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

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

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 mid–eighties, 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

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)

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)

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)

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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)

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)

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

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

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.

NEW POETRY BOOK - Ouyang Yu - "Reality Dreams"

Reality Dreams is a new book of poetry by Ouyang Yu, published by Picaro Press. It's available for $15.00, plus postage, Australia-wide.

What is reality? What are dreams? What are reality dreams or dream realities? These poems collected here are a profound exploration into the borderlands of dream and reality where the two become one and death re-dies, only to live again.

The original manuscript consists of 218 poems but this prepared manuscript comprises only 117 poems.

Enquiries to jcjohnson@iinet.net.au

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

These unsettling, breezily imaginative poems are reminiscent of deep-night jottings in an analysand’s bedside notebook. In Reality Dreams Ouyang Yu cooks up something much more complex than a simple surrealist recipe. Once you enter his dreamworld, his stunning imagery never lets you drift off. This poetry is perplexing, comical, sometimes elegiac, sometimes mysterious, often frankly visceral, sexy and sensual. Here, in one world-weary reverie, Australia is ‘so deadly boring, so boringly dead’ that we can only hope that a fearsome Chinese phantom might suddenly awaken the entire place by shouting thunderously loudly, ‘Onya Ouyang!’
— Pam Brown

Ouyang Yu’s poetry takes energy — a kind of fission — from the forced collision of Chinese and English, of Chinese and Western conventions, habits of thought, and manners of expression. A definite energy and vigour arise from their enjambement. The facture can be deliberately rough and direct, offering opportunity for wonderful elisions of scene and logic that these dream poems enable. The poems reflect an urgent attempt at orientation, a navigation of the foreign, and of the familiar becoming strange.
— Ken Bolton

FILM FESTIVAL - Gulmohar: South Asian Queer Film Festival 2008 (Sydney; 15-17 August)

Gulmohar: South Asian Queer Film Festival 2008

WHEN: August 15 to 17, 2008
WHERE: MCC, 96 Crystal Street, Petersham, Sydney

http://www.mccsydney.org/SAQFF

An explosion of queer colour comes to Sydney this August with the inaugural South Asian Queer Film Festival, Gulmohar.

The three-day festival kicks off on 15 August 2008 to coincide with India’s 61st Independence day, and is bound to create controversy back home in India where private consensual sex between same-sex partners is still a criminal offence.

With a mix of films, short films and documentaries, Trikone Australasia hopes to increase visibility of the queer South Asian community in Australia and also send a message to South Asian countries, such as India and Bangladesh, where an individual’s choice of being in a same-sex relationship is still seen as a crime. “The aim of the festival is visibility, voice, vision,” says festival director Sadhana Jethanandani. “With Gulmohar, we want to increase visibility of the South Asian queer community in Australia. Voice their emotions and express their feeling through films about and made in South Asian countries. And ultimately become part of the
global vision of providing equal rights to the South Asian LGBQT community,” adds Jethanandani.

We are very honoured and excited to announce that, the festival will be opened by Anton Enus. A broadcast journalist with more than 20 years' experience, Anton currently presents the World News on SBS. He was a founding member of South Africa's gay and lesbian sports movement in the early 1980s and he has also served on committees aimed at reconciling Johannesburg's multi-cultural gay and lesbian communities.

One of the highlights of the festival is, of course, the Australian premier of the highly provocative Indo-UK flick, Yours Emotionally (2006), which kicks off the festival on Friday 15 August. It tells the story of two UK-born boys, Ravi and Paul, who visit India for a holiday and witness an all-night gay-sex party.

Trikone Australasia is a registered non-profit organization set up in 2007. It aims to offer a supportive, empowering and non-judgemental environment, where queer South Asians can meet, make connections and proudly promote awareness and acceptance of their sexuality in society.

ENQUIRIES & INTERVIEWS, CONTACT:
ALAN MAURICE alan.maurice@yahoo.com.au
ROOPALI PANDEY roopalipandey@yahoo.com

POSTDOCS - Research Fellowships for Women - Uni of Queensland (Closes 18 August 2008)

University of Queensland Postdoctoral Research Fellowships for Women 2009

The University of Queensland (UQ) invites applications for three Postdoctoral Research Fellowships for Women to commence in 2009. The Fellowships are open to women with a PhD or equivalent qualification, whose academic careers have been interrupted, delayed or otherwise constrained by family or other responsibilities. This includes applicants who are precluded from applying for postdoctoral research fellowships in locations elsewhere. One fellowship is for full-time research over a period of three years while the other two are for half-time research over a period of three years. The research must be conducted at the University of Queensland in any of its disciplines.

The selection process will consider the alignment of the proposed research with research areas of existing strength, or research areas that Faculties/Institutes wish to develop as priorities.

The three Postdoctoral Research Fellowships for Women have been developed in accordance with the University’s research strategy to introduce special initiatives to advance women in research. The purpose of the Fellowships is to assist eligible women to enhance/re-establish their academic research careers.

To be eligible, applicants must possess a PhD degree or equivalent postgraduate experience; demonstrate clearly how their careers have been interrupted, delayed or otherwise constrained by family or other responsibilities (normally of a care-related nature); and possess Australian citizenship or permanent residency status.

