Asian Australian Studies News

NEWS-BLOG RETIRED!

2009-03-18T13:35:00.003+11:00

This news-blog is now retired.

The revamped AASRN website (www.asianaustralianstudies.org) now has its own "News" functionality and all Asian Australian Studies news + announcements will be updated there.

This news-blog remains as an archival resource, but will no longer be updated.

NEW BOOK - The Dragon and the Taniwha: Maori and Chinese in New Zealand (Manying Ip)

2009-03-04T17:34:00.003+11:00

The Dragon and the Taniwha: Maori and Chinese in New Zealand

Ed. Manying Ip

Auckland University Press

ISBN: 9781869404369

Analyzing for the first time the relationship between the tangata whenua and the country’s earliest non-European immigrant group, this study investigates how two different marginalized groups in New Zealand society—the Maori and the Chinese—have interacted over the last 150 years. Various aspects are explored, such as how Maori newspapers have portrayed Chinese publications and vice versa, the changing demography of Chinese and Maori populations, Maori-Chinese marriages, and the ancient migration of both groups. The ethnically diverse contributors—from Maori to Chinese to European scholars—tackle numerous questions from many angles as well, such as Do the Maori resent Chinese immigrants? Do Chinese New Zealanders understand the role of the tangata whenua? and Have Maori and Chinese formed alliances based on common values and history? The result is an engaging portrait of the past and present relationships between two important peoples. Since race relations in New Zealand have usually been examined in terms of Maori and Pakeha, this unique exploration of Maori–Chinese relations portrays a much richer and more complex social fabric.

==================

About the Editor:

Manying Ip came to New Zealand in 1974 from Hong Kong where her family lived for five generations. Her interest in Maori-Chinese interactions started from the mid 1980s when she conducted extensive qualitative interviews among the pioneering Chinese families, which grew ever stronger with the immigration and ethnic identity debates of the recent decade.

She is Associate Professor in Asian Studies at The University of Auckland and the author of several critically acclaimed books on Chinese in New Zealand. These include: Aliens At My Table: Asians as New Zealanders See Them (2005), Unfolding Identity, Evolving Identity: The Chinese in New Zealand (2003) as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters on issues pertaining to recent Asian immigrants. She is a respected advocate for Chinese communities living in New Zealand.

FESTIVAL - Indonesian Festa (15 March 2009; Immigration Museum, Melbourne)

2009-03-04T17:26:00.002+11:00

Indonesian Festa
Sunday 15 Mar 2009
Immigration Museum, Flinders St, Melbourne

A festival celebrating the diversity of Victoria’s Indonesian community. Join in this one-day festival celebrating the diversity of Victoria’s Indonesian community, through performances, activities and food. From north to south and east to west – or, as the Indonesians say, “from Sabang to Merauke” – each of the more than 13,500 islands of the Indonesian archipelago has its own character and traditions.

Experience the breadth of Indonesian local cultures and customs, and see how the community continues to practise these in Melbourne and Victoria – the sounds of the gamelan orchestra, the taste of Indonesian food, shadow puppetry, as well as dances and crafts from various parts of the country.

You can learn some moves in a dance workshop, or have a go at pencak silat (a form of martial arts).

Sunday 15 Mar 2009
11:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Immigration Museum

** Free with Museum admission **

NEW POETRY COLLECTION - _Eighth Habitation_ by Adam Aitken (Giramondo Press)

2009-03-04T17:12:00.004+11:00

ADAM AITKEN's new collection of poems, Eighth Habitation, is published this week by Giramondo Press.

The launch will be held at Gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe, on Sunday, 5 April 2009, 3.30 for 4pm. Marcelle Freiman will be launching the new publication.

The following is taken from the Giramondo site:

"Eighth Habitation takes its name from the Buddhist notion of purgatory, a mystic realm where the meaning of human lives are judged. The poems inhabit a range of landscapes and perspectives, in Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand and China, with an empathy and understanding that suggests a consciousness imbued with an Asian sensibility. Blending the cosmopolitan, the traditional and the unexpected, in their accumulation of detail they register the dignity and resilience of a world recovering from personal tragedy and the trauma of history.

‘a lucid and finally lyrical voice… wholly original on the Australian scene’ - michael brennan

Adam Aitken grew up in London, Thailand and Malaysia, before coming to Australia in 1968. His collection Romeo and Juliet in Subtitles, was shortlisted for the South Australian Festival Award for poetry and the Age Book of the Year Award. Eighth Habitation is his fourth collection."

Poetry, Paperback, 160 pp, $24.95
9781920882464
Publication: March 2009

CFP - "2009 Australian Chinese Political Participation conference" (Deakin U, Melbourne; deadline: 29 March 2009)

2009-03-04T16:52:00.002+11:00

Deakin University will be holding the 2009 Australian Chinese Political Participation Conference on 15-16 August 2009.

Venue: Burwood Campus, Deakin University

You can download an invitation and conference information sheet (both in English and Chinese) HERE [PDF; 220Kb].

It would be much appreciated if you could distribute this flyer to your colleagues or friends who might be interested in getting involved.

We hope to bring together people from various areas (including politicians, community leaders, and scholars ) to present and exchange their opinions on the relevant topics.

Their opinions, achievements and experiences are valued and important not only to academic study but also to political practice, especially the future practice of Chinese political practice.

Deadline for abstracts is 29 March 2009. Final versions of conference papers should be submitted by 26 July 2009. Please be advised that all preferred topics and brief abstracts of presentation can be emailed to me at shupin @ deakin.edu.au

We look forward to your participation in this great event of 2009 which may be one of the milestones in the history of Chinese political participation.

NEW NETWORK - Launch of the Indian Ocean and South Asia Research network at UTS

2009-03-04T16:41:00.002+11:00

The UTS Indian Ocean and South Asia Research Network will be launched by Sujatha Singh, High Commissioner of India, as part of the "Intercolonial Networks; Oceanic Circulations: Rethinking the Indian Ocean" conference on Wednesday, 11th March, 5 pm. See conference documents below.

RSVP is required: cornelia.betzler@uts.edu.au

Directions to UTS Blackfriars: http://www.uts.edu.au/about/mapsdirections/citymap.html

Other events associated to the conference:

Monday, 9th March
Film Screening: NAATA (The Bond)
Anjali Monteiro & K.P. Jayasankar, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India, 45 min5 pm, TfC Bagel (Bldg. 3, Level 4, Room 4.02)

Tuesday, 10th March
TfC Lunchtime Talk: "Protean Constructions of Self and Nation: the Sea as Archive and Trope in Post-Apartheid South African Literature and Culture", Meg Samuelson, Stellenbosch University, SA12.30 pm, TfC Bagel (Bldg. 3, Level 4, Room 4.02)

==> D'load conference flyer HERE (275Kb; Word doc).
==> D'load conference program HERE (274Kb; Word doc).

NEW BOOKS - Creative Nation, and Reading Down Under (New Delhi, SSS Publications)

2009-02-18T17:46:00.002+11:00

1. Creative Nation: Australian Cinema and Cultural Studies Reader

Edited by Amit Sarwal and Reema Sarwal

Preface by John Ramsland

New Delhi: SSS Publications, 2009

ISBN No. 81-902282-0-X

Pages: XLIX + 600; Dimension: 5.5" X 8.5" (Hardbound)

Price: US$ 45.00 (payment by redit card via PayPal (if buying one copy only):

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=3147704)

(plus US$10 postage and handling charges per book)

==================

Reading Down Under: Australian Literary Studies Reader

Edited by Amit Sarwal and Reema Sarwal

Preface by Bill Ashcroft

New Delhi: SSS Publications, 2009

ISBN No. 81-902282-1-8

Pages: lxxvi + 634; Dimension: 7" X 9" (Hardbound)

Price: US$ 55.00 (payment by credit card via PayPal (if buying one copy only):

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=3148251)

(plus US$15 postage and handling charges per book)

>> Visit the publisher's website: SSS Publications.

CALL FOR CHAPTERS - National Narrative and Country Branding: the US and China from a Comparative Perspective

2009-02-18T17:40:00.000+11:00

Call for Book Chapters: National Narrative and Country Branding: the US and China from a Comparative Perspective

We are planning a book of essays that present fresh perspectives on the production of narratives about China in the United States (or about China-US relations) and about the United States in China. Obviously, this book would contribute to an already extensive literature, but there are always extraordinary episodes that change the process. We are in a post-Olympic, economic meltdown moment, and in a context with seemingly large scale political change. Who are the dominant actors and players, such as public intellectuals, media professionals, NGOs, the governments, business sectors, tourists and educators that tell such narratives and shape such perceptions and opinions? What are some of the most important processes in shaping stories and perceptions? What are the differences and similarities in terms of how actors shape perceptions and tell stories in both countries about each others?

We are calling for contributors to write book chapters that are historical, theoretical or include specific case studies. These could be about specific governmental efforts to alter public consciousness at home or in its counterpart on these questions. Ultimately, we seek varied voices on how national narrative toward the US in China and that toward China in the US are produced and reproduced by different players in social, political, economic, and cultural arenas in the context of increasing global information flows. The book should be about how the US and China produce and reproduce each other through various societal segments, including but not limited to educational programs, cultural exchange, economic sectors, the governments, non-governmental organizations, tourism and the media.

Now is an important moment to examine national narratives about the US in China and about China in the US. There are two overarching forces that motivate and shape this volume. The first is the continued rise of China as a global superpower, especially in the wake of the Olympics and in the context of the current, global financial crisis. The second is the Obama administration and its plans to re-engineer the image of the US abroad.

The book not only examines various narratives in flux, but also the processes and actors shaping the narratives. The three-part book volume will contain larger conceptual essays and detailed case studies. Part I deals with broader theoretical concepts regarding national narratives of the US in China and of China in the US by Chinese and American authors. In addition to general images, issues such as nationalism, patriotism, exceptionalism and universalism can also be addressed in this section. Part II discusses actors and processes in shaping national images and narratives and Part II are cases studies that are geared frameworks and concepts in Part I and Part II.

If you are interested, please send a 1000-word proposal to Hongmei Li and Monroe Price by March 5, 2009. We will make the final decisions by March 15. The book is planned for publication by the end of 2009.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS - Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival

2009-02-18T17:35:00.002+11:00

The Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival is NOW ACCEPTING SUBMISSIONS!

The largest west coast Loving Day celebration kicks off the 2nd Annual Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival on June 12 through 13, 2009. The Festival celebrates storytelling of the Mixed racial and cultural experience and brings together innovative artists, film and book lovers, and families for two days of writing and film workshops, readings, film screenings, a special family event and live performance by talented comedians, musicians and actors. All events are free and open to the public.

WE ARE CURRENTLY ACCEPTING FILM, LITERARY, LIVE PERFORMANCE, WORKSHOP AND EVENT SUBMISSIONS.

For submission requirements and more information, visit: http://www.mxroots.org

FELLOWSHIPS - Harold White Fellowships (National Library of Australia) Closing date: 30 April 2009

2009-02-18T17:29:00.001+11:00

Applications for 2010 Harold White Fellowships at the National Library of Australia are now open, and close on 30 April 2009.

Each year several Harold White Fellowships are awarded to enable established scholars and writers to undertake research at the National Library for periods of between three and six months. The Fellowships provide a return economy fare to Canberra, a living allowance, a fully equipped office and special access to Library collections and services. Honorary Fellowships are also awarded to scholars and writers who do not require financial assistance but would benefit from other privileges associated with the Fellowship.

Research projects supported by Harold White Fellowships can be in any discipline or area in which the Library has strong collections. Past Harold White Fellows have undertaken research in fields including Asian studies, history of science, biography, media history, Australian history, musicology, religious history, anthropology, children’s literature, art history, politics, Indigenous history, Australian literature, Pacific studies, eighteenth century studies, geography, international relations and folklore.

Past Fellows have included leading Australian creative writers including Frank Moorhouse, Sara Dowse and David Foster.

Fellowships have been awarded to researchers working across Australia, in the USA, Canada, the UK, New Zealand, Hong Kong, China, Germany and South Africa.

More information, a link to the online application form, and contact details are available at www.nla.gov.au/grants/haroldwhite

CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS - Lemuria (Deadline: 30 July 2009)

2009-02-18T17:28:00.000+11:00

CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS: LEMURIA

Editor: Anurag Sharma
Co-editor: Pradeep Trikha

It gives us immense pleasure to inform you that the Department of English, Dayanand College, Ajmer proposes to bring out the next issue of Lemuria- A Half yearly Journal of Indo-Australian Studies in October 2009. We would welcome your scholarly self to kindly contribute an article/ book review/ write-up or creative piece for the issue.

THE DEADLINE FOR THE CONTRIBUTIONS IS 30th July, 2009.

For further information and details the following may be contacted:

Anuraag Sharma (sharma_anuraag@yahoo.com)
Pradeep Trikha (pradeeptrikha@gmail.com)

EOI - Research partnerships with the Australia Council for the Arts (Deadline: 20 March 2009)

2009-02-18T17:25:00.004+11:00

AUSTRALIA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS - Expressions of interest: Research Partnerships.

The Australia Council for the Arts is seeking expressions of interest from tertiary researchers looking to build industry partnerships to support applications for Australian Research Council (ARC) funded research projects.

The Australia Council has recently reviewed its research priorities as part of a new three year research plan. Projects should align with the research priorities that Australia Council has identified and these include:

the collection, analysis and dissemination of data on the economic performance of the arts in Australia, as an essential part of the evidence base for the development of arts and cultural policy;
public consumption and participation in the arts;
private sector support for the arts;
the effect and impact of digital technologies on the production and consumption of the arts in Australia and internationally. As an industry partner, the Australia Council may offer support in the form of cash or in-kind assistance.

There are two phases to partnership development with the Australia Council:

Phase 1 - an expression of interest outlining the proposed project and the nature of the partnership.
Phase 2 - researchers whose initial expression of interest is selected will be invited to submit a full length proposal in the form of an application for ARC funding developed in consultation with the Australia Council and other industry partners where applicable.

Phase 1 expressions of Interest should include a proposal of no more than three pages including:

research question;
project summary including a description of the project (summarising aims and expected outcomes);
contribution of the project to the Australia council's research priorities and any other benefits potential benefits of the project to the Australia Council;
name of participating eligible higher education institution;
details of project team including name, job title and brief description of role and experience;
other proposed industry partners;
start and end dates of proposed partnership;
budget outline for the project;
proposed role and contribution of the Australia Council.

The Australia Council will not support proposals seeking funding for:

in excess of five years continuous support;
publications, conferences or travel in isolation from a research project;
capital works or general infrastructure;
core organisational operating costs.

Phase 1 expressions of interest close on Friday, 20 March 2009.

Please contact Lisa Cahill by email at l.cahill@australiacouncil.gov.au for more informatio.

EVENT - Near and Far - and Mainly Macao (Carol Archer and Christopher Kelen)

2009-02-18T17:16:00.002+11:00

You are warmly invited this coming Friday to the exhibition opening of:

Near and Far – and Mainly Macao

Joint exhibition of pictures by Carol Archer and Christopher Kelen to coincide with the launch of two volumes published by the University of Macau:

Carol Archer's exhibition catalogue, Work of Macao Hands
and
Christopher Kelen's trilingual poem and sketches, The River Considered as Sea

Opening 4 p.m. Friday 20th February, 2009 and continuing until the 6th of March Anthony S.W. Lau Exhibition Hall, University of Macau Library.

The books will be launched by Professor Robert Antony of the university's History Department. The launch will be followed by readings from The River Considered as Sea in English, Chinese and Portuguese by Professor Kelen and by Professors Espandinha and Yao Jing Ming, and also by Ms Hilda Tam - all of whom worked as translators on this project.

Near and Far – and Mainly Macao is a joint retrospective exhibition presenting solo and collaborative works by Carol Archer and Christopher Kelen. The works were created over the last ten years and most of them were previously shown at various exhibitions at the Fringe Club in Hong Kong, at Macao's CCI Gallery, at the Albergue Gallery in Macao and here at the University of Macau.

Carol Archer's book Work of Macao Hands presents a collection of watercolours offering close-up views of Macao, while Kit Kelen's The River Considered as Sea, a ten-part poem with ink and watercolour pictures, renders Macao at a distance.

AWARDS - State Library of Queensland 2009 (Closing date: 20 March 2009)

2009-02-06T13:47:00.001+11:00

The State Library of Queensland has recently advertised its awards program for 2009.

Awards and competitions

The State Library of Queensland is calling for nominations for it's three prestigious annual awards:

the John Oxley Library Award ($5000),
the Library Board of Queensland Award ($5000),
and the John Oxley Library Fellowship ($20,000).

Further information, nominations and application forms can be found by following the links above.

Nominations open Monday 26 January 2009 and close at 5pm, Friday 20 March 2009.

More information

Telephone: +61 7 3842 9442
Fax: +61 7 3840 7873
Email: kate.hall@slq.qld.gov.au

CFP - Dragon Tails: Re-interpreting Chinese-Australian Heritage (9-11 Oct 2009; Sovereign Hill, Ballarat, Vic) Deadline: 18 May 2009

2009-02-04T13:35:00.002+11:00

CALL FOR PAPERS

Dragon Tails: Re-interpreting Chinese-Australian Heritage
9-11 October 2009
Sovereign Hill, Ballarat, Victoria

VENUE: Sovereign Hill Museums Association, Ballarat, Victoria (www.sovereignhill.com.au)

CONFERENCE OUTLINE
In 1984, noted historian Jennifer Cushman challenged researchers to move beyond the prevalent one-dimensional approach to understanding the Chinese presence in Australia—an approach that was primarily concerned with examining Australia’s attitudes towards the Chinese. In taking up this challenge, and seeking to understand the Chinese ‘on their own terms’, researchers have uncovered new sources and applied inter-disciplinary approaches to reveal the complex picture of Chinese community cultures, identities and race relations in Australia.

While we would no longer say that the history of the Chinese in Australia is hidden or neglected, where do these new stories fit within the wider narrative of Australian history? What are the challenges involved in communicating and interpreting these new perspectives, with their inherent complexity and contradictions, to broader audiences? One of the major aims of this conference is to bring together these new historical understandings about early Chinese-Australians, and consider their place within broader histories of Australia and the Chinese diaspora. Another aim is to create a forum for how these stories might be interpreted in the classroom, and at cultural heritage sites and museums.

This conference welcomes papers from a wide range of disciplines, including history, archeology, tourism, cultural studies, education, and museum/heritage studies.

We are particularly interested in work that:

Tells about early Chinese-Australian history from Chinese-Australian perspectives.
Discusses Chinese-Australian heritage/history within broader perspectives (e.g. Australian, Chinese, comparative, and/or transnational).
Draws on new resources to tell new stories.
Focuses on intercolonial (Northern Territory and Queensland) and/or trans-Tasman connections.

