- Title
- The intellectual life of Catherine Helen Spence
- Creator
- McFarland, Michele
- Date
- 2004
- Type
- Text; Thesis; PhD
- Identifier
- http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/60437
- Identifier
- vital:3518
- Identifier
- https://library.federation.edu.au/record=b1242488
- Abstract
- This thesis will argue that Catherine Helen Spence, a writer, preacher and reformer who migrated from Scotland to Australia in 1839, performed the role of a public intellectual in Australia similar to that played by a number of women of letters in Victorian England. While her ideas were strongly influenced by important British and European nineteenth-century intellectual figures and movements, as well as by Enlightenment thought, her work also reflects the different socio-political, historical and cultural environment of Australia. These connections and influences can be seen in her engagement with what were some of the "big ideas" of the nineteenth century, including feminism, socialism, religious scepticism, utopianism and the value of progress. In arguing that Spence was a public intellectual, I will consider the ways in which she used the literary genres of fiction and journalism, as well as her sermons, to try to help her fellow citizens make sense of the world, attempting to organise and articulate some of the significant ideas affecting the political, social and cultural climates in which they lived. Through the exploration of Spence's intellectual work, I will show how she can be regarded as making a significant contribution to nineteenth-century Australian intellectual life, one that has been under-recognised and under-valued.; Doctor of Philosophy
- Publisher
- University of Ballarat
- Rights
- Copyright Michele McFarland
- Rights
- Open Access
- Rights
- This metadata is freely available under a CCO license
- Subject
- Spence, Catherine Helen, 1825-1910; Novelists; Women authors; 19th century; Biography; South Australia; Women; Women's rights; Australia; History; Australian Digital Thesis
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