Unconventional Women

The story of the last Blessed Sacrament Sisters in Australia

Sarah Gilbert
Paperback
Added to basketCheckout →
Available on publication date
Other formats available
Unconventional Women

Subjects

Oral history

Published

2 July 2024

ISBN

9780522880397

Pages

304

Subjects

Oral history

Imprint

Melbourne University Press

Unconventional Women

The story of the last Blessed Sacrament Sisters in Australia

Sarah Gilbert
The lives of the women who joined a closed convent in Melbourne in a time of great upheaval
In the 1950s and 60s, six young women left their families to join a strictly enclosed order of nuns in Melbourne. They could leave the convent only for medical appointments and rarely received visitors, who they would meet from behind a partition built into the parlour. Their lives were confined by the convent walls, the rhythms of the Divine Office and the dictates of the Mother Superior. By the late 1960s, this community of women was upended by the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, and by the changing times. Their convent threw open its doors on a new world and the women wanted to be part of it. The personal accounts of the six nuns and ex-nuns in Unconventional Women are unusually candid, giving a rare insight into the world of the convent, and exploring their changing relationship with both God and the world.
In the 1950s and 60s, six young women left their families to join a strictly enclosed order of nuns in Melbourne. They could leave the convent only for medical appointments and rarely received visitors, who they would meet from behind a partition built into the parlour. Their lives were confined by the convent walls, the rhythms of the Divine Office and the dictates of the Mother Superior. By the late 1960s, this community of women was upended by the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, and by the changing times. Their convent threw open its doors on a new world and the women wanted to be part of it. The personal accounts of the six nuns and ex-nuns in Unconventional Women are unusually candid, giving a rare insight into the world of the convent, and exploring their changing relationship with both God and the world.

Sarah Gilbert

Sarah Gilbert

Sarah Gilbert is a writer, producer and oral historian from Sydney. She began her career as a copy girl at News Ltd before moving to New York where she worked as a feature writer at the New York Post. She returned home to work as a reporter in current affairs television, but soon moved Argentina where she wrote for Lonely Planet and Time Out.
Sarah’s writing has been published in the Sydney Review

More

Paperback
Added to basketCheckout →
Available on publication date
Other formats available