THEMES:

Chinese goldseekers and their legacy
Developments and issues for Chinese-Australian heritage tourism (regional and urban)
Everyday life and culture for early Chinese-Australians
Communicating Chinese-Australian heritage (e.g. education, multimedia, internet technology)
Early Chinese-Australian formations of politics, identity and citizenship
Interrogating Chinese-Australian historiography and material culture
Perspectives on heritage Chinese precincts
Mapping historical connections between Asia and Australia
Biographies and oral histories of Chinese-Australian ‘pioneers’
Creative work that re-interprets Chinese-Australian history

PRESENTATIONS:

Papers – Standard session presentations should be 20 mins long (with 10 mins allowed for question time).
Panels – We’d welcome panel submissions. Our suggested formats for the panels are:
(a) 3 x 20 min papers with a coherent theme, or
(b) Up to 5 speakers on a discussion panel (approx 10 mins each, with at least 40 mins for discussion)

Abstracts (max 200 words), with speakers’ full contact details and short biographical notes (max 100 words) should be sent to keirreeves@iprimus.com.au BY MONDAY 18 MAY 2009.

Enquiries about the conference should be directed to keirreeves@iprimus.com.au

CFP - AAI 3: Regionalising Asian Australian Identities (13-14 Nov 2009; Curtin U, Perth, WA) Deadline: 30 June 2009

2009-02-04T13:25:00.003+11:00

Asian Australian Identities 3 (AAI3) Conference: Regionalising Asian Australian Identities

Curtin University, Perth, Australia
13-14 November 2009

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Asian Australian Studies Research Network, in collaboration with the Centre for Advanced Studies in Australia, Asia and the Pacific (CASAAP), Curtin University, invites submissions for the Regionalising Asian Australian Identities conference, to be held at Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia, from 13-14 November 2009.

Building on the momentum of previous successful Asian Australian Identities conferences, AAI3 considers the importance of understanding Asian Australian identities and communities within both regional and transnational contexts. In holding the 2009 conference in Western Australia, we are particularly mindful of the rhetoric of the rise of ‘Asia’ which has sustained much of the State’s (and nation’s) boom years. From distanciation to fascination and engagement, Australia’s relationship to Asia continues to inform the culture and politics of the nation. At the same time, the conference theme also reminds us to look into our own backyards and to consider the often neglected histories of the nation’s own regional encounters with Asians, in particular Asian-Indigenous interactions in the north of Australia. How does the articulation of ‘Asian Australian identities’ fit within these shifting terrains? And how might we reconsider Australia’s relationship to Asia and to its own local regions in new and productive ways, particularly as it affects identity formation?

As Asian Australian studies comes of age, what new pathways will the field take? Do we (continue to) learn from the direction Asian American studies has taken? Does Asian Australian studies have a role to play in the growth of Inter-Asia cultural studies? What kinds of conversations might scholars in Asian Australian studies have with their counterparts in North America, Europe and Asia, as well as with ‘locals’ from regional parts of Australia?

We invite papers from all disciplines that explore the regionalising of Asian Australian identities, cultures and politics.

Areas of interest include:

Australia’s relationship to Asia and the Pacific
The effect of the ‘rise of Asia’ on Asian Australian identities
Regional interactions between Asians and indigenous Australians
Rethinking questions of migration, belonging and settlement
Transnational connections, political alliances
The development of new forms of cultural production, participation and imagination
New creative practices for Asian Australian youths; gaming and online communities
Constructions of ‘local’ Asian Australian identities and practices in the context of the globalisation of diaspora
Asian Australian identities and religion
Articulating Asian Australian heritage and history

We also value the participation of creative practitioners across the various fields of Asian Australian cultural production.

Confirmed speakers include:

Koichi Iwabuchi (Waseda U)
Krishna Sen (U of Western Australia)
Jon Stratton (Curtin U)

All presentations should be of 20 minutes duration. Abstracts (200 words max) and a short bio (max 200 words) should be sent by 30 JUNE 2009 to: AAI3@curtin.edu.au

Notifications will be sent by 31 July.

Please contact Olivia Khoo for more information.

POSITION VACANT - Sociology lecturer, U of Oxford, UK (Closing date: 20 February 2009)

2009-02-03T14:55:00.001+11:00

University Lecturership in Sociology atOxford, associated with Nuffield

The Department of Sociology at the University of Oxford seeks to appoint a University Lecturer in Sociology, specializing either in the field of ethnicity or in one of the other areas of departmental interest (social inequality and stratification, political sociology, economic sociology, the study of extralegal forms of governance or economic activities). The appointee will also be offered a Fellowship at Nuffield College.

The anticipated starting date is 1 October 2009, or as soon as possible thereafter.

The University salary is in the range £35,520-47,736. The post-holder will also receive a pensionable academic allowance from the College of £20,361 per annum.

Applicants should have a doctorate or equivalent, a strong record of research achievement at an international level, including the demonstrated capacity to publish in top-rated journals and with first class University presses.

The successful candidate should have the ability and experience necessary to teach mainly at the graduate level, to supervise doctoral students, and to win external research funding.

Further information is available at www.admin.ox.ac.uk/fp/, including details on how to apply.

The closing date for applications is 12 Noon on Friday 20th February 2009.

Ref no is CY09001.

See http://www.sociology.ox.ac.uk/apply/vacancies.asp

UPCOMING CONFERENCES - Range of Chinese transnational/diaspora conferences in 2009

2009-02-03T13:33:00.002+11:00

[This listing courtesy of Keng We Koh and the Shao Overseas Chinese Center]

2nd Global Conference on Diasporas - Exploring Critical Issues
July 6-9, 2009,Oxford. (Deadline:2009-02-06) ending soon!
CFP Conference: Cosmetic Cultures: Beauty, globalisation, politics, practices
24-26 of June 2009. University of Leeds. (Deadline:2009-03-01)
Commemoration and Celebration in the Chinese-speaking World, Annual Conference of the Chinese Studies Association of Australia
9-11 July 2009,University of Sydney . (deadline: March 2009)

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS - Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies

2009-02-03T13:30:00.001+11:00

Have you been working on an article over summer? Beginning to think about where to place it? Continuum is currently looking for new material.

Continuum – Journal of Media and Cultural Studies

Continuum expanded to 6 issues in 2008, allowing the journal to reduce lead-times to publication. In most cases, successful summer submissions will result in 2009 publication.

As the affiliated journal of the Cultural Studies Association of Australasia, the journal is circulated in hard copy to all members, putting your work directly before those who will read it with most interest. A good example is the recent issue (22.6) proceeding from the 2007 CSAA Conference ‘Sustaining Culture’ held in Adelaide. Congratulations to Susan Luckman for bringing together an excellent collection.

With extensive electronic distribution as a Taylor & Francis title, the journal also has excellent international exposure, being circulated to some 23,000 libraries world wide.

To submit an article please go to:

http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ccon

Or send a manuscript with author details to Mark.Gibson@arts.monash.edu.au or Mark Gibson, National Centre for Australian Studies, Monash University, Caulfield East, Victoria 3145.

Continuum will also shortly be reviewing special issue proposals for 2009-2010. Running a seminar? An innovative conference panel? Want to push forward a new theme or idea in media and cultural studies? If so, then please also discuss your ideas with the editorial team.

EDITORS:
Mark Gibson Mark.Gibson@arts.monash.edu.au
Panizza Allmark P.Allmark@ecu.edu.au
Greg Noble G.Noble@uws.edu.au

NEW JOURNAL ISSUE and CFP - Peril - Issue 6 "passing, failing" now online; CFP for Issue 7 "Fashion Fetish"

2009-01-21T17:28:00.002+11:00

NEW ISSUE OF PERIL NOW ONLINE!

Note and news from Peril's editor, Hoa Pham:

"The new edition of Peril has been released. Edition 6 - Passing, Failing - will be published at 12:15am on January 11.

We managed to catch Nam Le for a short interview, and attract a variety of short prose pieces and poetry in response to the theme. We talked to Mai Long, a Vietnamese-Australian artist who caused some controversy with her Pho Dogs which was covered by Lateline in December 2008. A cultural critique of The Jammed is also included. We invite people to comment on our commentary with their views.

Peril has recently incorporated and we thank our board members for their support: Alice Pung, Chi Vu, Olivia Khoo and Anna Mandoki. We have also been most fortunate to receive an Australia Council for the Arts grant and will be able to pay contributors for Issues 7 and 8. If you are interested the themes will be "fashion, fetish" and "Why are people so unkind?" Information about submissions can be found at http://www.peril.com.au/submissions

Peril's web address has also changed. Peril can be found at http://www.peril.com.au/ Peril's former address, http://www.asianaustralian.org/ will still work. For those who are interested, Peril also has new software behind it. Unfortunately, it wasn't possible to transfer your email accounts from the old software to the new software. We invite you to re-register to be on Peril's email list. We wish everyone a Happy New Year of the Ox and look forward to hearing from you."

========================

Call for Submissions - Peril #7 - "Fashion Fetish"

'Fashion Fetish' is the theme for Peril Issue 7! Love it or hate it, everyone has an opinion on fashion and fads. Is it, as Bowie says, big, bland, loud and tasteless? Or is it the realm of risk-takers and visionaries? Do you follow or buck trends? Is Oriental in (yet again) this year? Are we talking clothes or cultures?

Below are some prompts that we hope are only the start of what you might do with the theme:

(Un)healthy obsessions
'So hot right now' – lure or deterrent?
Extreme fashion
Fashion, culture and identity – who or what does it say you are?
What's class got to do with it?

Let's see and hear what you think about 'Fashion Fetish' – write, create, draw, compose, collaborate! We accept submissions of any kind of text, sound or visual art, as long as it can be presented online (e.g. essays, blog entries, reflections, poetry, fiction, memoir, spoken word tracks, photos, etc.). Text limit is 1000 words, preferably submitted in .txt format.

We are fortunate enough to have two issues sponsored by the Australia Council this year, and will be paying contributors for Issues 7 and 8. Issue 8's theme will be "Why are people so unkind?"

The deadline for Issue 7 material is March 31 2009, to be published online by May 2009. This issue will be launched at the Sydney Writers Festival.

Please send your submissions and queries to peril@asianaustralian.org

Check us out at http://www.peril.com.au/

EVENTS - Melbourne's Museum of Chinese Australian History Activities

2009-01-21T17:23:00.002+11:00

The Chinese Museum is organizing the following events and exhibition and you are cordially invited to attend and join us:

Photographic Exhibition – CHINA : 112 Cities in 97 Days, Katrina de Jersey’s photo series of the China Olympic Games Torch Relay
Date : 27 Jan to 27 Feb 2009

OPENING DETAILS
TUESDAY 27 JANUARY 2009
TIME: 6:00pm - 8:00pm

EXHIBITION DATES
WEDNESDAY 28 JANUARY TO WEDNESDAY 3 MARCH 2009
OPEN DAILY 12 TO 5PM

==========================

Chinese New Year Celebration
Date: 1 February 2009 (Sunday)
Price: Special price – adult ($5), children/concession ($3)
Programmes include: Dragon parade, Kid’s heritage treasure hunt, Chinese calligraphy, Tai Chi Chuan demonstration and introductory class and lantern making workshop

JOIN US TO CELEBRATE CHINESE NEW YEAR!

MUSEUM OF CHINESE AUSTRALIAN HISTORY
22 COHEN PLACE, MELBOURNE
TEL [03]96.62.28.88
EMAIL info@chinesemuseum.com.au
WEB chinesemuseum.com.au

NEW ANTHOLOGY - gang re:Publik Indonesia (a Gang Festival publication)

2009-01-21T17:09:00.003+11:00

gang re:Publik
Indonesia Australia Creative Adventures

Edited by Jan Cornall, Alexandra Crosby, Rebecca Conroy and Suzan Piper

A brand new anthology of creative exchange from Indonesia and Australia with 200 pages of previously unpublished essays, stories, conversations and illustrations from over 40 fabulous contributors.

This is a very limited edition (only 200 copies in circulation) so order fast!

PRICE: AUS$35 + $7 postage (Australia)

To order books please contact thegang@gangfestival.com

Published in 2008 by Gang Festival Inc.

ISBN 9 78064650 133 8 (pbk.)

This project has been funded by: Arts NSW and the City of Sydney

http://www.gangfestival.com/

NEW BOOK - Brian Castro's Fiction: The Seductive Play of Language (by Bernadette Brennan), Cambria Press, 2008

2009-01-21T17:04:00.003+11:00

Brian Castro’s Fiction: The Seductive Play of Language
by Bernadette Brennan

Excerpt from the book blurb:

Brian Castro is one of the most innovative and challenging novelists writing in English today. By virtue of his childhood migration from Hong Kong to Australia, he is an Australian writer, but he writes from the margins of what might be termed mainstream Australian literature. In an Australian context, Castro has been linked with Patrick White because like White he is an intellectual, deeply ironic, modernist writer. His writing can also be comfortably situated within a wider circle of (largely European) modernist works by Marcel Proust, Franz Kafka, Walter Benjamin, Virginia Woolf, Thomas Mann, James Joyce, Gustav Flaubert, Vladimir Nabokov, W. G. Sebald, and the list goes on. Castro’s writing conducts richly intertextual conversations with these writers and their work.

Castro’s writing is linguistically and structurally adventurous. He revels in the ability of good experimental writing to open up imaginative possibilities for the reader. He strives always to encourage his reader’s imagination to embrace heterogeneity and uncertainty. His extensive engagement with the great modernist writers of the 20th century, combined with his Australian-Chinese cross-cultural concerns make his work unique amongst Australian writers.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Bernadette Brennan is a Lecturer in Australian Literature at the University of Sydney. Her current research interest is in the field of Literature and Ethics. She has published widely in Australian Literary Studies, JASAL, Southerly, Antipodes and The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs, Departures: How Australia Reinvents Itself (MUP 2002), Australian Literature and the Public Sphere (ASAL 1998) and Australian Writing and the City (ASAL 1999). She has co-edited JASAL (2005) and Southerly (2007) and is on the Editorial Board for Studies in Australasian Cinema. Bernadette’s edited collection Just Words?: Australian Authors Writing for Justice was published by UQP in January 2008. Other publications in 2008 include an edited collection of Noel Rowe’s critical essays and Brian Castro's Fiction: The Seductive Play of Language (Cambria Press).

NEW BOOK - Once they hear my name (Ellen Lee, Marilyn Lammert and Mary Anne Hess), Tamarisk Books

2009-01-21T16:52:00.003+11:00

Once They Hear My Name
By Ellen Lee, Marilyn Lammert and Mary Anne Hess

Once They Hear My Name is a step forward in our collective understanding of the cultural hurdles international adoptees tackle every day. In their own words, the nine Korean adoptees of Once They Hear My Name talk about how they became the adults they are today, speaking candidly about acceptance and rejection, about life struggles and successes, about experiences unique to each yet connected by common threads. At their core these stories chronicle adoptees’ ongoing, and often difficult, quests to discover who they are. Growing up, they initially viewed themselves as typical American kids at home with baseball, pizza, playing with dolls and the rest. But often their peers - and sometimes members of their own families - saw them as strangers, good targets for ugly stereotypes. Many of the nine adoptees chronicle their trips as adults back to Korea to find their roots and, in some cases, their birth families. These journeys yield mixed emotional results. The narratives illustrate the wide variety of ways all adoptees, not just those from Korea, and all Americans with cultural roots in Asia, wrestle with identity issues.

ISBN: 978-0-9793756-0-6 (Paper) 978-0-9793756-1-3 (Hardcover)
LOC CONTROL NO. : 2007937159
PUBLICATION DATE: September 2, 2008
PAGE COUNT: 200
PRCE: $14.95 (Paper) $20.95 (Hardcover)

Tamarisk Books
P.O. Box 3006
Silver Spring, MD 20918
USA

tamariskbooks@aol.com
www.tamariskbooks.com

CFP - "The role of language and multi-cultural education in educating local communities in global economies: Perspectives from Asia" (Hanoi, Vietnam)

2009-01-21T16:48:00.001+11:00

The Institute for the Study and Development of Language and Culture - Linguistics Society of Vietnam & Monash International Strategic Initiative - Monash University, Australia are pleased to announce

The International Work-related Education Conference:

“The role of language and multi-cultural education in educating local communities in global economies: Perspectives from Asia”
7th – 8th April, 2009, Hanoi, Vietnam

Background
The global knowledge-based economy produces profound challenges to work-related education at every level. While these challenges manifest themselves in uniquely local ways at specific local sites, they are produced, and must be addressed, in contexts that are uncompromisingly global. If work-related education is to contribute to positive outcomes for people and for local communities we (workers, corporations, educators, researchers, policy makers, politicians and international organisations) must find new ways to pay attention to the ways in which a workforce in the knowledge-based economy can be understood to be ‘global’ as well as ‘local’, and what workers need to be able to know and be able to do to move across and within these spatial and temporal domains.

Clearly all aspects of education and training, including language and multi-cultural education, are being recruited to support and develop a knowledge-based economy. What educators, employers and policy makers at national, regional and international levels need to do now is to cast a critical eye over the past and to consider, with far grater clarity than we have managed in the past, what role work-related education should play in the future. As part of those deliberations we need to consider who work-related education is intended to benefit and what kinds of knowledge-based economies it should be helping to build. Language and multi-cultural education plays an essential part in those deliberations.

Being an international language, English has played an important role in educating the global workforce. This conference, in particular, aims to understand the use and ownership of English by different players in the workplace, and the ways in which English has both been a facilitating and colonising means in workplace education at national, regional and global levels. Taking a critical look at these issues in itself responds to ethical concerns that the conference also targets to address. One of the ethical concerns related to the role of English in educating the global workforce relates to the diminishing role of other languages and associated cultures and practices which are at risk due to the dominant status of English. For local communities to be ‘global’ as well as ‘local’, work-related education must acknowledge and promote the important role of education conducted in local and other foreign languages. Multicultural education also needs to be given more emphasis and made more explicit in educational policies.

This conference wishes to bring together the voices of researchers, educators, policy makers, international organisations, enterprises and corporations operating in Asia on various aspects of work-related education in educating local communities in global economies. These aspects include what is involved and what is at stake when global corporations, NGOs, national education systems and local communities attempt to educate individuals and workforces to engage in the global economy. We are particularly interested in identifying and understanding the role of multicultural education, English, local languages and other foreign languages in the education of a global workforce and the ethical issues involved in educating a global workforce for the global economy from the perspectives of the Global South, starting with Asia as the initial site for this conference.

Conference Themes
The conference will focus on, but not limited to, the following themes:
1. The role of English as an international language in educating the global workforce
2. The role of local languages and other foreign languages
3. The role of multicultural education
4. Educating local communities for global economies: perspectives from corporations, enterprises, NGOs and policy makers
5. Ethical concerns in educating the global workforce
6. Others

You are invited to submit an abstract of about 200-300 words addressing one or more of the above conference themes to Phan Le Ha at ha.phan@education.monash.edu.au

This conference will enable publication of a special issue in an international journal.

