Prudence Flowers

(she/her)

19

Articles

2

Comments

My work focuses on social movement activism, modern conservatism, religion, medicine and public health, and the politics of gender, sexuality, and the body. I am particularly interested in abortion and family planning, both as elements of health care and as triggers for polarising social movement formation. I am a Senior Lecturer in US History at Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia.

I am currently working on several projects, including (i) the US, the Marshall Islands, and nuclear legacies, (ii) abortion politics in 21st century Australia, and (iii) provision of and access to abortion after 20 weeks' gestation in the US, Australia, the UK, and Canada.

I am the current president of the Australian and New Zealand American Studies Association and a convenor in the Australian Women's History Network.

Experience

  • 2021–present
    Senior lecturer in US History, Flinders University
  • 2009–2020
    Lecturer in US History, Flinders University

Education

  • 2009 
    University of Melbourne, PhD
  • 2003 
    University of Melbourne, BA (Hons)

Publications

  • 2026
    ‘Not the end but just the beginning’: historicising anti-abortion politics and the far-right counter-offensive in contemporary Australia, History Australia
  • 2025
    The Reagan Revolution, Routledge
  • 2025
    Hate mail in the late-twentieth-century United States, Emotions and the Letter: A History from Antiquity to the Present
  • 2022
    When more is less: Emergency powers, COVID-19 and abortion in South Australia, 2020, International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy
  • 2022
    Reproductive rights at home? Prohibiting telehealth abortion in South Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic, Gender, Place and Culture
  • 2021
    Late Termination of Pregnancy: An Internationally Comparative Study of Public Health Policy, The Law and the Experiences of Providers,
  • 2020
    The purists and the pragmatists: The right-to-life movement and the problem of the exceptional abortion in the United States, 1980s–2010s, Women's Studies International Forum
  • 2019
    The Right-to-Life Movement, the Reagan Administration, and the Politics of Abortion, Palgrave Macmillan
  • 2019
    ‘Voodoo biology’: the right-to-life campaign against family planning programs in the United States in the 1980s, Women's History Review
  • 2018
    Fighting the 'hurricane winds' of abortion liberalization: Americans United for Life and the struggle for self-definition before Roe v. Wade, The Sixties: A Journal of History, Politics, and Culture
  • 2017
    'A Prolife Disaster': The Reagan Administration and the Nomination of Sandra Day O’Connor, Journal of Contemporary History
  • 2006
    White Ribboners and the Ideology of Separate Spheres, 1860s-1890s, Australasian Journal of American Studies

Grants and Contracts

  • 2025
    DP250100164 Pacific Powers: Imperial Competition and Cooperation in Micronesia
    Role:
    Chief Investigator
    Funding Source:
    Australian Research Council
  • 2018
    Catherine Helen Spence Memorial Scholarship
    Role:
    Chief Investigator
    Funding Source:
    Department of Human Services, State Government of South Australia

Professional Memberships

  • Australian and New Zealand American Studies Association
  • Australian Women and Gender Studies Association
  • Australian Historical Association
  • Australian Women's History Network

Research Areas

  • Historical Studies (2103)

Contact Prudence for

  • General
  • Media request
  • Speaking request
  • Consulting / Advising
  • Research collaboration
  • Research supervision