Postgraduate Profile

Mr Troy Saxby

PhD candidate, School of Humanities and Social Science

Discipline: History
Faculty / Division: Education and Arts
Email: Troy.Saxby@newcastle.edu.au
Telephone: +61 2 4921 5051
Room: McMullin Building MCG35
Campus: Callaghan, Newcastle

Current Research

PhD Thesis Title: America's Problem Child: The Activist Life of Pauli Murray

Supervisors: Dr Roger Markwick (Principle) and Dr Michael Ondaatje (Co-Supervisor)

Abstract:
My research focuses on the life of feminist civil-rights activist Pauli Murray (1910-1985). Her achievements included initiating non-violent direct action protests against segregation a generation before the Civil Rights Movement, co-founding the National Organisation of Women and becoming the first African American woman to be ordained as an Episcopal priest. Murray's life provides a lens to explore historical events such as the Harlem Renaissance, the New Deal, World War II, McCarthyism, the Civil Rights Movement and Second Wave Feminism. Focusing on Murray's role in these events, this thesis will analyse the complexities of race, class, gender and sexuality to demythologise the black freedom struggle in the twentieth century.  

Qualifications/studies

• 2005 Bachelor of Arts (Honours Class I), University of Newcastle

Employment

• 2008 - Present Associate Lecturer in History, University of Newcastle

Conference Papers

2010 "'Draggin' the Chain': Linking Civil Rights and African American Representation in The Defiant Ones and In the Heat of the Night". [with Emma L. Hamilton], ANZASA Conference, University of Adelaide

Membership of Professional Associations

• Australian and New Zealand American Studies Association (ANZASA)