Important dates

Deadline for abstract submission: 1 February 2009
Deadline for conference registration: 20 March 2009

A full conference program will be sent to you after 1st February 2009. The conference organisers will also assist you with accommodation booking and tour arrangements in Vietnam.

Thank you for your interest in the conference. We look forward to your participation.

Conference chairs and convenors:
Associate Professor Dr Phan Van Que & Dr Duong Ky Duc
Institute for the Study and Development of Language and Culture, Linguistics Society of Vietnam
&
Dr Phan Le Ha
Faculty of Education, Monash University, Australia

Contact
Dr Phan Le Ha
Email: ha.phan@education.monash.edu.au

NEW BOOK - Our history is still being written: The story of three Chinese-Cuban generals in the Cuban revolution

2009-01-07T13:26:00.002+11:00

Our history is still being written:
The story of three Chinese-Cuban generals in the Cuban revolution

A chapter in the chronicle of the Cuban Revolution, as told by those on the front lines of that ongoing epic.

Armando Choy, Gustavo Chui, and Moisés Sío Wong—three young rebels of Chinese-Cuban ancestry—threw themselves into the great proletarian battle that defined their generation. They became combatants in the clandestine struggle and 1956–58 revolutionary war that brought down a U.S.-backed dictatorship and opened the door to the socialist revolution in the Americas. Each became a general in Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces.

Here they talk about the historic place of Chinese immigration to Cuba, as well as more than five decades of revolutionary action and internationalism, from Cuba to Angola, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. Through their stories the social and political forces that gave birth to the Cuban nation and still shape our epoch unfold. We see how millions of ordinary men and women like them changed the course of history, becoming different human beings in the process.

Introduction by Mary-Alice Waters, 24-page photo section and other photos, maps, glossary, index. Appendix: Cuito Cuanavale: A victory for the whole of Africa (speeches by Fidel Castro and Nelson Mandela).

>> For more information, reviews and book flyer, visit the book's Pathfinder Press page.

CALL FOR POEMS - Chapbook publication (The Private Press) - Deadline: 28 Feb 2009

2009-01-06T10:49:00.001+11:00

CALL FOR POEMS

'I can't figure out if you're a detective or a pervert.'

Seeking poems that explore the twisted world of David Lynch's Blue
Velvet for The Private Press's next chapbook anthology.

DEADLINE EXTENDED to 28 February 2009.

Visit http://zoo.f2s.com/privatepress/callforpoems.html

Poems accepted via online contribution form only.

Please read poet Tim Thorne's review of The Private Press's chapbooks
'A Slice of Cherry Pie' & 'We Don't Stop Here' on Famous Reporter:
http://is.gd/57Oi

Thanks!
Ivy Alvarez

NEW JOURNAL REMINDER - PLATFORM: Journal of Media and Communication

2009-01-05T10:42:00.001+11:00

ANNOUNCEMENT: NEW POSTGRADUATE JOURNAL

Submissions are invited for PLATFORM: Journal of Media and Communication, a new postgraduate journal to be launched in June 2009.

PLATFORM is a biannual open-access online publication started by the Media and Communications Program, School of Culture and Communication,University of Melbourne. It is planned to develop this journal as an international journal.

AIMS:

* to provide a platform for Media and Communication postgraduates to showcase, share and support the work of one another through publication, peer-review and comments.

* to provide a platform for emerging Media and Communication scholars to build a publication record, and to contribute subsequently to other academic publications.

* to increase scholarly appreciation of Media and Communication research across diverse theoretical, methodological and empirical interests.

* to encourage international awareness and collaboration through the discussion of issues associated with the rising significance of multiple media and communication platforms for societies and individuals across various globalized and localized environments.

==================

CALL FOR PAPERS (VOLUME 1, JUNE 2009):
Theme: "Mediated Mobilities: Negotiating Identities"

Submissions are invited for the inaugural volume of PLATFORM: Journal ofMedia and Communication, in the following sections:

General Articles on an issue of relevance to the field of Media and Communication. These may be purely theoretical, methodological, empirical or a combination of the above. (6000-8000 words including notes andreferences)
Thematic Articles which address the theme "Mediated Mobilities: Negotiating Identities". These may be purely theoretical, methodological, empirical or a combination of the above. (6000-8000 words including notes and references)
Thematic Commentaries and Essays which provoke discussion on the theme "Mediated Mobilities: Negotiating Identities", and act as a platform for future articles. (2000-3000 words including notes and references)
Thematic Reviews which, in addressing the theme "Mediated Mobilities: Negotiating Identities", provide accurate summaries and rigorous critiques of books and/or websites as well as reference other works by the same author and/or the work of other authors in a similar area. (1000 words including notes and references)
Interviews with scholars who have made significant contributions to the field of Media and Communication (1000-2000 word report or transcript; audio and/video supplements are especially encouraged)
News on research projects, conferences, courses, book launches, and other discipline-related events (up to 700 words)

SUBMISSION DEADLINES:
February 2, 2009: Full Papers (including 200 word abstracts and six keywords)

Early submission is highly encouraged as the review process will commence on submission. Please see Submission Guidelines for more details.

EDITORS: Esther Chin, Gin Chee Tong, Amira Firdaus, Elias Mokua Nyatete.

For more information (including an invitation to peer review) and full submission guidelines, visit: http://www.culture-communication.unimelb.edu.au/platform

NEW JOURNAL ISSUE - Asiatic - Dec 2008

2009-01-05T10:32:00.000+11:00

The December 2008 issue of Asiatic is now available online at http://asiatic.iium.edu.my OR http://asiatic.iiu.edu.my.

Access to the journal is free.

There are 8 articles, 1 interview, 1 review article, 4 book reviews, 11 poems, 2 short stories and a play in this issue.

Contributors include writers and scholars from the US, Germany, Australia, India, Bangladesh, Singapore and Malaysia.

Asiatic EDITOR:
Mohammad Quayum
www.quayum.net

OBITUARY - Vin D'Cruz (1933-2008)

2009-01-05T10:15:00.002+11:00

The following obituary is an edited version of an entry from a Monash Asia Institute (MAI) bulletin from late 2008. The AASRN would like to acknowledge the important work of Vin D'Cruz in shaping timely discussions about Australia and its Asian engagements and communities.

=======================

Staff, Students, Colleagues and Friends at the MAI note the sad passing of Prof Vin D'Cruz on Monday 24 November 2008. Prof Vin D'Cruz was appointed an Adjunct Professor of the MAI in 2001 and was one of the MAI's most delightful and productive members. He had an enormous passion for research as demonstrated by his large book Australia's Ambivalence Towards Asia: Politics, Neo/Post-colonialism, and Fact/Fiction (co-authored with William Steele) published by the MAI Press. In that book, he grappled with his love for Australia and its people and the disappointing performance of the Australian government and press in their failure to engage with Asia in a more positive and creative manner. Vin arrived in Australia in 1954 and is survived by a son, a daughter, siblings and a great-grand-daughter.

For a fuller notes about Vin's life, see:

his academic profile, and
his obituary (written by Marika Vicziany, Director of the MAI)

FORTHCOMING EVENTS for Tom Cho - Gendermash and Mummy Dearest (17 and 29 Jan, respectively)

2009-01-05T10:04:00.003+11:00

TWO UPCOMING EVENTS featuring TOM CHO

1. Gendermash

Following on from the popular Translesbian Readings, held regularly over 6 years at King Victoria drag kings, Gendermash is a deliberately controversial, positive, and sexed up journey starring gender creators, morphers, questioners and revellers with special glamour guests! Sexy word nerds and dirty word flashers include Yana Alana, Lian Low, Jade Starr (Syd), Fancy Piece Productions (Syd), Kylie Brickhill, The Kill Room, Bumpy Favell, Jules Wilkinson, PJ Fotiades, Tom Cho, Ebony Hickey and more. This is an AUSLAN interpreted event.

WHEN: Sat 17 Jan, 9.30pm
VENUE: Gasworks Arts Park - Gasworks Theatre, 21 Graham Street, Albert Park (note: this venue is wheelchair accessible)
TRANSPORT: Tram 109 - Stop 128; Melway 2J G7,H7
PRICE: Full $18; Concession $15; Group (+8) $15
BOOKINGS: Via event page on Midsumma website
INFO: http://www.gasworks.org.au/

===============

2. Mummy Dearest
From the people who brought you Come As You Are 1 & 2 and Femme Fever 1 & 2. A night of brilliant performers from all sides of the queer spectrum converge to talk about mums. Hear stories of heartbreak, hilarity, weirdness, and even sexiness. Performers include Tom Cho, Richard Watts, Lisa-Skye Ioannidis, Peter Van Der Merwe, Ed Burger, Jo Mundy, Shelly O'Reilly, Megan Petrie and Jenny Lee.

WHEN: Thurs 29 Jan, 7.30pm
VENUE: Dante's - Back room, 150-156 Gertrude St, Fitzroy (note: this venue is wheelchair accessible)
TRANSPORT: Tram 86 - Stop 14; Melway 2C B11
PRICE: Full $ 14; Concession $11 (come with Mum for concession prices!); Group (+5) $10
BOOKINGS: Via event page on Midsumma website

NEW BOOK - Race and Ethnic Relations (OUP)

2009-01-05T09:57:00.002+11:00

Race and Ethnic Relations (OUP, 2008) brings together theoretical and substantive issues on race, migration and multiculturalism and places them in an Australian context. Divided into three sections this text covers a broad scope of issues and theory, combining insights from traditional sociological theory, as well as anthropological and social psychology approaches.

The first section focuses on outlining the development of theorising around the concepts of race and ethnicity, and the ways in which these have been used to understand inter-group relations. The second focuses on the Australian context, covering the history of Australian settlement, policy and legislation associated with migration, citizenship and discrimination, indigeneity and non-indigeneity, and refugees and asylum seekers. And the final section explores recent and challenging issues such as critical whiteness studies, the intersection of race and ethnicity with religion and anti-racism.

Three authors work together to offer a clear, consistent and authoritative voice.

Uses popular culture references, in particular movies which are concerned with particular aspects of race and ethnic relations, to help students engage with the text and to make the theory ‘real’.

Stimulates students through the use of examples and case studies, and the posing of thorny questions which encourage debate and illustrate the relevance of the theory to everyday or current political issues.

Part One: Understanding Race and Ethnicity: a theoretical overview
1. Race and Othering
2. Ethnicity and Identity Politics
3. Nations and Globalisation
4. Theories of Migration
5. Dealing with Diversity

Part Two: Race and Ethnicity in Australia
6. Considering Australia. Race, Ethnicity and the Nation
7. Indigenous Peoples
8. Migrants in Australia
9. Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Australia

Part Three: Emerging Issues
10. Whiteness Studies
11. Religion
12. Intersections
13. Methodological Issues in Race Studies
14. Anti racism

AUTHORS:
Farida Fozdar (Senior Lecturer, School of Social Sciences & Humanities, Murdoch U)
Raelene Wilding (Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, La Trobe U)
Mary Hawkins (Senior Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, U of Western Sydney)

>> More information can be found at THIS WEBSITE.

CFP - ASAL 2009 (8-11 July 2009; ANU, Canberra) - Deadline: FRI 27 Feb 2009

2008-12-12T16:37:00.002+11:00

ASAL 2009: Common Readers and Cultural Critics
8-11 July 2009
University House, Australian National University, Canberra

12 July 2009
Public symposium: 'Writers, Readers and Critics', National Library of Australia, Canberra

CONFERENCE WEBSITE: http://asal2009.anu.edu.au/

CALL FOR PAPERS
Australian literature is not just a collection of texts: it is a diverse set of formal and informal cultures—from school curricula to bestseller lists, from university courses to writers' festivals—that all have their own ways of talking about texts and their own forms of cultural expertise. This conference seeks to explore the diversity of readers and modes of reading that make up Australian literary culture. How do ‘everyday' readers form judgements about what they read and what they like? What are the relationships between everyday readers and ‘specialist' readers in industries such as publishing and marketing, print and electronic media, and in institutions such as schools and universities, libraries and archives? How much influence do critics, reviewers and cultural commentators have on readers' tastes and habits—and vice versa? Who ultimately decides what books get published, what books win prizes, what books are taught in schools, and what books make up the Australian literary canon? Literary cultures are characterised by tensions between tradition and innovation, reading privately and reading professionally, reading for knowledge and reading for pleasure.

We invite proposals for 20-minute papers and for 90-minute panel discussions (3 or 4 speakers) that address any aspect of literary cultures, such as the following:

• Everyday readers and the history of the popular / literary cultural divide
• The role of reviewers and critics in influencing tastes and making careers
• The roles of publishers, marketers, booksellers and bestseller lists
• Literary festivals and writers as performers and promoters of their own work
• The role and influence of literary prizes
• Reading communities such as book clubs, blogs, community education
• Histories and analyses of Australian literary criticism
• School and university curricula and the Australian literary canon
• Revisions and re-evaluations of canonical and non-canonical Australian writers and texts
• Adaptations of Australian literary texts for film and other media
• The transnational boundaries of Australian literature
• Australian children's and young adult literature: publishing and readerships
• Libraries, archives and cultural heritage
• Creative writing programs
• Little magazines, grassroots publishing, zines
• Reading facebook and other social networking programs
• The new empiricism, distant reading, resourceful reading
• The ongoing impact of the 'culture wars'

Please send 200-word abstracts of papers or panel proposals, with a brief biographical note, to Russell.Smith@anu.edu.au by Friday 27 February 2009.

We welcome proposals from postgraduate students. Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) has generously provided ten postgraduate scholarships, covering costs of travel and accommodation, available to postgraduate students whose own institutions are unable to support their attendance. To enquire about postgraduate scholarships, please contact Julieanne.Lamond@anu.edu.au by 27 February 2009.

ASAL 2009 organising committee: Julieanne.Lamond @ anu.edu.au , Lucy.Neave @ anu.edu.au , Monique.Rooney @ anu.edu.au and Russell.Smith @ anu.edu.au (School of Humanities, Australian National University)

ASAL 2009 is generously supported by the Copyright Agency Limited’s Cultural Fund, Arts ACT, the Australian National University and ASAL.

NEW JOURNAL ISSUE - Westerly

2008-12-08T14:41:00.000+11:00

The latest issue of Westerly has just been released.

Among manyother gems the issue includes an interview with Ouyang Yu, who also has a short story and translations of poems from the Ming Dynasty in the issue; and an article on "Writing between Languages" by Lee Kofman.

http://www.westerlycentre.uwa.edu.au/westerly

READING - Michelle Lee - "See how the leaf people run" (16 Dec 2008; Melbourne)

2008-12-08T14:30:00.002+11:00

See how the leaf people run
A free reading of a work-in-progress
By Michele Lee

Dramaturgy by Chi Vu
Directed by Gorkem Acaroglu
With Luke Fraser, Fanny Hanusin, Kha Tran and Mark Tregonning

Charlie’s stuck in his room. He nearly drowned crossing the Mekong River as a kid. He’s got depression. He’s got chronic fatigue. He’s got PTSD. That’s Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Yeah he’s got a lot of things wrong with him. All he wants to do is sleep. But sometimes our people, the Hmong, have to run, have to walk, crawl through the caves, jungles, rivers and mountains of Laos before they get any better.

Michele Lee is a 2009 recipient for an Asialink Literature residency in Laos. She has developed See how the leaf people run with support from the City of Melbourne’s 2008 Young Artist program and the Victorian Multicultural Commission. She has also received funding from the Australia Council for the Arts to develop "In refuge," which also examines her cultural background. She runs a theatre collective called Theatre in Bars.

When: Tuesday 16 December 2008, 7pm
Where: fortyfivedownstairs, 45 Flinders Lane, Melbourne (Spring Street end)
Cost: Free

Limited seating so please RSVP to seehowtheleafpeople@gmail.com

CFP - "The Talk about Town: Urban Lives and Oral Sources in 20th Century Australia" (State Library of Vic and Melb Museum, Vic)

2008-12-08T14:22:00.003+11:00

Conference Announcement - CALL FOR PAPERS

The Talk about Town: Urban Lives and Oral Sources in 20th Century Australia

27-28 August 2009, at the State Library of Victoria and Melbourne Museum

Sponsored by the State Library of Victoria, the Monash University Institute for Public History, Museum Victoria, the University of Melbourne’s School of Historical Studies and Macquarie University’s Department of Modern History.

"The Talk about Town: Urban Lives and Oral Sources in Twentieth Century Australia" invites researchers and professionals working on life in Australian cities since 1900 to come together and reflect on their projects. It hopes to encourage participants to think about the significance of the urban context, whether or not it is the primary focus of their research. In particular, researchers working with personal sources in fields such as oral history, life history and immigration, are encouraged to look at the way that urban settings have shaped the stories they have been told.

Postgraduate students and professionals working with history are particularly encouraged to participate.

"The Talk about Town" is delighted to welcome distinguished oral and urban historian Alessandro Portelli, Professor of American literature at the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’, as keynote speaker. Professor Portelli is the author of a number of influential studies in oral history and popular memory including The Order Has Already Been Carried Out: History, Memory and Meaning of a Nazi Massacre in Rome (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) and The Death of Luigi Trastulli: Form and Meaning in Oral History (State University of New York Press, 1991). From 2002 to 2008, he served as advisor to the mayor of Rome for the preservation and promotion of the city’s historical memory, and is currently co-manager of Rome's House of History and Memory.

"The Talk about Town" offers a rich and stimulating conference program, to be hosted by the State Library of Victoria and Museum Victoria, on 27-28 August 2009. Day one of the conference will feature a series of parallel sessions and a keynote address by Professor Portelli. Day two of the conference will feature further parallel sessions, a number of workshops led by experts in urban and oral history, and additional events including walking tours of inner Melbourne and a guided tour of ‘The Melbourne Story’ at Melbourne Museum.

Following the conference, participants are encouraged to submit articles based on their conference presentations for consideration for publication in a special issue of a refereed journal.

Persons wishing to present papers at the conference should send 200 word abstracts (for a 20 minute presentation), to Kerrie Alexander at kerrie.alexander @ arts.monash.edu.au on or before 31 December 2008.

For inquiries about the conference, or proposals for panels, please contact the organising committee via talkabouttown @ gmail.com.

>> Visit the "Talk about Town" conference website.

CALL FOR ENTRIES - Vietnamese International Film Festival (Southern California, USA)

2008-12-08T14:18:00.000+11:00

Vietnamese International Film Festival (ViFF) - Call for entries

Call for entries from filmmakers of Vietnamese descent.

The Vietnamese International Film Festival (ViFF), held in Southern California, USA, are looking for films from the filmmakers of Vietnamese descent from all over the world.

Please distribute ViFF’s call-for-entries below to the filmmakers you know.

Visit www.VietFilmFest.com for more information, or email Ysa Le ysadle @ yahoo.com

NEW JOURNAL ISSUE - "Asia@Home: New Directions in Asian Australian Studies" (A special issue of the Journal of Australian Studies, 32.4)

2008-11-19T15:16:00.002+11:00

The latest issue (32.4 [2008]) of Journal of Australian Studies (JAS) is now available online! This special issue of JAS is guest-edited by Tseen Khoo and Jacqueline Lo, and features work from "AAI 2: The 2nd Asian Australian Identities Conference" (2007).

