Tribute to Dr Peta Bowden from the School of Arts

Colleagues and friends from the School of Arts pay tribute to their colleague Dr Peta Bowden who recently passed away.

Dear colleagues

It is with sadness that I inform you of the passing of our retired colleague and friend Dr Peta Bowden, beloved teacher, academic and member of the Philosophy Program at Murdoch.

Peta joined the University in 1993, bringing with her a depth of knowledge in philosophy and a commitment to the value of humanities at Murdoch.

Among her many career highlights was to contribute to the philosophy and practice of nursing. Her seminar on love and friendship also inspired generations of Murdoch students.

Peta retired in 2013 but remained connected to Murdoch as an Honourary Senior Research Fellow.

Her friends and colleagues in the School of Arts have written a moving tribute to her, which is published in full below.

Rikki Kersten
Dean, School of Arts

Vale, Peta Bowden

Dr Peta Bowden, outstanding human being, dear friend, academic, teacher, activist and former member of Murdoch’s Philosophy Program, passed away on Wednesday 6 June 2018.

Peta’s death leaves a hole, a gap, a tear in our universe. A precious friend and colleague, she will be remembered for her kindness, mindful engagement, integrity and constant orientation to the lives of others. During her long career at Murdoch, she was committed to sustaining true collegiality and the development of philosophy as a fundamental field of human inquiry. All of us who knew Peta valued her clear-sighted view of the complex issues that we face as a university, and her tireless defence of higher education as a public good.

When Peta joined the fledgling Philosophy Program at Murdoch University in 1993, she brought with her not only a prestigious Canadian PhD, but also a remarkable breadth of knowledge from mathematics to classical Greek thought and feminist philosophy of Being. Peta was able to pluck the best from philosophical thought and especially from Heidegger’s thinking, not just for teaching and her research but as recipes for life.

Peta’s care for others came from her deeply-felt knowledge that we are part of a sentient ‘kind’. This knowledge was expressed in her compassionate outreach to all she encountered, whether as part of the human or ‘other-than-human’ world.  A close friend and fellow academic remembers Peta watching, entranced, as a small group of baby ducks crossed a roadside puddle, and recalls her close attention to the devastations that we, as humans, cause to our planet. With this intimation coming from her sense of the shared human condition, Peta was always, and most singularly, a compassionate campaigner. This orientation infused all her actions, whether campaigning for the Greens, undertaking detailed work for 350 Australia, or advocating for the value of the humanities at Murdoch. It is no coincidence that one of Peta’s most memorable contributions to Murdoch, one which inspired generations of students, was her seminar on love and friendship, infused by insights from philosophy and English literature.

Since Heidegger’s writings also had a profound influence on Peta’s thinking and work, it seems fitting to single out some of the things she was able to adopt from him as “grounding achievements”: mindfulness; kindness; and care. Mindfulness describes best Peta’s approach to philosophy, her students, and her own life. Peta’s path from the logos of mathematics to that of a critical ethics, from a “craft of thinking” to the poetic character of thought allowed her to arrive at the “splendour of the simple”. Her students profited hugely from her teaching as a “path-opening” of the intellect, moral responsibility, and thoughtful spirituality. As a teacher, Peta richly understood Heidegger’s line that “we are only a pathway”, a pathway of thinking that “nurtured” her patience of “magnanimity”. Such was her kindness as a pedagogue. It is with such core values that we are able to “dwell humanly on this earth”, for, in the words of Hölderlin, “we remain human, as long as kindness, the Pure, stays with us”. It certainly did for our friend and colleague. Peta’s kindness was also richly informed by the many meanings of care, Heidegger’s Sorge. Care as sorrow and caritas is related to Cura, the mythological creator of humans who shaped us out of earth and spirit. The idea of care occupied Peta’s mind deeply beyond its function as a philosophical abstraction distilling the temporality of an authentic form of Being-towards-death. It equally informed her thinking as related to caring in a life of Being-for-others. Peta’s commitment to the well-being of others was expressed in her close attention to the intellectual and emotional concerns of her students; her regular practice of writing to friends and colleagues to thank them for something that they might have produced, said or done; and her close engagement with the various communities of which she was part.

Peta wrote and published extensively on the practice of care, offering a major contribution to the philosophy and practice of nursing. She wore her wealth of learning lightly, for her devotion was to what Hannah Arendt calls the “life of the mind”, a commitment to thoughtful and open inquiry. Accordingly, she never sought promotion and never strove to get the next ‘necessary’ publication. Instead, she mindfully followed her values, always with respect for the views and feelings of those around her.

Peta read long and deeply, cycling to libraries to search for books on issues old and new. In her retirement, she hosted a small discussion group, the “Slow Thinkers”, which explored a range of issues such as the quality of trust, the challenge of protest, and the matters that make us laugh.

All this was an integral part of Peta’s particular way of ‘being in’ the world. In the weeks before she died, she was re-reading Seneca, as she thought he had much to say about appreciation and gratitude. Always a thinker and a learner, Peta brought her sense of the human condition to her death, and died as she lived, with grace, dignity, acceptance and care for those around her.

Peta, you have been a beautiful friend and you have taught us so much. You are an inspiration to us all. Thank you.