Katharine Massam is a historian of religion, with particular interests in cultural and theological understandings of prayer and work. Her most recent book A Bridge Between: Spanish Benedictine Missionary Women in Australia (ANU Press, 2020) is recognised as a ‘model of how religious history, in its broader bearings, can be written’. It was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Award in Australian History in 2021.

Katharine moved to Melbourne to teach within what is now the the University of Divinity in 2000. She was previously a lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Adelaide (1996-2000), and a postdoctoral research fellow at the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University (1994 – 1996). Originally from Perth, Katharine’s doctoral work at the University of Western Australia was supervised by Tom Stannage and Patricia Crawford. Her early article in the premier journal Australian Historical Studies, on Marian devotion in Cold War Australia (1991) and her book Sacred Threads (UNSW Press, 1996) pioneered approaches to the ‘lived experience’ of religion, bearing fruit especially as her interdisciplinary research profile has developed to include theology more explicitly. She was elected as a member of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATIS) in 2017, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2022. Katharine served as secretary of the Religious History Association (2017-2024), and is a member of the international advisory board of the Journal of Ecclesiastical History, and a founding member of the Australian Collaborators in Feminist Theologies.

Attention to the ‘lived experience’ of faith and belief remains a strong feature of Katharine’s research. She is author of 4 books (3 monographs with University presses and an edited collection) and over 40 other refereed scholarly works. She has published on Australian religious experience, monastic theology, the history of education and on the experience of religious communities. Her collaboration from 1993 with the Aboriginal Corporation of New Norcia and the Benedictine communities of that former mission town has been formative of her research agenda. With colleagues internationally she held a collaborative grant from the American Academy of Religion in 2022 for a project on the theological method of Joseph Cardijn and its transformative potential for women. The connection between theology and participative economics is an emerging field of interest. She also continues to publish on the ‘lived experience’ of faith and belief and her account of the vision and mission of the Presentation Sisters in Victoria since Vatican II (John Garrett in press) traces the changing key words in the shared conversation of that teaching congregation since 1958.

Katharine teaches in the areas of history and spirituality, and welcomes discussion with potential research students.

Katharine is Chair of the Academic Board at the University of Divinity.

University Appointments

Chair of the Academic Board (University of Divinity)
Associate Teacher (Pilgrim Theological College)

University Memberships

External Affiliations

• Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (Member)
• Religious History Association (Secretary)
• Australian Cardijn Institute (Leadership)
• Royal Historical Society (Fellow)