The special issue is titled 'Asia@Home: New Directions in Asian Australian Studies' and features work by the following AASRN members:

Adam Aitken
Michelle Antoinette
Scott Brook
Mayu Kanamori
Jen Tsen Kwok
Francis Maravillas
RoseAnne Misajon
Robyn Morris
Hsu-ming Teo

It also includes work by Regina Ganter and Lars Jensen. You can see a contents listing HERE. In addition, the cover for JAS 32.4 features an image provided by Owen Leong (who also generously allowed us to use his work on the AAI 2 conference posters).

Those of you whose universities/organisations subscribe to this journal, you should be able to download articles right now. Those of you who may want to get your hands on your own copy, THIS is the journal's homepage.

NEW JOURNAL ISSUE - First anniversary issue of Cha: An Asian Literary Journal is now available

2008-11-19T15:13:00.001+11:00

We are pleased to announce the publication of the fifth issue of Cha: An Asian Literary Journal (November 2008) with a new editorial on the memorable year 2008 by co-editor Jeff Zroback.

Poet, novelist and historian Reid Mitchell generously acted as guest editor and read the submissions with us. The new issue features poetry by former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins and new fiction by Nirmala Pillai. Other writers/artists featured in the issue include Sam Byfield, Grace V. S. Chin, Mike Farman, Tiziano Fratus, Daniel Hudon, Anne Levesque, Vikas Malhotra, Aya Padron, Yves Rubin, Steven Schroeder, Daren Shiau, Gillian Sze, Tai Dong Huai, Eddie Tay, Royston Tester, Toh Hsien Min, Sean Wiebe, Alison Wong, Bo Wong and Jennifer Wong.

To read the issue, please visit our website at www.asiancha.com.

We are currently accepting submissions for the sixth issue of Cha, which is scheduled for publication in February 2009.

Deadline: 31 December 2008.

Award-winning Hong Kong poet Arthur Leung will lend his expertise to us in the role of poetry guest editor. If you are interested in having your works considered for publication in Cha, please read our submission guidelines for details.

Tammy Ho & Jeff Zroback/ The Editors
Cha: An Asian Literary Journal/ www.asiancha.com

Website/ Blog

NEW BOOK - Culture Is... Australian Stories across Cultures: An Anthology

2008-11-17T15:56:00.000+11:00

Culture Is . . .Australian Stories Across Cultures: An Anthology
Edited By Anne-Marie Smith, The Multicultural Writers Association of Australia

PB 256 PP 210 x 135, ISBN 9781862548084
$24.95 (Short Stories / Poetry)
Wakefield Press

'I am confident this anthology will be warmly received nationally . . .' – Nicholas Jose

What shapes us as Australians? This anthology presents contemporary views from writers of all backgrounds – Indigenous, Migrant, Refugee or Settler. It will ring true with all Australians, travellers or would-be travellers.

http://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/books/cultureis.html

NEW ISSUE - Mascara Poetry - Issue #4

2008-11-11T13:42:00.002+11:00

Mascara #4 is now on-line at www.mascarapoetry.com

With poetry by

Our featured poet, Peter Boyle
New work by Tibetan poet/activist Tenzin Tsundue
And by Shirley Lim, Sean Singer, Francesca Haig, Indran Amirthanayagam, Kylie Rose, Jessika Tong, Michael Sharkey, Jal Nicholl, Liam Ferney, Debbie Lim, Ashley Capes, Jane Kim, Ouyang Yu , Peter Davis and more

Reviews by Kris Hemensley, Martin Edmond, Margaret Bradstock, Heather Taylor-Johnson,

Interviews: Michelle Cahill in conversation with Peter Boyle

Our cover portrait is the Sri-Lankan anthropologist, Malathi De Alwis, photographed by Pradeep Jeganathan.

==================

Opportunities

Submissions to Mascara Poetry are open at ALL times. Please follow our submission guidelines. We look forward to reading your poetry and essays.

Payment 2 or more poems: $75; essays, reviews: $50

Mascara is looking for volunteers who are passionate about poetry...check our guidelines!

If you are an emerging writer, JOIN US...for as little as $15, and help us to help you.

Mascara is an online journal seeking to promote poetry of excellence and originality. We are especially interested in the work of contemporary Australasian and Indigenous poets. Our criteria for selection are quality of image, language and innovation. The word ‘mascara’ entered the English language in 1890. It derives from Spanish, Arabic and French origins, its meaning evolving from the word mask, masquerade, to darken, to blacken. The Arabic word ‘maskhara’ means buffoon.

Mascara reviews are edited by Adam Aitken, poetry by Michell Cahill and Kim Cheng Boey.

AWARDS/FELLOWSHIPS - Endeavour Awards (Open 1 Dec; Close 31 Jan 2009)

2008-11-10T15:53:00.001+11:00

Second round of applications opening on 1 December 2008 and closing on 31 January 2009 for commencement of Awards in 2009.

This second round is for:

Endeavour Executive Awards
Endeavour Research Fellowships (for outgoing Australians only)
Endeavour Research Fellowships for Indigenous Australians

Please visit the Endeavour Awards website for more information: www.endeavour.deewr.gov.au

NEW EXHIBITION - Leading Lights (Ivan Dougherty Gallery, COFA, Sydney)

2008-11-10T15:43:00.003+11:00

LEADING LIGHTS Exhibition
Ivan Dougherty Gallery, COFA, UNSW
6 Nov - 13 Dec 2008

Artists include:

Brook Andrew, Del Kathryn Barton, Trent Jansen, Adam Cullen, Dinosaur Designs, Shaun Gladwell, Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro, The Kingpins, Lindy Lee, Owen Leong, Clinton Nain, Vanila Netto, and Bronwyn Oliver.

CFP - Cosmetic Cultures: Beauty, Globalisation, Politics, Practices (24-26 June 2009; U of Leeds, UK)

2008-11-06T12:10:00.001+11:00

Cosmetic Cultures: Beauty, globalisation, politics, practices
University of Leeds , 24 - 26 of June 2009

Papers and panel sessions are invited for an international, interdisciplinary conference on Cosmetic Cultures to be held in the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies at the University of Leeds from the 24 to 26 of June 2009.

Papers on any element of ‘cosmetic cultures’ are welcomed but the conference seeks to move beyond well-rehearsed ‘Beauty Myth’ arguments.

Beauty has often been conceptualised as the concern only of women (or the only concern of women!) and as idealised in ‘whiteness’ or ‘Westerness’. Whilst many have found significant evidence to support these claims, work in the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies has already flagged up the importance of men, masculinities and beauty, both in the ‘West’ and ‘East’ and has disrupted the idea that whiteness alone presents idealised beauty in all parts of the world, or even in this one. Whilst beauty ideals may be important in one sense, this conference also aims to explore beauty practices. The subject’s engagement in beauty practices may be ‘transformative’ in line with current ideals, and undertaken in the clinic, or it may be everyday and mundane, practices in the home or ‘salon’.

Themes will include:

* National beauty cultures and histories and the intersection between local and globalised ideals;
* Beauty practice ranging from ‘spectacular’ makeover cosmetic surgery to mundane beauty technologies such as diet and exercise, skin tanning/ lightening, hairstyling, hair removal and tattooing/piercing.
* Intersections of ‘race’, class, gender and beauty cultures and practices; men, masculinities and beauty;
* LGBI and Trans beauties; surgical tourism;
* TV makeover shows;
* Work in the ‘beauty industry’, including medical practices and cultures, beauty salons and cosmetics marketing and manufacture as well as (fashion and glamour) modelling.

By encouraging participants to explore beauty cultures, practices and politics in their broadest sense we hope to advance current debates and develop an international network of researchers.

Confirmed Keynote Speakers:

* Professor Carolyn Cooper – University of the West Indies
* Professor Kathy Davis – University of Utrecht
* Dr Debra Gimlin – University of Aberdeen
* Dr Meredith Jones – University of Technology, Sydney
* Professor Toby Miller – University of California, Riverside
* Professor Elspeth Probyn – University of Sydney

200 word abstracts and panel suggestions should be emailed to: Matthew Wilkinson at m.wilkinson@leeds.ac.uk no later than 1 March 2009.

Please mark all emails with ‘Cosmetic Cultures’ in the subject line.

CHAIR POSITION - Freilich Foundation Chair, ANU

2008-11-06T11:58:00.002+11:00

Freilich Foundation Chair (A209-08AV)

The Australian National University wishes to appoint an outstanding leader to hold the newly established Freilich Foundation Chair.

The Herbert and Valmae Freilich Foundation is an endowment to The Australian National University established in 1999 to promote the study of, and research into, the causes, the histories and the effects of ethnic, cultural, religious and sexual bigotry and animosity, and the exploration of how such intolerance can be combated and co-existence promoted by educational and social programs.

The Foundation sits within the interdisciplinary and dynamic Research School of Humanities. The Foundation runs a program of public lectures, seminars and graduate workshops. It runs a summer school for teachers, is involved in teaching, and funds visiting fellowships, bursaries and scholarships.

Further information about the foundation can be found at http://www.anu.edu.au/hrc/freilich/

The Foundation wishes to appoint a senior academic to substantially develop the research component of the Foundation's work whilst being involved in the current operation and activities of the Foundation. Applications are invited from women and men with a recognised record of achievement in any disciplinary field which addresses the research interests of the Foundation. You will provide leadership for the Foundation, participate and build upon the existing program of activities, participate in graduate teaching and supervision, and develop relationships with relevant units within the ANU and external organisations.

The level of appointment will depend on qualifications and experience.

Further information on this position can be obtained HERE.

Enquiries:

Renata Grossi, Freilich Foundation Fellow, T: 02 6125 5527, E: Renata.Grossi @ anu.edu.au

Debjani Ganguly, Head HRC, Research School of Humanities, T: 02 6125 9877, E: Debjani.Ganguly @ anu.edu.au

NEW RESOURCES - Amerasia and AAPI Nexus Journals now online

2008-11-04T09:21:00.002+11:00

Amerasia and AAPI Nexus Journals Go Online

Los Angeles - The UCLA Asian American Studies Center has launched an internet site for its two academic journals, Amerasia and AAPI Nexus. Starting November 2008, subscribers will be able to access Amerasia Journal and AAPI Nexus articles online.

Both journals are recognized core publications in Asian American Studies.

Since its inception in 1971, Amerasia has been the leading interdisciplinary journal in the field. "Amerasia Journal," states Ethnic Studies Professor Yen Le Espiritu (University of California, San Diego), "continues to be an indispensable resource for scholars, students, and the broader community interested in issues affecting Asian Americans."

"Amerasia articles contain information and perspectives difficult or impossible to locate elsewhere," adds Serials Review. "This journal is highly recommended for all academic collections and for large public libraries." The searchable, full-text database enables subscribing institutions and researchers access to over thirty-five years of Amerasia articles.

Amerasia's online database features over 900 articles on topics ranging from diaspora and empire, U.S.-Asia relations, and religion to legal/political/civil rights issues, sexuality and queer studies, and multiracial Asians. Library Journal has thus described Amerasia as "a scholarly journal which considers almost every aspect on the role of the Asian Americans" and "an absolute must for universities." In 2003, the Center launched AAPI Nexus Journal: Policy, Practice & Community, the most cutting-edge journal focusing on applied social science research for and on the diverse and growing Asian American and Pacific Islander community. AAPI Nexus draws from professional schools, applied social science scholars, and practitioners, with the explicit goal of reinvigorating Asian American Studies' traditional mission of serving communities and generating practical research."AAPI Nexus Journal is the nation's trusted voice for Asian American and Pacific Islander public policy debates, community-based research, and action-orientated advocacy," said Lisa Hasegawa, Executive Director of the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development.

The AAPI Nexus database includes articles covering civil rights, health, and art and cultural institutions from an Asian American perspective. In addition to research and resource articles, AAPI Nexus also features practitioner essays, where professionals and community leaders draw from their experiences to offer discussions and strategies regarding policy issues facing the Asian American and Pacific Islander community.

The new online databases for Amerasia Journal and AAPI Nexus are valuable resources for libraries and research institutions. Access to the databases will be included as part of a new or renewed yearly subscription. The subscription prices are as follows:

Amerasia Journal - $445 for institutions; $99.99 for individuals
AAPI Nexus - $175 for institutions, $35 for individuals

For more information or to place subscription orders, please contact Ying Ming Tu, Distribution Manager, AASC Press, at (310) 825-2968 or aascpress @ aasc.ucla.edu.

CALL for SUBMISSIONS - Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature

2008-11-03T13:27:00.002+11:00

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

ASIATIC: IIUM JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
(http://asiatic.iium.edu.my)

Asiatic, an online, biannual (June, December), refereed journal, invites scholars and writers to submit their work for its forthcoming issues. We invite papers on all aspects of Asian Englishes and Asian writings in English, including Asian diasporic literature and Asian literatures in translation. We are also interested in creative works by Asian writers and writers of Asian origin.

Papers submitted for publication should not exceed 7,000 words and should follow the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (www.mla.org). Creative pieces should be between 1-3 pages for poetry and 6,000 words for other genres. All submissions sent for publication are refereed blind by at least two readers. Asiatic is indexed in the MLA Annual Bibliography, AustLit and EBSCO, and listed in the Council of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ).

Submissions to and enquiries about the journal should be sent to mquayum @ gmail.com or Asiatic @ gmail.com.

RESOURCE - Australian Media History Database

2008-10-29T13:34:00.001+11:00

Australian Media History Database (AMHD)

It has been established by the ARC Cultural Research Network as part of its goal of supporting research in the areas of cultural and media studies, cultural history, cultural geography, cultural anthropology, and the creative industries. It is part of the work of the Media Histories Node, convened by Dr Bridget Griffen-Foley of Macquarie University.

The database grew out of a large ARC-funded history of television project conducted by Professor Liz Jacka and Associate Professor Paula Hamilton at the University of Technology, Sydney. It was inspired by www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/BBC-history.html which includes over a hundred researchers. The pilot Australian database was demonstrated at the first History of Australian Television Conference held at UTS in 2005. In early 2006 the database was extended to include other media and launched online.

The Australian Media History Database aspires to list all research into Australian media history by established academics, early career researchers, research higher degree students, and independent scholars. It is designed to be a central tool of Australian media history research.

The database aims to:

encourage researchers to contact each other on matters of mutual interest;
avoid duplication in research;
assist postgraduates and recent graduates with research exposure and networking;
assist with developing cross-institutional research partnerships and joint research projects;
bring academic research to the attention of related cultural institutions;
assist with easier development of ARC Linkage grant applications and the involvement of industry partners.

Categories of research include advertising, film, games, magazines, music, press, publishing, radio and television. Free to use, the database is searchable by keyword, researcher, project and institution.

Researchers are invited to submit the details of their projects: click here for details.

EVENT - Making Links - 11-13 Nov 2008 (Melbourne)

2008-10-27T17:39:00.002+11:00

MAKING LINKS 2008

The conference Where Social Action and Technology Converge
Community - Responsibility - Sustainability

WHERE? Melbourne University, ICT Building, 111 Barry St Carlton

WHEN? 11th - 13th November 2008

The Making Links Conference is the leading forum for the not-for-profit and community sectors to showcase their work and to explore current and emerging new media and Information and Communications Technology (ICT). This year Making Links is focusing on how technology can enhance and support social inclusion.

>> Visit the Making Links 2008 website HERE.

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Making Links is a conference that seeks to engage interested people, organisations and groups working at the intersection of social action and IT - including community workers, educators, trainers, not-for-profit organisations, school teachers, environmental campaigners and activists. The Conference seeks to:

bring the community sector together to access resources, training and services, and to share ideas, skills and creative applications of technology.
Explore the possibilities ICTs generate for communities whose voices have been marginalized and excluded from the mainstream.
Showcase innovative, grass roots ICT initiatives in community cultural development, outreach, and e-learning.
Build and develop networks amongst workers and activists interested in how ICT can be used to support social justice.

The conference, which started in 2004, is organised by a steering committee composed of representatives from a range of not-for-profit organisation.

SCHOLARSHIP - PhD Scholarship in Australian Literature (readvertised) - U of Wollongong, NSW (Deadline: 14 Nov 2008)

2008-10-27T13:10:00.003+11:00

PhD Scholarship in Australian Literature (readvertised)
Award: $ 25,118 p. a. for three years.

A PhD scholarship with the Faculty of Arts, University of Wollongong, is offered for contribution to the ARC-funded project 'Globalising Australian Literature: Asian-Australian writing, Asian perspectives on Australian literature.' The student will join a research team consisting of Alison Broinowski, Wenche Ommundsen, Paul Sharrad, Ouyang Yu and another PhD student in the investigation of multiple facets of Australian literary interaction with Asia:

* A comprehensive mapping and analysis of Asian-Australian writing

* A study of the circulation and reception of Australian literature across the Asian region

We welcome applications from qualified students who can demonstrate an understanding of the general field of study and have a developed research proposal in a particular area with relevance to it, such as:

* South East Asian-Australian writers
* The reception and study of Australian literature in India (or other major Asian country)
* Theoretical perspectives on Asian-Australian literary production

Application should include a full cv, including transcripts of previous studies, the names of two academic referees, a research proposal and a statement about your understanding of, and interest in, this area of study.

For more information please contact Prof. Wenche Ommundsen on (02) 4221 5445
(wenche @ uow.edu.au).

Deadline for applications: Extended to 14th November 2008.

JOBS VACANT - National Institute of Education, Singapore - English Language and Literature Academic Group (Deadline: 1 Feb 2009)

2008-10-27T13:07:00.001+11:00

English Language and Literature Academic Group (ELL)

The National Institute of Education invites qualified applicants to apply for academic positions in ELL.

The ELL Academic Group has academic and pedagogy commitments. Its Literature programme offers a B.A. (Education) and an M.Ed. (English Literature Education), as well as teacher certification courses. Research-oriented postgraduate work is also offered for the Master of Arts and the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degrees.

Requirements

Applicants should have a Ph.D. in the relevant fields and preferably with a proven track record in research and teaching at the university. The successful candidate will be teaching two of the following areas:

20th Century Fiction in English
20th Century Poetry in English
Literary and Critical Theory

An applicant will be in a position of added advantage if he or she possesses a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) or an equivalent qualification as well as some secondary school or sixth-form college literature teaching experience.

>> Visit the official job advertisement site HERE (includes all contact details and more job information).

PRIZE - Rascals Prize (People Like Us) - Singapore (Deadline: Jan 2009)

2008-10-27T12:43:00.003+11:00

People Like Us (PLU) is the oldest homosexual rights and activist organisation in Singapore, and the inaugural Rascals Prize for Lesbian/Gay/BisexualTransgender/Queer research on Singapore is now open for entries.

