Brigid Rooney

Brigid Rooney taught Australian literature and Australian studies at the University of Sydneybetween 2001 and 2020. Her publications include Literary Activists: Writer-Intellectuals andAustralian Public Life (2009) and Suburban Space, The Novel and Australian Modernity (2018). WithFiona Morrison, she is co-editor of Time, Tide and History: Eleanor Dark’s Fiction (forthcoming,Sydney University Press).

Articles by Brigid Rooney:

Published in Overland Issue 253 Summer 2023/4 · Writing

Memento mori: Australian literary studies and the legacy of Elizabeth Webby

Brigid Rooney

On 6 August 2023 my colleague, mentor and friend Elizabeth Webby AM, Emeritus Professor of Australian Literature at the University of Sydney, died after a long illness. Elizabeth was a no-nonsense person, neither squeamish nor prone to euphemism. In that spirit I opt for the direct, plain-spoken language of “dying” and “death” rather than softer terms like “passed” or “departed”.