Kay Lois Schaffer

Kay was born 1945 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, where she completed her BA, MA and PhD.  She migrated to Australia with her young family in 1974. Kay became part of like-minded team of colleagues that developed the first graduate program in Women’s Studies in 1978 at the Salisbury College of Advanced Education.  After university amalgamations in 1991, the program moved to the University of Adelaide, joining the Research Centre for Women’s Studies.  In 1992 she became Head of the new Department of Women’s Studies, teaching in the areas of gender studies, cultural studies, and literary studies.  She became a Professor in 2000 and took an early retirement in 2003, devoting her post-retirement time to research on an ARC grant and taking up Chairs of Australian Studies at the University of Cologne (Germany ) and CapeTown (South Africa). She is the author/editor of or collaborator in many publications including books such as Women and the Bush (1987), Human Rights and Narrated Lives (with Sidonie Smith, 2004) and Women Writers in Postsocialist China (with Xianlin Song, 2014). She was awarded the title Emerita Professor in 2014.