The prize is valued at $S2,000 (about $AUD 2,000) for the best piece of research in any of Singapore's four official languages (English, Mandarin, Malay, Tamil).

The deadline for submissions is January 2009. Please contact PLU directly for further information: pluadmin @ gmail.com

>> Download the PDF flyer HERE.

===============

People Like Us is a Singapore gay and lesbian group focussed on advocacy and public education. It is an informal group since the Registrar of Societies refused to grant registration in 1997, and in 2004 when we applied a second time.

As an informal group, it does not yet have any firm membership, but a feel for the numbers of interested persons can be seen from the fact that there are over 2,300 members in PLU’s email discussion list SiGNeL.

CFP - Anthology - Women Warriors: Fighting Breast Cancer

2008-10-27T12:40:00.002+11:00

CALL FOR PAPERS: Anthology
Women Warriors: Fighting Breast Cancer

AASRN member Robyn Morris is editing an anthology of stories regarding the trials of breast cancer including, but not limited to;

responses to diagnosis,
the experience of treatment,
the trials of juggling work and/or family,
facing/embracing the future.

Stories are encouraged from breast cancer patients, their friends and/or their family.

Individual chapter submissions will be around 2000-5000 words although larger chapters will be considered. Poetry will be considered also.

Please contact Robyn via email if you have any further queries or wish to register your interest in this project.

All monies raised from this book will be donated to the National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF) for future research.

Contact email: robynmorris @ bigpond.com

NEW BOOK - As others see us: The values debate in Australia (Australian Scholarly Press)

2008-10-27T12:36:00.001+11:00

JUST PUBLISHED

As Others See Us:
The values debate in Australia
edited by J.V. D'Cruz, Bernie Neville, Devika Goonewardene & Phillip Darby

This book is a splendid collection of essays on Australian culture, politics, and the "values" debate- illuminated by the ideas of a thinker Australians need to know, Ashis Nandy, one of the foremost critical intellectuals on the globe. Across issues from asylum seekers to sport, this book digs through the clotted layers of official hypocrisy to lay bare both the violence, and the hope, that mark our situation in the world.

-- Professor Raewyn Connell, University of Sydney, author of Southern Theory (2007).

An Ashis Nandy Travelling Kit for 'DOWN UNDER'
Australia's Polygot Ghosts
Swimming Against the Mainstream
The Sporting Nation
'I don't mind the headscarf but...'
A New Cosmopolitanism
Aussie Bums on the Beach
Mates Together
An Isolation Within
The Dance of the Hidden Gods
Performing Outside One's Comfort Zone
The Stranger in our Midst
Nationalism at the Crossroads

Features writing by Ashis Nandy, Vinay Lal, Anthony Langlois, Erika Kerruish, Vin D'Cruz, Deborah Bird Rose, Baden Offord, Kate O'Mara, Goldi Osuri, Bernie Neville, Alisoun Neville, Suvendrini Perera, Joseph Pugliese, Margaret Robertson, Brian Stoddart, David Walker, Devika Goonewardene, Kane Collins, Devleena Ghosh, Phillip Darby.

ISBN:978 1 74097 176 8 | RRP: $39.95

Available from Australian Scholarly Press:
http://www.scholarly.info/new.htm#otherssee

CFP - Race in the Modern World - Goldsmiths, U of London, UK (Deadline: 1 Dec 2008)

2008-10-27T12:27:00.003+11:00

Race and the Modern World

An international conference on race discourses and contemporary identities

Confirmed speakers include Les Back, Bryan Cheyette, Paul Gilroy, Kenan Malik and Ann Phoenix

Venues: Goldsmiths, University of London and the Stephen Lawrence Trust, London
Dates: April 1st, 2nd and 3rd, 2009

This major international and multidisciplinary conference is especially concerned with the race discourses still fundamental to the ways in which modern society and culture thinks itself. We will be expecting papers on all aspects of race and modernity — how ‘races’ are imagined and represented, in biological, linguistic, gendered and spiritual terms; what anxieties and desires are expressed in or projected onto racialised figures; how individuals in modern societies and cultures relate themselves to the collective identities posited by race discourse. With panels on such areas as diasporas, multiculturalism, faiths and civil society, race and representation, urban design and youth cultures, we are aiming to engage not just with the academy, but also with the wider community and with particular reference to young people in local schools and colleges. Centered in this vibrant area of South East London, the event, a Goldsmiths and the Stephen Lawrence Trust collaboration, presents scholarly research and discussion, exhibitions, workshops and social and civic events. The conference venues will be the University campus at New Cross and the recently opened Stephen Lawrence Trust building, designed by David Adjaye.

A reception, led by Doreen Lawrence will open the event on April 1st. Two full days of lectures, panels and workshops will follow. We are hoping to attract a wide range of participants, both within and outside the academic community, including strong representation from the local communities.

Sign in and registration will take place in April 1st at the Stephen Lawrence Trust, or at Goldsmiths on April 2nd and 3rd. Conference dinner is scheduled for April 2nd.

Please join us in April 2009 for the Race and the Modern World conference in New Cross and Deptford, London.

>> Visit the conference page HERE.

>> Download the CFP HERE.

EVENT - Gaayip Walk (Whitehorse Friends for Reconciliation) 9 Nov 2008

2008-10-27T12:22:00.002+11:00

The Whitehorse Friends for Reconciliation is pleased to offer people the chance to be part of the Gaayip Walk (Gaayip - 'coming together')

TIME/DATE: 12 noon Sunday 9th November
VENUE: Blackburn Lake, Central Rd, Blackburn.

The main ideas behind the Walk are:

after the Apology there is still much to be done by many people at different levels - 'many steps by many people'
people can do something locally by supporting the local Indigenous community through donating to the Mullum Mullum Indigenous Gathering Place (MMIGP)
reconciliation is an idea and process, which needs the involvement of all cultural groups in Australia.

Please feel free to distribute the leaflet (see link below) in any way you think is appropriate.

Contact me if you need more details. Hard copies of the leaflet are also available.

We hope to see you on the day.

Cheers, Howard (Tankey)
Whitehorse Friends for Reconciliation
Email: howardtankey @ iprimus.com.au

>> Download the PDF flyer HERE.

VISITING PROFESSORSHIP - Australian Studies, University of Tokyo, 2009-2010 (Deadline: 1 Dec 2008)

2008-10-27T12:09:00.002+11:00

Visiting Professor in Australian Studies 2009 - 2010

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Centre for Pacific and American Studies (CPAS), The University of Tokyo

The Visiting Professorship in Australian Studies was created in 1999 by the Centre for Pacific and American Studies, The University of Tokyo, to promote a deeper understanding of Australia and its regional engagement. The Australia – Japan Foundation supports activities associated with the position.

Applications are invited from highly qualified Australians with a significant academic achievement, including those who have moved to academia from the senior levels of government or community. The Visiting Professor is required to teach three courses at introductory and advanced undergraduate and postgraduate levels; to present conference papers; to conduct research and participate in other activities. Opportunities are available to contribute to Australian Studies programs elsewhere in Japan.

The appointment is usually for a twelve month period, and commences no later than 1 October 2009. The Visiting Professor is expected to spend most of his/her time in Tokyo engaged in research and, during semester, in teaching. All teaching is conducted in English. An attractive salary package is available.

Applications close on 1 December 2008.

The selection process will be managed by the International Australian Studies Association (InASA). A full position description and application procedures are available at:

http://www.inasa-home.net/

http://www.ajf.australia.or.jp/english/tokyouni/

For any further information contact:
Professor Kate Darian-Smith
Vice President InASA
email: k.darian-smith@unimelb.edu.au

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS - Transcultural Adoptee Short Films and Panel Event (TASFP) - 29 May 2009 (Deadline: 22 Dec 2008)

2008-10-27T12:01:00.002+11:00

TRANSCULTURAL ADOPTEE SHORT FILMS AND PANEL EVENT (TASFP)
to be held 29 MAY 2009
in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney.

Venues tba.

Call for short films by transnationally and/or trans-racially adopted people now open!

Deadline 22 December, 2008.

For more information see
http://www.darlo.tv/indigo/filmfest09.html or contact Indigo Willing.

WORKSHOP - REMINDER - Movement workshop for performance (by Anna Yen) - Metro Arts, Brisbane - 24-28 Nov 2008

2008-10-27T09:42:00.000+11:00

PLAYMOVES
Movement Workshop for Performance
Anna Yen

November 24 –28, 2008
Monday – Friday, 10am – 2pm

Metro Arts, 109 Edward Street, Brisbane

$220 ($190 Early Bird -if paid by October 16, 2008)
Numbers Strictly Limited. Book Early.

This workshop is for performers, directors, movement and drama teachers & students. We will focus on playfulness, presence and complicity. It is inspired by the work of Monika Pagneux, a renowned European theatre teacher, whose theme is the physical, vocal and personal freedom of the performer. It includes combining the Feldenkrais Method’s “Awareness through Movement” work with ensemble exercises and games in innovative ways to assist the performer expand their creative possibilities, playfulness, pleasure, complicity and ensemble skills. We will also play with some physical exercises for creating text which Monika explored in Barcelona earlier this year.

-----------

Anna Yen is a performer, movement teacher and director who trained with Monika Pagneux in Europe and Australia, including being invited to Pagneux’s only Pedagogy Courses in recent years - Paris 1994, Barcelona 2007 and 2008. Inspired by Pagneux, Anna trained as a Feldenkrais Method® Practitioner, graduating in 2000. Anna is keen to share Pagneux’s work and in doing so, deepen her own investigation of how we as performers / creators can be more awake and present in every moment, ready to play. A highlight of Anna’s work is her acclaimed one-woman show ‘Chinese Take Away’ and its film adaptation, which has taken her to festivals in Asia, Europe and USA. Anna is in the new comic trio, ‘Los Lunch Dates’. Her collaborative physical/visual work was part of ‘Undiscovered Country’ at the OzAsia Festival. Anna performed with Rock’n’Roll Circus, Zen Zen Zo Physical Theatre Co, La Boite, QTC and studied with Pagneux, Philippe Gaulier, Nanjing Acrobatic Troupe, Shanghai Circus School and Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre Summer School. Anna has taught for QUT, Uni of Southern Qld, Uni of Qld, Aboriginal Centre for the Performing Arts, Vulcana Women’s Circus, QTC. Anna directed shows for UQ, Vulcana Women’s Circus, Backbone Youth Arts, QUT (TABOO), and was Assistant Director on AWGIE Award winning ‘Kese Solwata ‘.

Bookings and Enquiries:
Anna ph 07 3846 1651 mobile 0417 623 886
annayen@ozemail.com.au

JOB - Comparative Literature and Asian Studies: Modern/contemporary Chinese (Penn State U, USA)

2008-10-15T11:14:00.002+11:00

Comparative Literature and Asian Studies: Modern/contemporary Chinese

Penn State is seeking candidates for a new Assistant or Associate Professor position in Comparative Literature and Chinese (tenure-track or tenured according to qualifications). Home department Comparative Literature; joint appointment with Asian Studies.

We are interested in candidates who will demonstrate abilities to expand our major in Chinese, participate in the undergraduate and graduate programs in Comparative Literature, and contribute to the new dual-degree Comparative Literature / Asian Studies PhD program. Teaching responsibilities will include introductory and advanced courses on literature and culture, as well as modern Chinese language at upper levels. Areas of specialization may include, but are not limited to: modern and/or contemporary Chinese-language literature; film and new media studies; East-West, intra-Asian, or global comparisons, including Sinophone literature and/or film; postcolonial studies, gender studies, or queer theory. Native or near-native ability in Chinese and appropriate teaching experience required. Relevant research achievements or evidence of relevant research promise required.

Starting date: August 2009 preferred

Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, Chinese, or related field required. Screening of applications will begin November 15, 2008, although all applications will be considered until the search is concluded. Send letter, CV, and names of three references; electronic submission to Cindy Bierly at is strongly preferred. Visit our Web sites at http://complit.la.psu.edu and http://asian.la.psu.edu.

Penn State is committed to affirmative action, equal opportunity, and the diversity of its workforce.

SEMINAR and WORKSHOP - Articulating Movement: Negotiating a Politics of Migratory Knowledge Production (U of Melbourne, 21 Nov 2008)

2008-10-15T11:10:00.002+11:00

Articulating movement: negotiating a politics of migratory knowledge production

An interdisciplinary seminar and workshop featuring Dr Sandro Mezzadra (University of Bologna), Angela Mitropoulos (Queen Mary College, University of London), Dr Brett Neilson (University of Western Sydney).

11.00—5pm
November 21 2008
Multifunction Room, Graduate Centre
University of Melbourne

Despite apocalyptic warnings about oil prices, the end of globalisation and the curtailing of migration, both documented and undocumented global migratory movement continues to accelerate into the twenty-first century. With this movement, national and transnational border controls, surveillance technologies, racial profiling and war continue to mark differentiations between ‘cherished life’ and ‘bare life’, bodies to be protected and bodies to be extinguished, bodies that can move and that must be contained.

Following years of “No Borders” interventions and the revival of interest in migration, borders and rights in the academy, debates continue on how to produce knowledges and write about, migration. These debates raise questions that are vital to any research processes around human mobility. How can we theorise migration without reifying migratory movement as emblematic of a generalised “exodus” or “resistance”? What histories intersecting migration, labour, gender, sexuality and colonialism have been forgotten in the desire to enshrine rights and border talk as the new cultural capital of philosophy departments world-wide? Where is the faultline between deploying the so-called “authenticity” of singular experience and the vulgarity of an entirely structural analysis? How can we negotiate a space between theorising the movement of bodies as already determined by war, injustice, ecological disaster, and a naive conception of movement as an autonomous and individual choice, thus reinstalling the sovereign subject of liberalism? Who constitutes the “we” that performs these negotiations, and what are our investments?

To examine these questions, to share tactics and strategies, to find passageways of negotiation, and to consider our own role in the composition and distribution of knowledge, we invite thinkers and practitioners in Melbourne to participate in a moment of “militant research” into the knowledge production of migration. Following the Colectivo Situationes, we define militant research as a process of defining practical knowledges of subaltern counter-power, renouncing the institutional spaces of management of these knowledges, and beginning with what we do not know rather than what we assume.

We invite postgraduate students, researchers and interested members of the public to submit expressions of interest in participating in the workshop by November 5 2008.

To RSVP for the workshop and obtain a reading list, please submit up to 250 words outlining your research interests and the contribution you might make to the discussion. Submit expressions of interest and RSVPs to: a.aizura@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au

Program:
11am-1pm. Seminar featuring Sandro Mezzadra, Angela Mitropoulos and Brett Neilson.
1-2.30pm: Light lunch.
2.30-4.30pm. A roundtable discussion for graduate students, independent scholars and researchers.

This event is free of charge.

Speakers:

Sandro Mezzadra is an Associate Professor in History of Political Thought at the Department of Politics, Institutions, History of the University of Bologna. He is currently “eminent research fellow” at the Centre for Cultural Research of the University of Western Sydney, Australia (2006-2008). His research work has focused on the classical modern European political philosophy (especially on Hobbes, Spinoza and Marx), on the history of political, social, and legal sciences in Germany between the Nineteenth and the Twentieth centuries (especially on the constitutional debates in the years of the Weimar Republic) and on several issues at stake in the development of contemporary political theory.

Angela Mitropoulos (Queen Mary, University of London) has written on the intersections of labour, migration and geopolitics, eg, "Precari-us?" (Mute, 2005), "The Materialisation of Race in Multiculture" (DarkMatter, 2008), "Borders 2.0: Future, Tense" (Mute, 2008).

Brett Neilson is Associate Professor of Cultural and Social Analysis at the University of Western Sydney, where he is also a member of the Centre for Cultural Research. He is interested in the intersections of cultural criticism and political practice. Apart from academic publications, his writings have appeared in venues such as Variant, Mute, Posse, DeriveApprodi, Vacarme, Subtropen, Conflitti globali, makeworlds, Overland, Carta and Framework. He is a contributor to the Italian newspaper Il Manifesto and author of Free Trade in the Bermuda Triangle …and Other Tales of Counterglobalization (University of Minnesota Press, 2004).

Convenors: Anja Kanngieser and Aren Z. Aizura. This event has been convened with the support of the School of Culture and Communications, the Melbourne School of Graduate Research Academic Activity Grants program and the Arts Faculty’s Postgradaute Conference Assistance Scheme.

FORUM - Creative Scholarship: A Forum on Creative Writing in the University - State Library of NSW - 22 Oct

2008-10-14T16:48:00.001+11:00

CREATIVE SCHOLARSHIP

A FORUM ON CREATIVE WRITING IN THE UNIVERSITY

The Writing & Society Research Group at the University of Western Sydney is holding a forum, Creative Scholarship, in response to the popularity of creative writing programs in Australian universities. The forum will examine the legitimacy of creative writing postgraduate degrees (PhD and DCA) and their scholarly and public uses.

The forum will be held in the Metcalfe Auditorium at the State Library of NSW on Wednesday 22 October 2008 from 6-7:30pm.

The panellists are distinguished writers in their own fields as well as university teachers and supervisors of creative writing theses.

Bill Manhire is a four-time winner of the New Zealand Book Award for poetry. His Collected Poems are published by Victoria University Press in NZ and Carcanet in the UK. He is the director of the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University in Wellington.

John Dale is the author of five books, including the bestselling Huckstepp and two crime novels, Dark Angel and The Dogs Are Barking. He is Director of the Centre for New Writing and Head of Creative Practices in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at UTS.

Hazel Smith is a writer, performer and new media artist, and member of the UWS Writing & Society Research Group She is author of The Erotics of Geography and The Writing Experiment: strategies for innovative creative writing and co-author, with Roger Dean, of Improvisation, Hypermedia And The Arts Since 1945.

Marcelle Freiman is a poet and teacher of creative writing and post-colonial and diasporic literature at Macquarie University. In 2008 she was awarded the Macquarie University Vice Chancellor's Award for Teaching Excellence.

Kim Cheng Boey is the author of four collections of poetry and a forthcoming book of essays, Between Stations. Born and raised in Singapore, he is a senior lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Newcastle.

Catherine Cole is professor of creative writing at RMIT University. She has published three novels - Dry Dock, Skin Deep and The Grave at Thu Le, and the non-fiction books, The Poet who Forgot about Becoming a Writer, on the poet A.D. Hope, and Private Dicks and Feisty Chicks: An Interrogation of Crime Fiction.

Enquiries: (02) 9772 6780 or writing@uws.edu.au

Please rsvp to writing@uws.edu.au

FELLOWSHIPS - Visiting Fellowship Program - Research School of Humanities (ANU)

2008-10-13T15:41:00.002+11:00

RSH 2010
Visiting Fellowship Program
Research School of Humanities, College of Arts and Social Sciences, The Australian National University

The Research School of Humanities has been established by the Australian National University in 2007 by amalgamating four key Centres of the University – the renowned Humanities Research Centre, the Centre for Cross Cultural Research, the National Europe Centre and the Australian National Dictionary Centre. The RSH builds on research fostered by these Centres and seeks to promote innovative research in the Humanities. Its Visiting Fellowship program is an enhancement of the program offered by the HRC since the 1970s and provides funds to support scholars to work in the Research School.

