and Alexandra McMullen.

Professor Joy Damousi is an ARC Kathleen Fitzpatrick Laureate Fellow and Professor of History at the University of Melbourne. Since 2014, her laureate fellowship has included a mentoring scheme to provide training to women early career researchers in the humanities and social sciences.
Ms Alexandra McMullen, author of ‘Blending pedagogies to benefit communities: VET for social and economic renewal’, has developed structures and strategies for mentoring in professional and community settings from rural health to the Brotherhood of St Laurence.

DINNER (6pm)

A TAPESTRY OF WOVEN THREADS

Inaugural Janette Gray Lecture: 7:30pm
Professor Elaine Wainwright
In honour of Dr Janette Gray RSM

The title of this lecture was born from immersion into the theology of Janette Gray, its richness and its diversity: from celibacy to ecology to theological anthropology and much more. It is against this backdrop, and occasional dialogue with Janette Gray’s work, that I undertake a reading of Matthew 19 and its tapestry of woven threads – threads of complex human relationships. The lens I bring to this task is one that Jan brought to celibacy—an ecological perspective.

Elaine Wainwright is Professor Emeritus of the University of Auckland and Adjunct Faculty Member of the Broken Bay Institute, Sydney. She is a New Testament Scholar specializing in the Gospel of Matthew, to which she brings a feminist and ecological perspective and on which she has published widely.
She is a member of the Institute of the Sisters of Mercy of Australia and Papua New Guinea, and served with Janette Gray on its Circle of Mercy Theologians.