The 2020 Gender, Sex and Sexualities Committee are proud to announce the continuation of the Dr Michael Noble Prize for Outstanding Contribution to the Conference.
Full-length presentations are eligible for the Dr Michael Noble Prize for Outstanding
Contribution to the Conference. The prize is a book voucher awarded to the best
conference presentation in honour of Dr Michael Noble.
We recognise Dr Noble’s life work, including, but not limited to, his contributions to intersex activism and his role as Intersex Consultant and Communications Officer for the 2017 Gender, Sex and Sexualities Art(i)culations of Violence Committee.
Conference presenters are invited to submit their presentation speech and/or slides to the conference committee to be considered for the prize. Email gsspostgradconference@gmail.com.
Dr Michael Lawrence Noble was born in 1959 and lived with obvious differences all his life. He finally got some answers when his Kleinfelder’s XXY Syndrome was diagnosed in his 30s and a diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome followed soon after.
Dr Noble really was born out of his time—he loved cross-stitching and restoring antique writing boxes, and his PhD focuses on the 17th century philosopher, Nicolas Culpepper. He brought balance into his life through a love of bushwalking and gardening, along with his 30-year meditation practice, which sustained him through his final battle with cancer.
Despite being frequently ill, flattened by fatigue and often depressed, he managed to complete an exemplary five degrees, culminating in his ground-breaking PhD “Nicholas Culpeper and the mystery of the philosopher’s stone: recovering and enhancing subjugated knowledges through historical fiction” in 2017. He always enjoyed making time to help other university students with assignments and research—many have said how he contributed to their study success and outlook on life.
Dr Noble fought for years to bring the intersex community to the forefront of community awareness. The Organisation Intersex International (OII) Australia recognises Dr Noble for his crucial contributions to intersex activism from the early 1990s to the mid-2000s. Recently, he served as an Intersex Consultant working with GLBTI community committees.
Dr Noble was the Intersex Consultant and Communications Officer for the 2017 Gender, Sex and Sexualities Art(i)culations of Violence Committee, where he instigated crucial reforms in the way that the conference approaches notions of gender, sex and sexuality. It is for this contribution that we recognise the life’s work of Dr Noble through this prize.
Michael decided to complete his life without ceremony or a formal funeral. With the help of his Head of School, Professor Jason Bainbridge, his wish to have his ashes scattered on the creek bank at UniSA’s beautiful Magill Campus—a first such ceremony for this university—was fulfilled. Michael had said completing his PhD at Magill was the happiest time of his life, and was delighted to find out that his close friends are planning to publish his PhD thesis posthumously, to offer his insights to a global community.
This is one culmination, of what will undoubtedly be many, of his lifetime of pushing through barriers, both personal and societal, and the Dr Michael Noble Prize for Outstanding Papers at the annual Gender, Sex and Sexualities conference is a fitting memorial to an unforgettable academic who was always ready to help others.
Many thanks to Louise Niva, a dear friend of Dr Noble’s, for her contribution to writing this biography.
Gender, Sex and Sexualities Conference 