Applications are particularly welcome from scholars with interests in one or more of the RSH’s research programs and especially from those whose current projects relate to the RSH 2010 Annual Theme of ‘Imaging Identity’.

Applications for fellowships to the Freilich Foundation and the National Europe Centre are also welcomed. The key research programs of the RSH include:

Visual Culture
History and Memory
Biography and Life Writing
Culture, Heritage and the Environment
Public Cultures and Museums
World Literature
Postcolonial Studies
Digital Humanities

Application are now open and guidelines, application and referees comment forms can be downloaded the RSH website (follow the links): http://rsh.anu.edu.au/

READING - Tom Cho on Radio National "Short Story" - 2 Nov 2008

2008-10-13T15:00:00.001+11:00

Tom Cho's short story 'Today on Dr Phil' is going to be broadcast on the Short Story program for ABC Radio National:

'Today on Dr Phil'
Read by Brett Cousins
Sunday 2 November, 3.35pm
Short Story program, ABC Radio National
(look up your local frequency at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/freq/)

This piece is from Tom's forthcoming collection of short stories called 'Look Who's Morphing', which is going to be published in May next year by Giramondo Publishing (http://www.giramondopublishing.com/).

UPCOMING CONFERENCES and NEW PUBLICATIONS - Chinese Diaspora

2008-10-13T11:26:00.003+11:00

The World Confederation of Institutes and Libraries for Overseas Chinese Studies website contains a wealth of information about:

1. Upcoming conferences

2. New publications - This issue carries thematic sections on Music as well as Memory and Belonging, Women, and Education, different parts of the world. Many thanks to Prof. Frederick Lau, Prof. Khuah-Pearce, Prof. Claudine Salmon, Prof. Nora Chiang, Prof. James Armstrong, Prof. Wan Guofang, Prof. Park Yoon Jung, Didi Kwartanada and others for sharing information about these new and recent publications.

If you have any new publications on any aspect of Chinese overseas studies in any part of the world and any language, forward the information to koh @ ohio . edu

MEETUP - Melbourne Asian Australian Meetup - October 2008

2008-10-13T10:55:00.002+11:00

MELBOURNE ASIAN AUSTRALIAN MEETUP - OCTOBER 2008

... Chatting, hatching plans and other non-emailing activities for Asian Australians and their friends...

The next Melbourne Asian Australian Meetup is planned for THURSDAY 23 OCTOBER. This meetup coincides with the evening screening of Maximum Choppage: Round 2 (MC2) at UniMelb's Asia Week (see HERE for full details). As part of the screening, the event will feature a panel of the film's producer Maria Tran and writer/director Timothy Ly (both from Sydney). Both Maria and Tim are keen to meet up with Melbourne folk while they're here!

The Asian Australian Meetups are a chance to meet and chat with Asian Australians and their collaborators, friends, partners and other associated folks (note: 'non-Asians' are more than welcome!). The meetups have a very casual vibe. So why not come along?

The details for both events are:

SCREENING of MC2 + DISCUSSION PANEL
DATE: THURSDAY 23 OCTOBER
TIME: 6.30-8.30pm
VENUE: Elisabeth Murdoch Theatre, Elisabeth Murdoch Building, University of Melbourne (Parkville)
COST: FREE!

MELBOURNE ASIAN AUSTRALIAN MEETUP
DATE: THURSDAY 23 OCTOBER
TIME: 9PM
VENUE: University Cafe (255 Lygon St, Carlton)
RSVP: By Monday 20 October - tseen@yahoo.com

To get announcements of future meet-ups e-mailed to you, visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/asianaustmeetups/

Please feel free to forward this on to others...

Hope to see you there!

REMINDER - Maximum Choppage: Round 2 - Screening/Panel - Thurs 23 Oct 2008

2008-10-13T10:51:00.003+11:00

Thursday 23 October 2008, 6.30-8.30pm
Elisabeth Murdoch Theatre, Elisabeth Murdoch Building, Swanston Street, University of Melbourne

With the University of Melbourne's Asia Institute, AASRN is co-sponsoring the Melbourne launch of Rumble Pictures' Maximum Choppage: Round 2 and a panel featuring producer Maria Tran and writer/director Timothy Ly.

See this event's full listing for Asia Week:
http://www.asiainstitute.unimelb.edu.au/events/asiaweek_maximum_choppage.html

=======

NOTE that the screening/panel will be followed by a Melbourne AA Meetup at 9pm - full details for that HERE!

CONFERENCE - "Radicalisation Crossing Borders: New Directions in Islamist and Jihadist Political, Intellectual and Theological Thought and Practice"

2008-09-30T10:29:00.001+10:00

On 26-27 November, 2008, the Monash University Global Terrorism Research Centre is hosting an international conference titled "Radicalisation Crossing Borders: New Directions in Islamist and Jihadist Political, Intellectual and Theological Thought and Practice".

The conference will be held in the Legislative Assembly of Parliament House Victoria, and have a broad range of speakers from around Australia and overseas, including Denmark, Somalia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

For more information or to register, please go to the conference website http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/psi/news-and-events/gtrec/index.php

CFP - Bananas-ISSCO conference "Rising Dragon, Soaring Bananas" - 18-19 July 2009 (Auckland, NZ; Deadline: 30 Nov 2008)

2008-09-30T10:24:00.001+10:00

2009 BANANAS –ISSCO CONFERENCE
Rising Dragon, Soaring Bananas
18-19 July 2009

Opening Reception – Fale Pasifika, University of Auckland, Friday 17 July 2009

CALL FOR PAPERS

The popular Banana Conference series has been running annually since 2005. It is the signature event of the New Zealand Chinese Association, celebrating the journeys of the local Chinese community, exploring identity issues which Chinese New Zealanders face in the changing socio-economic climate of recent times.

International speakers have been invited to give global viewpoints and to make comparative studies. For some details of past conferences please see http://www.goingbananas.org.nz/

The 2009 Conference will be held jointly with ISSCO, the International Society for the Study of Chinese Overseas.

Papers are called on the following themes:

Chinese & Indigenous Interactions
China Under the International Spotlight and the Chinese Overseas
Accidental Oriental – Exploration of Identity
Free Trade Agreement – Dancing with the Dragon (the role of Chinese Overseas)
Creative Overseas Chinese – the New Cool
What Place Chinese Language & Culture
China Rising – The Chinese Century and the Chinese Overseas
Building Bridges between Old & New Migrants
Chinese International Organisations

Please submit an abstract (around 300 words) on one of the above themes, together with a brief biographical statement, and send these via email to Manying Ip, School of Asian Studies, University of Auckland by 10 November 2008. my.ip@auckland.ac.nz

You are strongly encouraged to work with colleagues and fellow researchers to form a panel to present different papers under the same theme, using multi-disciplinary approaches. In particular, we welcome papers with a strong theoretical framework, and papers and panels with comparative viewpoints.

You will be notified of the acceptance of your proposal by the end of November 2008.

FELLOWSHIP - Postdoctoral fellowship, Brown University, USA (Deadline: 10 Dec 2008)

2008-09-30T10:16:00.002+10:00

"Markets and Bodies in Transnational Perspective"

Position: Postdoctoral Fellowship
Salary: $50,000 to less than $60,000
Institution: Brown University
Location: Rhode Island

Application deadline: 10 Dec 2008

Post-Doctoral Fellowships
We welcome applications from all scholars who do not hold a tenured position. This is a residential fellowship. Fellows participate weekly in the Pembroke Seminar, teach one undergraduate course, and pursue individual research. Brown University is an EEO/AA employer. The Center strongly encourages underrepresented minority scholars to apply. The term of appointment is September 1, 2009-May 31, 2010. The stipend is $50,000, plus a supplement for health and dental insurance, unless otherwise covered.

Application forms may be obtained at www.pembrokecenter.org. Questions should be directed to Donna_Goodnow@brown.edu.

Please send completed application packages to Box 1958, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912 (regular mail);

or Pembroke Center, Pembroke Hall, 172 Meeting Street, Providence, RI 02912 (express mail).

The deadline for receipt of applications is December 10, 2008. Selections will be announced in February.

http://www.pembrokecenter.org/documents/Pembrokeapplication.pdf

Regular mail:
Pembroke Center
Box 1958
Brown University
Providence, RI 02912

Express mail:
Pembroke Center
Pembroke Hall
172 Meeting Street
Providence, RI 02912

UPCOMING EVENTS - Ivy Alvarez - Sept-Oct 2008

2008-09-22T14:36:00.002+10:00

Ivy Alvarez presents a Writers Workshop on applying for grants and residencies at the Booranga Writers' Centre, Charles Sturt University, NSW, Australia on Sunday, 28th September, 2-5pm.
Contact: booranga@csu.edu.au
http://www.csu.edu.au/faculty/arts/humss/booranga/events/index.html

=============

Ivy will also be appearing at the Critical Animals symposium
(This Is Not Art) in Newcastle, Australia, participating in two events:

• 'The Wanderer', a collective performance of Christopher Brennan's most well-known sequence of poems, on Thursday, 2 October 2008, 4-5.30pm.
http://www.thisisnotart.org/the-wanderer/

• 'Landscaping Aesthetics: A collective conversation' on Saturday, 4 October 2008, 7-8.30 pm. Wales Arts International sponsored Ivy's travel to TINA.
http://www.thisisnotart.org/landscaping-aesthetics-a-collective-conversation/

===============

READINGS - Wagga Wagga, Melbourne, Hobart:

Saturday, September 27
Ivy Alvarez
Wagga City Library
cnr Baylis & Morrow Street,
Wagga Wagga NSW Australia
3pm FREE
Contact: wcl @ wagga.nsw.gov.au

Wednesday, October 8
Ivy Alvarez
The Espy (The Esplanade Hotel),
11 The Esplanade, St Kilda,
Melbourne VIC Australia
7pm FREE
Contact: dale @ roarhouse.org

Tuesday, October 21
Ivy Alvarez and Lyn Reeves
The Lark Distillery,
14 Davey Street,
Hobart TAS Australia
6pm FREE
Contact: admin @ tasmanianwriters.org

UPCOMING CONFERENCES - International Chinese Studies conferences - Date claiming

2008-09-22T14:29:00.003+10:00

1. First International Congress on Chinese Studies -Immigration and Cultural Exchanges -Bilbao (SPAIN), 26-29 Nov 2008

http://www.estudioschinos.com/congress.htm

2. The ISSCO 2009 conference will be convened in cooperation with the University of Auckland and the New Zealand Chinese Association. The title of the conference is "Rising Dragon, Soaring Bananas" (17-19 July, 2009). The Call for Papers is being finalised and will be circulated soon.

3. The ISSCO 2010 conference will be held in Singapore (7-9 May, 2010).

SHOW - LOCA (The Ladies of Colour Agency) Cabaret! - Melbourne Fringe Festival

2008-09-19T17:10:00.004+10:00

The Ladies of Colour Agency (LOCA) presents an all-singing, all-dancing anti-racist extravanganza: the explosion of rage and glory that is the Ladies of Colour Cabaret!

Spoken word! Burlesque! Dance! Drag! Rap! Comedy! Theatre! Kick-arse politics!

LOCA is a posse of 5-foot Asian women who explore the themes of racism and identity in their explosive, enlightening and highly entertaining cabaret performances in which they subvert stereotypes, rage against racism, mess with your minds and mess with your pants. With only 5 shows, bookings are essential.

Get tickets from the Melbourne Fringe Festival website: http://www.melbournefringe.com.au/season/2008/show/156/

WHEN: 7pm
Sept: Fri 26, Sat 27
Oct: Fri 3, Sat 4, Fri 10

COST: Preview: $15. Concession: $16. Full fare: $18.

Me love you long time!

CREATIVE ARTS FELLOWSHIP - 2009 H.C. Coombs Creative Arts Fellowship - ANU, Canberra (Deadline: 31 Oct)

2008-09-19T17:10:00.002+10:00

Call for Nominations - 2009 H.C. Coombs Creative Arts Fellowship

ANU Schools and Centres from relevant areas are invited to nominate a Visual Artist for the 2009 H.C. Coombs Creative Arts Fellowship.

In 2009 a Creative Arts Fellowship will be offered in the area of Visual Arts (including visual arts, new media film & video)

For each year the Fellowship will rotate in the following manner:

2009 Visual Arts (including visual arts, new media film & video)
2010 Performance (including theatre, music, dance)
2011 Writing (including literature, prose, poetry, script writing)

Nominated persons should have an established reputation as an artist with a minimum of five years of professional practice. The purpose of the Fellowship is to allow the recipient to: -

engage in a period of uninterrupted creative work in residence at the Australian National University, to conduct research and develop new ideas.
contribute to the fostering of the creative arts within the University.
interact with the University academic community, staff, students and visitors.

The nominee should be an Australian citizen or have formal residency status and have a strong arts connection to demonstrate that the benefits of the Fellowship will contribute to the development of Australia’s contemporary culture. The Fellowship amount of $33,000 includes percentages for stipend, accommodation, travel and material costs.
The Fellow is normally expected to be in residence at the University for a maximum of five months, at least half of which should be during the teaching periods.

The H. C. Coombs Creative Arts Fellowship is administered by the Research School of Humanities (RSH) and an Advisory Committee. This Committee is chaired by the Director of RSH with representatives from the University Humanities and Creative Arts disciplines. Two independent arts specialists are also invited each year, with specific expertise to the discipline being considered.

Nominations must be supported by an academic unit of the University and the proposal must include:

the curriculum vitae of the nominee.
the contact person who agrees to undertake the organisational responsibilities in hosting the Fellowship with the RSH.
a description of the facilities available and the academic colleagues who may be involved with the Fellow.
outline of the proposed creative arts program and its duration.
an outline of the extent of interaction with the University community and any other connections expected to be made whilst in residence.
outline of the budget proposed.
an indication of the likely outcome of the residency.

Written nominations should be submitted by that academic unit of the University on behalf of the nominated person.

Fellowship proposals will be assessed in terms of:

the quality of the proposal.
its likely contribution to the life of the University
the capacity of the proposed Fellow to execute their proposal.
the artistic standing of the proposed Fellow.

Other considerations may include:

the demonstrated and active support and infrastructure available from the University academic area hosting the Fellow.
the potential for visibility and engagement of the proposed creative work program with the University community.
the potential for contact and collaboration with other parts of the University and the community.
the feasibility of the program.

Closing date for submissions: 31 October 2008.

Outcome notified mid November 2008. For further details visit http://rsh.anu.edu.au/fellowships/coombs/index.php or email Suzanne.Knight@anu.edu.au

NEW FILM - Maximum Choppage II

2008-09-18T09:42:00.038+10:00

MEDIA RELEASE September 2008
TAKING IT BACK TO THE OLD SCHOOL!
MAXIMUM CHOPPAGE: ROUND 2
A suburban Kung Fu film direct from the mean streets of Fairfield!

Maximum Choppage: Round 2 is Australia’s first locally made suburban Kung Fu film due to be launched this September.

Made by an artist collective called Rumble Pictures based in Cabramatta in Sydney’s West – Maximum Choppage: Round 2 is their offering to the recent explosion in popularity for Kung Fu Films.

Not since the cult 1975 film The Man From Hong Kong has Australia produced its own Kung Fu film. Tired of the solid foreign diet Rumble Pictures decided to produce their own tribute to the martial arts films of the 70’s and 80’s using the local Fairfield streets as their back drop.

Offering a reinvention of the Kung Fu genre but taking direct inspiration from the classic 70 and 80s narratives of Jackie Chan, Rumble Pictures are proud to present Australia’s first “no-budget, but epic ambition” action Kung Fu film.

Maximum Choppage: Round 2 is a 70 minute urban action adventure exploring the great story telling corner stones of love and pride. Two arch rivals fight with swords over a girl in down town Fairfield! Within a story line dedicated to accommodate as many kick ass kung fu show downs as possible, the result is fast, furious and funny.

The producers, Rumble Pictures, have ensured that the fundamental essence of Kung-Fu action is not lost nor compromised in their ploy to pay such homage. What results is a preservation of the slapstick fun and comedic notions of the earlier work of Jackie Chan highlighted with the animated cues of Steven Chow’s Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle.

Writer and Director Craig Anderson from the ABC’s Double the Fist noted the film’s presence as an innovative montage of action and comedy. “Here’s a truly funny film that acknowledges its roots. An old school Kung Fu film in its purity!” he says.

Maximum Choppage: Round 2 is an independent film four years in the making. It makes no apologies for its ‘rough around-the-edges’ approach to cinematography that pushes the boundaries of guerilla-style filmmaking – action sequences at its most organic. In the project’s initial stages when resources were limited, camera dollies were replaced by skate boards and home mattresses dragged into the street to use as crash pads as people dove off council bins!

The cast and crew of the film comprise mainly of young Asian Australians from diverse backgrounds of Western Sydney. More significantly, these contemporary groups of filmmakers are either martial arts experts or have had a fondness towards the genre of films. All fights and stunts are performed by the cast themselves.

“Every week a group of us would meet up on a Friday night to watch old school kung fu films and develop ideas to somehow bring back the elements of what is now missing in contemporary Kung Fu films,” Director Timothy Ly says.

“Western Sydney has a lot of artistic potential. I hope if anything, Rumble Pictures can inspire some residents to pick up their own cameras and do it better than us. We get sick of all the negative profile that Cabramatta gets so we wanted to create an action film that used our local area as our set – we don’t hide from the urbanism of our surroundings we wanted to focus on it and high light it, we like the idea of two guys fighting over a girl with swords in suburban Fairfield!”

One of the main focuses of the film is to portray the 2nd generation migrant experience in Australia. The film’s fun and positive format does not emphasise its oriental roots as much but more its expression of cultural identity and diversity on home soil.

The film will be launching over 4 nights at the Fairfield School of Arts, 19 Harris St Fairfield NSW from the 25-28 Sept, 08. Screenings begin at 7pm.To RSVP, contact ICE on (02) 9897 5744.

WHEN: 7pm, 25-28 September, 2008

WHERE: Fairfield School of Arts, 16 Harris St, Fairfield, 2165.

MEDIA ENQUIRIES, PHOTOS AND INTERVIEWS: Contact Sarah Goodes on 0411 878 250 or email sarahgoodes@bigpond.com

MC2 TRAILER: http://www.mc2movie.com/

Official website: http://www.rumblepictures.com.au/

=============

Thursday 23 October 2008, 6.30-8.30pm
Elisabeth Murdoch Theatre, Elisabeth Murdoch Building, Swanston Street, University of Melbourne

With the Asia Institute, AASRN is co-sponsoring the Melbourne launch of Rumble Pictures' Maximum Choppage: Round 2 and a panel featuring producer Maria Tran and writer/director Timothy Ly.

