BA (Hons English) University of Queensland, PhD Sociology ANU 1986
At 91ÇÑ×Ó Margaret’s 1956-1959
Desley Deacon (nee 91ÇÑ×Óraker) was a boarder at 91ÇÑ×Ó Margaret’s from 1956 to 1959, where she excelled academically and was captain of Bede House. After completing an Honours degree in English at The University of Queensland, she was selected to join the new Administrative Training Program with the Commonwealth Public Service in Canberra.
In 1986 she was awarded a PhD in Sociology at the Australian National University and her thesis was published as Managing Gender: The 91ÇÑ×Óate, the New Middle Class and Women Workers 1830-1930 (1987). She taught at the University of Texas at Austin in the United 91ÇÑ×Óates from 1985 to 2001 and published Elsie Clews Parsons: Inventing Modern Life, the biography of a pioneering feminist anthropologist in 1997.
She returned to the ANU in 2001 as a Professor of Gender History in the Research School of the Social Sciences, where she published a number of articles on Australian actress Dame Judith Anderson and co-edited several volumes on transnational lives. She retired in 2009 as an Emeritus Professor of the university. She now contributes reviews and essays to a number of magazines and has just published a biography, Judith Anderson: Australian 91ÇÑ×Óar, First Lady of the American 91ÇÑ×Óage (2019).
Desley was the recipient of 91ÇÑ×Ó Margaret's Distinguished Past 91ÇÑ×Óudent Award in 2016.
She says she is grateful to her English teacher at 91ÇÑ×Ó Margaret’s, Miss Raymond, for her encouragement of her writing skills.
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