For the full listing of Asia Week events, visit http://www.asiainstitute.unimelb.edu.au/

EVENT - Asia Week 2008 at the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne (20-23 Oct 2008)

2008-09-18T09:42:00.037+10:00

ASIA WEEK 2008 at the ASIA INSTITUTE, UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE 20-23 October

Through four days of concerts, workshops, seminars, and lectures, Asia Week 2008 showcases the diversity of intellectual, artistic, and cultural activities of the Asia Institute and its partnering institutions, focusing primarily on the languages and cultures of China, Japan, Indonesia, and the Islamic world.

Artists, scholars, and dignitaries presenting, appearing, or performing during Asia Week include: Melbourne Lord Mayor John So; Mr. Susumu Hasegawa, Consul General of Japan; Stanley Adi Prasetyo, commissioner of the National Commission on Human Rights; Najwa Shihab, journalist/tv presenter; Wakako Asano, choreographer and dancer in the Australian Ballet; Mayu Kanamori, artist; Maria Tran, film producer, and Ben Hills, Walkley Award-winning freelance journalist and author.

For complete schedule and event details as they become available, visit: www.asiainstitute.unimelb.edu.au

=====

Thursday 23 October 2008, 6.30-8.30pm
Elisabeth Murdoch Theatre, Elisabeth Murdoch Building, Swanston Street, University of Melbourne

With the Asia Institute, AASRN is co-sponsoring the Melbourne launch of Rumble Pictures' Maximum Choppage: Round 2 and a panel featuring producer Maria Tran and writer/director Timothy Ly.

For the full listing of Asia Week events, visit www.asiainstitute.unimelb.edu.au

NEW POSITION - Chair in Australian Literature, University of Western Australia (Deadline: 3 Oct 2008)

2008-09-18T09:42:00.032+10:00

Chair in Australian Literature

The University of Western Australia invites applications for the tenurable position of Professor of Australian Literature, newly endowed by the Commonwealth Government and UWA. This Chair in Australian Literature has been established with the goal of benefiting and promoting Australian Literature nationally and internationally. The appointee will therefore be an academic leader in the broadest sense: a productive and original researcher, with a commitment to high-quality teaching, a passion for Australian Literature and the ability to communicate its value and vitality to the public. The Chair will join the Westerly Centre within the Discipline of English and Cultural Studies, which has an outstanding record of publication and study in Australian Literature.

For further information regarding the position, applicants are encouraged to direct enquiries to the Chair of English and Cultural Studies, Dr Kieran Dolin on +61 8 6488 2072 or kdolin@cyllene.uwa.edu.au, or Professor Dennis Haskell on +61 8 6488 2071 or dhaskell@cyllene.uwa.edu.au.An attractive remuneration package will be negotiated including generous superannuation, leave provisions and fares to Perth (if applicable) for the appointee and dependants along with a relocation allowance.

Closing date: Friday, 3 October 2008

The Information for Candidates brochure which includes details to assist with your application may be found at www.his.admin.uwa.edu.au/Advertising/2486CandidateInformation.pdf or via a link at jobs.uwa.edu.au/ or by contacting Ms Toni Pilgrim, email toni.pilgrim@uwa.edu.au. Written applications should be sent to Ms Toni Pilgrim, Human Resources, M350, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009. To lodge an application electronically please refer to the Information for Candidates brochure for details.

>> Visit this link - PDF - to see more information about the Chair of Australian Literature position at UWA.

CFP - Postcolonial Popular Cultures: A Symposium (U of Otago, NZ; deadline: 1 Oct 2008)

2008-09-18T09:42:00.028+10:00

Postcolonial Popular Cultures: A Symposium
Organised by the Postcolonial Studies Research Network, University of Otago
December 14-16, 2008, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

Keynote Speakers

Grant Farred, Professor of Africana Studies and English, Cornell University. "For Our Time? Thinking the Popularity of the Postcolonial”: exploring the relevance of postcoloniality, and its historically difficult relationship to the popular, in our moment.
Kalpana Ram, Anthropology, Macquarie University. To be confirmed
Jo Smith, Media Studies Programme, Victoria University of Wellington. “Postcolonial Maori TV?”

Call for Papers

The field of postcolonial studies has recently been called on to redress its lack of sustained attention to, and engagement with, popular cultural practices and forms. A survey of the anthologies and major collections informing the field suggest the point is a legitimate one. While scholars such as Arjun Appadurai, Paul Gilroy, and Kobena Mercer engage with popular cultural practices of diasporic and migrant communities, the postcolonial field has shown less attention to popular cultural forms as productive sites for exploring the kinds of questions that animate it.

Taking on this challenge, we invite submissions from across disciplines to engage with the theme of postcolonial popular cultures. Theoretical and disciplinary inquiries may include the constitution of postcolonial popular cultures, the function, role of the postcolonial in postcolonial popular culture, and the critical perspective offered by postcolonial studies. What can postcolonial studies contribute to the study and understanding of popular culture that has not been addressed by cultural studies? How would an examination of contemporary popular cultural practices influence significant areas of postcolonial theorizing: hybridity, resistance, the politics of representation? How would it affect the field’s focus on a certain literary and theoretical canon, and its arguably textual orientation? What economies of value shape the relative exclusion of popular culture in postcolonial studies?

Beyond this, we are concerned to ask whether an emphasis on postcolonial popular culture challenges specific structures of power, or whether popular cultural forms and practices are complicit with the institutions and operations postcolonial studies seek to challenge? In a period of rapid commodification and intense consumerism, what is at stake when we speak of postcolonial popular cultures? What impact is made on postcolonial cultural expressions by the ‘global popular’?

These questions are by no means exhaustive; they are offered as a point of entry for further discussion on the theme of postcolonial popular culture. Postcolonial popular culture is defined in a broad and inclusive way to incorporate lived and textual cultures, the mass media, ways of life, and discursive modes of representation. Central to the formation of postcolonial popular cultures are articulations of the economic, social and political spheres and the conference welcomes contributions that will highlight these issues.

Papers from across disciplines are invited to address aspects of Postcolonial Popular Culture, including:

Popular culture and resistance
Everyday popular cultural practices
Sport
Music
Dance
Body cultures
Fashion/clothing
Food
Television and other broadcast media
Online games, computer and other technologies
Street and community theatre
Shopping

To maintain the integrity of discussions, we ask that submissions address the question of popular culture in relation to some aspect of the field of postcolonial studies. We invite abstracts of 250-300 words and a short bio of 100 words to be sent to Dr Brendan Hokowhitu (Brendan.hokowhitu@stonebow.otago.ac.nz) by 1 October, 2008.

FELLOWSHIPS - Asia Research Institute (ARI), National University of Singapore (Deadline: 1 Nov 2008)

2008-09-18T09:42:00.025+10:00

Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore is inviting applications for (Senior) Research Fellowships, One-Year Visiting (Senior) Research Fellowships and Postdoctoral Fellowships for commencement between May 2009 and September 2009.

Open to outstanding active researchers to work on an important piece of research in the social sciences and humanities. Interdisciplinary interests are encouraged. A majority of the positions will be allocated to the more specific areas listed on our website. Some will be reserved for outstanding projects in any area. Applications linking two specific fields are also welcome. Applicants should mention which category they are applying to or if none, write open category. Applicants should possess a minimum of a PhD.

Closing date for applications is 1 November 2008.

For more on the positions and application procedure, see http://www.ari.nus.edu.sg or email joinari@nus.edu.sg for more information.

NEW BOOK - Ouyang Yu - The Kingsbury Tales: A Novel (Brandl and Schlesinger)

2008-09-18T09:42:00.018+10:00

The Kingsbury Tales: a Novel A collection of poetry by Ouyang Yu 80 pages pb - ＄24.95 – ISBN 978-1-876040-82-6

In this book of poetry, Kingsbury is where the poet has been based since he came from the People’s Republic of China in 1991, the first time he came into extensive contact, and conflict with a very different culture and multi-culture.

Covering a period of about 160 years from the First Opium War (1840) to the beginnings of the 21st century, THE KINGSBURY TALES serves up a poetic plate of multi-taste choice foods with choice tales, each tale represented by a poem, not longer than one A-4 page, told by people from all walks of life, including wives, concubines, lawyers, diplomats, students, professors, factory workers, mental patients and visitors, from a colonial and postcolonial point of view.

The book explores and depicts poetic characters in a similar way that Geoffrey Chaucer did many hundreds years ago in The Canterbury Tales. The stories in THE KINGSBURY TALES are also arranged in sections, such as ‘Historical Tales’, ‘Women’s Tales’, ‘Men’s Tales’, ‘Professors’ Tales’, and ‘The Empire Tales’. Some of the poems have already been published in literary journals such as Eureka Street, Griffith Review, Cordite, Westerly, Island, Antipodes and Southerly.

“Ouyang Yu’s poetry—acerbic, funny, wickedly political—is unremittingly concerned with the strangeness, multiplicity and horror of the real. The Kingsbury Tales is a major new work that shows Yu’s brilliance and range. The tales make up a rich and sprawling account of the complex interactions between China and Australia, between selves and the world. Filled with stories from history, memory and everyday conversation, The Kingsbury Tales is both a profoundly shocking and deeply entertaining work of poetry.” David McCooey
Ouyang Yu graduated from La Trobe University with a doctoral degree in Australian literature and has had 43 Chinese and English books published in the field of fiction poetry, literary translation and literary criticism since his arrival in Australia in 1991. His first novel in English, The Eastern Slope Chronicle (Brandl & Schlesinger, Sydney 2002) was shortlisted for the 2003 NSW Premier’s Awards and won the SA Festival Award for Innovation in Writing in 2004. His fifth book of English poetry, Foreign Matter (Otherland Publishing, Melbourne, 2003) won the 2003 Fast Books Prize for Best Poetry in the self-published category in NSW.

His other published translations (18 of them) in Chinese include The Female Eunuch (1991; 2001) and The Whole Woman (2002) by Germaine Greer, The Shock of the New by Robert Hughes (2002) and Capricornia by Xavier Herbert (2004).

Ouyang Yu has been invited to a number of literary festivals, including the Melbourne Writers’ Festival, Sydney Writers Festival, Hong Kong International Writers’ Festival, the International Chinese Poetry Festival in Denmark and the Singapore Writers’ Festival.

For an autographed copy, please contact Ouyang Yu at P. O. Box 200, Kingsbury 3083, VIC, Australia or email: youyang2@bigpond.com

$24.95/copy plus $3.00 postage/handling for Victoria and $3.50 for interstate and $5.50 for overseas.

NEW ISSUE - Chinese Southern Diaspora Studies Vol. 2

2008-09-18T09:42:00.015+10:00

Volume 2 of Chinese Southern Diaspora Studies is now available on-line.

The volume focuses on Chinese diaspora in Australasia and the SW Pacific, and is dedicated to the memory of the late Henry Chan, an important figure in this field.

The volume contains contributions by a number of eminent scholars in their fields (professors and emeritus professors) as well as by some newer researchers.

It can be accessed HERE (http://csds.anu.edu.au/volume_2_2008).

This volume includes researchers Barry McGowan, Mei-Fen Kuo, Benjamin Penny, Graeme Hugo, James Chin, Lucille Ngan, and Sophie Couchman.

EOI - Future Fellowships at ANU

2008-09-18T09:42:00.012+10:00

Future Fellowships is an exciting new grants scheme created by the Australian Government, to be administered by the Australian Research Council (ARC). The purpose of this scheme is to promote research in areas of critical national importance. Further information on the scheme is available at the following website: http://www.arc.gov.au/ncgp/futurefel/future_default.htm

Future Fellows, with salaries up to $140,000 pa, will help build the future of Australia's top research university.
Fellowships are open to Australian and International mid-career researchers who promote excellence in their field.
The current round of Fellowships begins in 2009 and runs for 4 years.

The Australian National University (ANU) is calling for Expressions of Interest for this scheme.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT THIS LINK.

CONFERENCE - Popular culture in Indonesia and Malaysia (U of Pittsburgh, USA; 10-12 Oct 2008)

2008-09-18T09:42:00.010+10:00

ISLAM AND POPULAR CULTURE IN INDONESIA AND MALAYSIA
An interdisciplinary conference

10-12 Oct 2008
U of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

Home to approximately one-fifth of the world¹s Muslim population, Indonesia and Malaysia are often overlooked or misrepresented in media discourses about Islam. Ideas, sounds, images, gestures, and meanings about Islam abound in contemporary popular cultural forms including film, music, television, radio, comics, fashion, magazines, and cyberculture. By focusing on popular culture, we will emphasize the dynamic, contested, and performative nature of Islam in contemporary Indonesia and Malaysia.

>> Conference website: http://www.ucis.pitt.edu/asc/conference/

EXHIBITION - Van Rudd - 'One week in September' (McCulloch Gallery, Melbourne)

2008-09-18T09:42:00.003+10:00

== ONLY A FEW DAYS LEFT ==

September 15th till September 20th

VAN RUDD at McCulloch Gallery
http://www.mccullochgallery.com.au/

Text from McCulloch Gallery website:

"Sensitivity to the plight of the oppressed peoples in situations of exploitation and war interested Rudd from the outset of his artistic career. Many of his early paintings and drawings show an inner, psychological questioning of the effects of displacement caused by war and the alienating effects of living in large cities. This has led the artist to enthusiastically explore the pictorial effects of paint within the rich context of popular culture – an ongoing inspiration of his to this day.

By the turn of the 21st Century, Rudd’s political persuasions became much more clearly discernible in his music and visual art. In his visual art in particular, he became much more dedicated to exposing the contradictions and injustices within the current, global system of neo-liberalism. This has led to a growing multi-disciplinary approach to his art including the development of The Carriers Project. His simple objective was to expose his paintings to very large audiences by carrying them on foot through busy city streets, shopping malls, major art museums and fairs to inspire debate about art and politics. As expected by the artist, there have been many confrontations with authorities.

Rudd currently continues to enthusiastically explore the potential of painting’s role in society while planning many other projects involving public installations, interventions and experimental videos in Latin America and South-East Asia . He truly believes that art is a weapon and that in today’s current global climate, should not only be relegated to the matching of somebody’s couch."

CFP EXTENDED - New Voices, New Visions: Challenging Australian Identities and Legacies (26-28 Nov 2008; Brisbane, Qld) Deadline: 10 Oct

2008-08-28T13:27:00.002+10:00

New Voices, New Visions: Challenging Australian Identities and Legacies
26-28 Nov 2008
QUT, Brisbane

As you are probably already aware, the InASA Conference 2008, New Voices, New Visions: Challenging Australian identities and legacies, will be held from 26-28 November 2008, at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane. This interdisciplinary conference will explore the ways in which ideas, representations, narratives of Australia, Australians and Australian experiences have been challenged in the new millennium.

Important dates to note: Early bird registrations for this conference close on 25 September 2008, and the Call for Papers for has recently been extended to 10 October 2008.

The downloadable flyer provides general conference information, or you may wish to refer to the detailed conference website, http://www.inasa.org/conference.

InASA Conference Contact: Dr Keith Moore, Humanities Program, Queensland University of Technology, k.moore@qut.edu.au

>> Download CFP flyer HERE (pdf).

EXHIBITIONS - William Yang - Melbourne

2008-08-28T13:07:00.002+10:00

TWO EXHIBITIONS BY WILLIAM YANG
== Melbourne ==

PORTRAITS
Sofitel Lounge
Sofitel Melbourne on Collins
25 Collins St, Melbourne.
==> 6.00pm Tuesday 2 Sept 2008

CLAIMING CHINA
Monash Gallery of Art
860 ferntree Gully Road
Wheelers Hill Vic 3150
==> 6.30 Wednesday 3 Sept 2008

William will be at both openings.

-------------

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE:

Born William Young in North Queensland in 1943, he changed his name to William Yang in 1983. His grandparents migrated from China to Northern Australia in the 1880's. He worked as a playwright from 1969 to 1974, and since then as a freelance photographer. His first solo exhibition in 1977, Sydneyphiles, caused a sensation because of its frank depiction of the Sydney gay and party scene. Later these photographs became part of a larger exhibition, Sydney Diary, which was published as a book of the same title in 1984. In the mideighties, William Yang began to explore his Chinese heritage which had hitherto been lost to him by his complete assimilation into the Australian way of life. His photographic themes expanded to include landscapes and the Chinese in Australia. During this period he made visits to China.

William Yang integrated his skills as a writer and a visual artist in 1989. He began to perform monologues with slide projection in the theatre. These slide shows were a form of performance theatre and have become his favourite way of showing his work. The third one, Sadness, wove together two themes: the discovery of his Chinese heritage, and the rituals of dying and death in Sydney. The piece has toured successfully nationally and internationally as has all his subsequent pieces. William has done seven full length monologues in all, including Shadows, Blood links, and Objects For Meditation.

In addition to his famed monologues, William Yang has presented over twenty individual exhibitions across Asia, Australia, Europe and North America. He is represented by Stills Gallery, Sydney.

>> Visit William Yang's official site HERE.

RESOURCES - WCILCOS

2008-08-28T12:51:00.002+10:00

World Confederation of Institutes and Libraries for Chinese Overseas Studies

New website and heaps of information on diasporic Chinese studies.

View the official site HERE.

These sections, in particular, are of interest to those in Chinese Australian Studies, and diasporic Asian Studies in general:

>> New publications and audiovisual resources

>> Directories - of Centres and Institutes AND of Scholars (you can Search their database for the most up-to-date information)

WORKSHOP - "The Beijing Olympics in Transnational China: Politics, economic reforms and the media game" (Curtin University, WA; 2 Oct 2008)

2008-08-28T12:48:00.000+10:00

The Media-Asia Research Group (MARG) and the Centre for Advance Studies in Australia, Asia and the Pacific (CASAAP) present a workshop on:

The Beijing Olympics in Transnational China: Politics, economic reforms and the media game.

The international media’s focus in 2008 has been very much on Beijing as the host of the Olympic Games. While most of the reporting is on sports and the athletes, the Olympic Games is more than just a sporting event. In this workshop the connections between sports, media, nationhood and politics will be examined, with a focus on both the Chinese and international coverage of the games.

Venue: Bank West Theatre, Curtin University of Technology
Date and time: Thursday 2 October 2008, 10am to 12pm
Catered lunch: 12 noon – 1.30pm, Level 3, Building 100, Curtin University (RSVP essential)

Discussant:
Professor Mobo Gao is the Director of the Confucius Institute and Professor of Chinese Studies at The University of Adelaide. Professor Gao has published widely in the areas of contemporary Chinese politics &
culture, Chinese migration to Australia and Chinese language.

Speakers:
Dr Anne-Marie Brady is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Science and Communication in the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. She is a fluent Chinese language speaker whose research focuses on the Chinese Communist Party, China’s international relations and domestic politics, nationalism, and New Zealand’s past and present relations with China.

Associate Professor Wanning Sun is the Director of the Media-Asia Research Group (MARG) in the School of Media, Culture and Creative Arts at Curtin University of Technology. She is also a Management Member of the Centre for Advanced Studies in Asia, Australia and the Pacific (CASAAP). Associate Professor Sun’s research interests include transnational Chinese migration and internal migration in China, transnational and diasporic media, gender, and social change.

For further information, and to RSVP to both the event and catered lunch, please contact:

Dr Denise Woods
Phone: 9266 3934
Email: Denise.Woods@curtin.edu.au

NEW ISSUE - Peril #5 "Drama" is now online! ALSO - CFP - "passing, failing" (Deadline: 31 Oct 2008)

2008-08-27T12:00:00.000+10:00

The new issue of Asian-Australian arts and culture magazine, Peril, is now online!

Issue #5 includes:

an excerpt from Dom Golding's Shrimp,
interviews with writer Simone Lazaroo (i'viewed by Paul Giffard-Foret), actor HaiHa Le (i'viewed by Hoa Pham), and artist Van Rudd (i'viewed by Lucy Van), and
poems by Adam Aitken and Kit Kelen.

=============

Peril, the magazine of Asian-Australian arts and culture, is seeking your work for Issue #6...

Call for Submissions - Peril #6 - "passing, failing"

So much of life is about feeling like you've passed or failed, as a friend, student, lover, artist, parent, child or sibling. Or as Asian. Or a bloke. Or Australian. Or a writer. What does it mean to 'pass'? Can failing be a good thing?

Passing and failing have many meanings, and this Call for Submissions only begins to play with the terms. We encourage you to interpret the theme broadly.

You might want to explore topics such as:

* racial, gender or cultural 'passing'

* failing/faking authenticity: in film, fashion, food or whatever else takes your fancy

* who's judging?

* moving on, staying put, giving way: 'passing on' as an end, 'passing on' as a bequest or inheritance, etc.

We accept submissions of any kind of text, sound or visual art. If it can be presented online, we're interested in looking at it (e.g. essays, blog entries, reflections, poetry, fiction, memoir, spoken word tracks, photos, etc.). The text limit is 1000 words, preferably submitted in .txt format.

The due date is 31 OCTOBER 2008, to be published online in December 2008.

Please send your submissions and queries to peril@asianaustralian.org. Feel free to run any ideas for submissions past us too.

And check us out at http://www.asianaustralian.org

FESTIVAL - OzAsia 2008 (Adelaide; 14-28 Sept 2008)

2008-08-25T17:41:00.002+10:00

OzAsia Festival 2008
14-28 September 2008

ADELAIDE, SA

This event celebrates cultural exchange with our regional neighbours through an array of moving and personal stories of cross cultural journeys, collaborations and friendships.

From the multi-dimensional documentary performance based on the true story of Chika Honda, an inspirational Indonesian journey with Jan Cornall, Daorum, a rare opportunity to see traditional Korean Pansori to Once Upon a Midnight – a new rock musical.

Film, food and design are new inclusions in the festival with the stunning OzAsia on Screen, divine Australian/Asian cuisine from Cheong Liew and Simon Bryant and Ikebana demonstrations.

Other highlights include performances suitable for families with Shaolin In Wind, The Tale of Haruk, the traditional Moon Lantern Festival, a wide-ranging visual arts program and full day symposium – an opportunity to discuss Australia’s vital relationship with Asia and the importance of cultural engagement.

OFFICIAL FESTIVAL SITE:
www.adelaidefestivalcentre.com.au/ozasia

A downloadable PDF version of the OzAsia SYMPOSIUM Programme can be found HERE.

CFP - After Effects: Trauma, Memory, Performativity symposium (UNSW; 29 Nov 2008) Deadline: 15 Sept

2008-08-20T13:34:00.002+10:00

AFTER EFFECTS: TRAUMA, MEMORY, PERFORMATIVITY
Symposium
Friday, November 29
School of English, Media and Performing Arts 
UNSW

http://aftereffects-symposium.blogspot.com/

After Effects investigates the role of performance and performativity within contemporary trauma culture. In the field of memory and trauma studies there is now a substantial discourse on how to represent absence and violence and how to respond to these representations. Theories of performance and performativity supplement this discussion by foregrounding models of witnessing, embodiment and rehearsal to examine why and how artists represent memory and trauma and what these representations do in the world. For some, performance provides a social space in which to act out as well as work through personal memory and trauma. For others, performance facilitates processes of surrogacy and substitution: it is a place to create prosthetic memories and to produce proxy witnesses. We invite scholars to think through these issues across a wide range of performative, cinematic, visual, literary or architectural media.

As a symposium-masterclass, After Effects seeks to assemble both leading and emerging thinkers in trauma and memory studies for a day of discussion and debate. Panellists will be asked to present 10 minute versions of pre-submitted papers, to aid a workshop and dialogue process. We invite contributors to consider the performative effects of:

- national apologies;
- post-colonial and post-post-colonial perspectives;
- ceremonies of reparation and public memorials;
- documentary, verbatim, and testimonial aesthetics;
- ‘trauma porn’ and the memory rituals of popular culture;
- false memory, false witness, postmemory and perjury;
- fictocritical writing practices and prosthetic voices;
- witnessing in/as/through performance;
- states and sites of re-enactment;
- mediatised witnessing and global performance;
- archival remains, hidden histories;
- new modes of perception and spectatorship;
- posttraumatic modes of narration, narratives of terror;
- human rights theatre, communities of memory;
- narratives of trauma in the Global South;
- affective engagements;
- the contaminated logics of the postmodern and posttraumatic;
- the parallel fortunes of performance studies and trauma studies.


KEYNOTE PRESENTATIONS WILL BE GIVEN BY:
* Dr Helena Grehan (Murdoch University, WA)
* Associate Professor Paula Hamilton (University of Technology Sydney)


PERFORMANCE PARADIGM
Participants are also encouraged to submit article proposals for the forthcoming issue of Performance Paradigm (No 5) 'After Effects: Performing the Ends of Memory' http://www.performanceparadigm.net/call-for-papers/


PLEASE SEND ABSTRACTS OF 250 WORDS BY EMAIL TO:
Bryoni Trezise b.trezise@unsw.edu.au
Caroline Wake cwake@hotmail.com

School of English, Media and Performing Arts,
University of New South Wales,
Sydney NSW 2052


DEADLINES
Symposium 28 November (University of New South Wales, Robert Webster Building)

Abstracts due 15 September

Papers due 15 November


REGISTRATION
There is no registration fee for this event.

See http://aftereffects-symposium.blogspot.com/

FELLOWSHIPS and GRAD CERT PROGRAM - East-West Center (U of Hawai'i) Deadline: 1 Dec 2008

2008-08-20T13:15:00.002+10:00

EWC Graduate Degree Study Fellowships, and Graduate Certificate Program

The East-West Center has just announced its Graduate Degree Study Fellowships, and Graduate Certificate Program for the upcoming academic year.

Graduate Degree Study Fellowships:
These fellowships are administered by the EWC for students from Asia, the Pacific and the U.S. to participate in educational and research program in residence at the EWC while pursuing graduate study at the University of Hawaii.

Eligibility and deadlines vary by each fellowship competition. Application materials for these international degree fellowship competitions are available at http://www.eastwestcenter.org/studentprograms

Graduate Certificate Program:
Applications are invited for participation in the Asia Pacific Leadership Program (APLP), the center of excellence for leadership education in the Asia Pacific Region. The APLP is a graduate certificate program combining the development of regional expertise with the enhancement of individual leadership capacity.

Application Deadline: December 1, 2008.

Visit http://www.eastwestcenter.org/education/aplp/ for more information.

Visit http://www.eastwestcenter.org/education/aplp/aplp-documents/ to download the required application documents.

GRADUATE SUMMER SCHOOL - Asia Pacific Week 2009 (ANU)

2008-08-13T13:22:00.000+10:00

Asia Pacific Week 2009
Date: 27 Jan 2009 to 30 Jan 2009

Applications are now open!

Asia-Pacific Week brings together hundreds of PhD candidates from Australia and overseas to workshop projects, to benefit from master classes and form networks committed to understanding the world's most dynamic region.

Since its inception in 2004, Asia-Pacific Week has become a signature event for postgraduates in Australia and for scholars of the region. In 2008, 200 doctoral candidates took part, along with three dozen senior scholars.

Asia Pacific Week is a container for a number of "Graduate Summer Schools" focusing on different areas of the Asia-Pacific region (the Pacific Islands, China, Japan, Indonesia, South Asia, Mainland Southeast Asia and East Timor).

During a week of activities, graduate students have a chance to present their research interests, meet other students and academics, participate in a wide range of training activities, be introduced to the rich holdings on Asia and the Pacific at the ANU Library and the National Library of Australia and participate in a stimulating program of events including cross-area workshops, keynote speeches, seminars and master classes, film screenings, cultural performances and social events.

Web Link: rspas.anu.edu.au/asiapacificweek

CFP - Cultural Histories of Sociability, Spaces and Mobility (York U, UK; 9-11 July 2009) Deadline: 28 Nov 2008

2008-08-13T13:18:00.000+10:00

University of York Department of History Cultural History Conference 2009
Cultural Histories of Sociability, Spaces and Mobility
9-11 July 2009

Deadline 28 November 2008

Spatial mobility has moved to the centre of lively debates in a number of key areas of social inquiry. Terms such as `travel', `mobility', `displacement', `diaspora', `frontier', `transience', `dislocation', `fluidity' and `permeability' are central to thinking about the nature of subjectivity and hence the formation of identity on any number of geographical scales and social dimensions. In particular, some scholars argue that the contemporary meaning and practice of what it is to belong is changing as new technologies of transport, along with communications, help to reduce the power of traditional places to define personal and communal identities. Some commentators even suggest that unparalleled
levels of mobility are shaping a `post-societal' world of extreme individualization in which nation-states and civil societies are being replaced by global `citizens' moving endlessly through worldwide `networks and flows'. Critics argue that this assumption of unbounded movement and geographically fluid identities is unwarranted, and that what matters is understanding how inequalities of mobility arise and with what consequences for social equity and ecological sustainability. But without a sure grasp of the historical precedents to these scenarios, it is all too easy to misconstrue the significance of the changes that are taking place.

>> FOR MORE CONFERENCE INFORMATION, the full Call for Papers is HERE.

NEW RESOURCE - Kem Lee Photograph Archive Now Available

2008-08-13T13:13:00.000+10:00

One of Two Major Asian American Photograph Collections Recently Processed and Made Available for Research

The Ethnic Studies Library at the University of California, Berkeley has recently completed the processing of a major archive of San Francisco Chinatown photographs. This is one of two significant photograph collections that the library owns. These two collections are most likely the two largest Asian American photograph collections held in a public institution. The Kem Lee Photograph Archive project received funding for two years from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission to process approximately 200,000 images. The images document San Francisco’s Chinatown from the 1940s to the 1980s. The electronic finding aid for these images is in the Online Archive of California, which is maintained by the California Digital Library. The second major photograph archive contains over 240,000 images and was produced by Henry Woon, who documented Asian Americans in San Francisco and the East Bay from the 1950s to about 2000.

Mr. Kem Lee was an artist, a freelance professional photographer and a photojournalist for several Chinese community newspapers, such as Chinese World, Chinese Times and Young China, and official photographer for the Miss Chinatown U.S.A. and New Year pageant parades in San Francisco. Because he was also the owner of a photograph studio in Chinatown, he had an unparalleled opportunity to capture all aspects of the Chinese American experience in San Francisco, including beauty contests, businesses and businesspeople, family association events, festivals, movie stars, political and student organizations, prominent Chinese Americans, and wedding and family portraits. In particular, he captured one of the most important historical events for the Chinese American community, the naming of China as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

Mr. Henry Woon was an amateur and freelance photographer and photojournalist for East West newspaper and Asian Week. In 1956, he graduated from the University of California at Berkeley, having majored in political science with a minor in art. After graduating from Technical High School, Mr. Woon joined the Army during World War II. During the Korean War, he re-entered the Army again as an Army Chinese interpreter. He experienced the harsh realities of racial prejudice and war in the army. The prejudice made him realize the importance of documenting the Asian American community and the people of color of the Bay area and how they contributed to the richness of the country they loved. In contrast to the Kem Lee archive, the Woon archive includes a broad coverage of various ethnic groups and topics in the Bay Area, including book talks at libraries, community street fairs, war protests, family association events, prominent people and politician visits, and UC Berkeley student and alumni activities among other topics.

Together the Lee and Woon photographic archives record the history of Asian American life in the Bay Area for a period of over sixty years. They also constitute a public record of events in this unique ethnic American community, whose history, though reminiscent of the history of many other groups in our nation of immigrants, has not yet been well-documented. Kem Lee and Henry Woon documented their struggles, their political growth, their changing culture, and their vanishing generations. They also preserved their accomplishments, their milestones, their faces, their family relationships, and their collective pride in their community.

There is a growing demand for Asian American primary documents, such as photographs, in university courses and among worldwide researchers. The completion of the project to process the Kem Lee photographs goes a long way to meet that need. However, the Ethnic Studies Library is actively seeking funding to process and preserve its second major photograph collection, the Henry Woon archive.

Please contact the Asian American Studies Librarian, Wei Chi Poon at wcpoon@library.berkeley.edu or 510-642-2000 for more information on how you can help the Ethnic Studies Library tell “the rest of the story.”

UPCOMING EVENTS - Mayu Kanamori

2008-08-07T16:22:00.002+10:00

Upcoming events and shows for artist/photographer Mayu Kanamori


AUGUST

1. The Island of Ancients - Photographic Exhibition
SEE: http://www.mayu.com.au/folio/islandOfTheAncients/index.html

2. "In Repose" in Broome - Multi arts project - Performance, visual art, music and soundscape
SEE: http://www.mayu.com.au/folio/inRepose/index.html



SEPTEMBER 

1. Public Lecture at the University of Melbourne

'Growing Roots' in the land of Australia: The perspective of a migrant Japanese artist 

As a first generation migrant in Australia, Mayu believes it is vital to hold dialogues with the indigenous peoples of this land and deepen our connection with Australia's land and it's spaces. Through the interplay of images and stories, she uncovers similarities between Japanese and Indigenous spiritualities.

Thursday, 4 September, 6-7pm
J.H. Mitchell Theatre, Richard Berry Building (Building 160)
Parkville Campus, University of Melbourne

2. Mayu's documentary CHIKA screened as part of OzAsia Festival
SEE: http://chika.asia/index.html



NOVEMBER

1. In Repose in Thursday Island - dates yet to be finalised 
SEE: http://www.mayu.com.au for updates

NEW EXHIBITION - Yin-Yang: China in Australia (National Trust, Sydney; 8 Aug - 28 Sept 08)

2008-08-06T14:45:00.000+10:00

Yin-Yang: China in Australia is an exhibition examining the cross-cultural interaction between China and Australia. Presented by the National Trust S.H. Ervin Gallery and curated by Dr Zeny Edwards and Joanna Capon, the exhibition explores the important contribution of the Chinese people in the shaping of Australia. It is a timely examination of the engagement between the two cultures and coincides with the Olympic Games in Beijing.

The exhibition features works by renowned artists Ian Fairweather, Margaret Preston, Mortimer Menpes & William Hardy Wilson.

The work of contemporary artists from both Chinese and Australian backgrounds demonstrates the development of the creative discourse between these two countries up to the present. Works by Tim Johnson, Jiawei Shen, William Yang, Lindy Lee and Narelle Jubelin will be presented.

A full colour exhibition catalogue featuring essays by James Broadbent, Joanna Capon, Zeny Edwards, Kylie Kwong, Helen O’Neill, Peter Valder & Jane Watters is available for purchase.

For full information and program of attendant cultural events, see the official Yin-Yang: China in Australia site.

FESTIVAL - 25th Anniversary of Multicultural Arts Victoria - 9 Oct 2008 (Federation Sq)

2008-08-04T16:23:00.000+10:00

Multicultural Arts Victoria presents

MULTICULTURAL ARTS VICTORIA 25th BIRTHDAY - Melbourne International Arts Festival Opening (the Birthday Party)

Thursday 9 October 2008, from 6.00pm
Federation Square (free entry)

The year 2008 marks two significant occasions, the 25th anniversary of the unique cultural organisation Multicultural Arts Victoria (MAV) and the opening of 23rd Melbourne International Arts Festival.

As part of the 25th anniversary, Multicultural Arts Victoria and the Melbourne International Arts Festival have combined forces to present, a massive free concert at Federation Square on Thursday October 9th from 6pm.

Details: http://www.multiculturalarts.com.au/

Proudly supported by the Victorian Multicultural Commission (VMC).

Enquiries: Multicultural Arts Victoria, eo@multiculturalarts.com.au, Tel: (03) 9417 6777

CFP - EMPA's Annual Postgrad Symposium (16-17 Oct 2008; UNSW) Deadline: 1 Sept 2008

2008-08-04T15:50:00.000+10:00

CFP

EMPA’S Annual Postgraduate Symposium
16th and 17th October 2008

Living Memory: Remembering, Reinventing and Forgetting

Memory is not an instrument for exploring the past but its theatre. It is the medium of past experience, as the ground is the medium in which dead cities lie interred.
– Walter Benjamin

One of the most significant and exciting recent developments in the contemporary humanities has been the rapidly expanding preoccupation with the study of memory. Memory has the capacity to challenge the idea of truth and to rewrite empirical histories. In an age of digital reproduction, globalization, trans-nationalism and increasing challenges to the metanarratives of history, memory has the potential to destabilize the past and reshape the present. In one way or another Literature, Music, Visual Art and Performance have always traded in the tensions between memory and history, truth and falsehood, the objective and subjective. But is memory more than a deconstructive tool? What is memory itself? How do we write, dance, figure, or perform memory? What is the relation between memory and history, and what role do art, music performance and the body play in preserving or re-writing the past?

The School of English, Media and Performing Arts at UNSW welcomes proposals from postgraduate students and encourages engagement with an array of critical and creative approaches to this year’s theme. Key words that may inform your proposal include:

Affect Image Simulacram

Amnesia Mnemonics Simulation

Aural Memory Monument Sound

Cognition Nation Temporality

Creative Process Nostalgia Time

Delusion Oral Memory Unconscious

Dementia Preservation Vision

Diaspora Prosthetic Memory Visual Memory

Embodiment Reparation Waste

Hearing Representation Wound

Identity Sexual Memory Youth

To register your interest, please email a 250 word abstract, as a Word document, to Chiara Gamboz at unsw.empa.pg@gmail.com no later than 1 September 2008.

Please include a title of your work, your name, institution, email address and contact details. Proposals for academic papers, creative works and performance pieces all welcome. Presentations are for 20 minutes.

Registration is free.

DOCUMENTARY - Invisible City

2008-07-31T13:00:00.000+10:00

A documentary by Singapore's Tan Pin Pin.

WHEN: SUNDAY 10 August 2008, 3-5pm.
WHERE: The Astor Cinema, Beaufort Street, Mt Lawley.

==> For full information, download this PDF flyer for Invisible City.