Successful appointees are expected to commence in early 2009. The current salary range for the award is A$60,391 – A$64,827 p.a. (full-time) and approximately A$30,195 - A$32,413 p.a. (half-time), plus 17% superannuation. Each appointee will be entitled to maintenance funds of A$20,000 over the term of the Fellowship to support research costs. Appointees relocating from interstate or overseas will be entitled to reimbursement of travel and relocation costs.

For further information please refer to the Research and Research Training Division website: http://www.uq.edu.au/research/rrtd/fellowships.

Applications close: 18 August 2008

EXHIBITION - From Mao to Now - Now showing!

From Mao to Now

Exhibition now showing!
Every weekend, 28 June - 28 Sept 2008.

Chinese sport and propaganda posters and contemporary artists' responses to modern China.

Presented by the Sydney Olympic Park Authority to celebrate the Beijing Olympic Games, this historical exhibition provides insights into the events that shaped the lives of millions of Chinese people from the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in August 1949 to the present day.

Featuring the work of 75 artists and three collaborative projects from China, Europe, Australia and the Asia Pacific, the exhibition comprises 65 propaganda posters from the Mao era and contemporary paintings, sculptures, installations and audio visual works that respond to modern China. Discover the history of China’s recent past through this fascinating exhibition.

>> For more information, visit the exhibition link HERE.

CFP - Australasia - Asia: Change, Conflict, Convergence (Kandy, Sri Lanka; 2-5 Dec 2008)

The Association for the Study of Australasia in Asia (ASAA) is organising an international conference on Australian Studies at Kandy, Sri Lanka on 2-5 December 2008.

Abstracts not exceeding 200 words should reach a member of the Conference Committee by 20th August 2008. Papers should not exceed twenty five minutes in delivery although they could be amplified before publication.

>> The conference flyer can be downloaded from HERE (pdf).

CONFERENCE - Race, Nation, History: A Conference in Honour of Henry Reynolds (NLA, Canberra; 29-30 Aug 2008)

Race, Nation, History: A Conference in Honour of Henry Reynolds
29-30 August 2008

Convened by:
Professor Bain Attwood, Monash University and Professor Tom Griffiths, ANU

Venue:
National Library of Australia, Canberra

For more information, plus registration form, program and abstracts go to the conference website: Race, Nation, History.

AUTHOR TALK - Ouyang Yu (Readings, Carlton)

Ouyang Yu talks about his new book at Readings Bookshop, Carlton

13 August 2008

Supported by Asialink, University of Melbourne.

Culturally diverse, On the Smell of an Oily Rag: speaking English, thinking Chinese and living Australian (Wakefield Press, 2008) draws examples from low and high culture and from the everyday and the literary life.

Ouyang Yu shows that they are closer together than we usually think. Based on the unique biji xiaoshuo (pen-notes fiction) genre and written in an accessible, readable and deliberately un-academic style, On the Smell of an Oily Rag is a seminal non-fiction book that creates its own genre of what Ouyang Yu calls, biji feixiaoshuo (pen-notes non-fiction), in its exploration of cultural, linguistic and literary similarities, differences and parallels between the English and the Chinese language in a distinctly Australian context. Ouyang edits Australia’s only Chinese literary journal, Otherland, and writes and teaches part-time in China and Australia.

EVENT DETAILS:
Wednesday 13 August, 6.30pm
Readings, Carlton

Free, but please book on 03 9347 6633.

NEW ISSUES and CFP - Colloquy 15, 16, 17 - "Alternative Visions: Philosophies of Freedom in South Asian Diasporic Writing

The latest issue of Colloquy is online. Please have a look at http://www.colloquy.monash.edu.au

This issue publishes general articles plus a section devoted to the Crisis of Memory. There are also many book reviews, a translation, essays and creative pieces. Issue 16, due out in December, will feature articles devoted to Walter Benjamin's "Force of Law."

CFP:

Colloquy is presently seeking unsolicited submissions for Issue 17 as well as submissions that consider the theme "Alternative Visions: Philosophies of Freedom in South Asian Diasporic Writing." Students of postcolonial studies should find this area of particular interest, although as always Colloquy remains open to researchers from all areas of the humanities with a focus on critical inquiry and creative responses. This issue will be guest edited by Elin-Maria Evangelista, Isabella Ofner and Pooja Mittal.

This issue will also feature select postgraduate papers from the Communications and Media Studies conference, to be held in August 2008, on International and Intercultural Communications in the Age of Digital Media. These papers will consider current understandings of globalization and the most pressing questions facing media and communications scholars today, including relations between the empirical and the theoretical in media cultures in action, what ideas we use to make sense of them, and whether or not disciplinarity is even still a workable idea.

For more information about forthcoming issues and CFPs, please read the editorial of Issue 15 and check the Colloquy website from time to time for further announcements.

Regards, The Editors.

PUBLICATION - Yellow Peril: Collecting Xenophobia

Asian/Pacific/American Institute publication
Yellow Peril: Collecting Xenophobia
A Visual Essay from the Yoshio Kishi / Irene Yah Ling Sun Collection, Fales Library & Special Collections, New York University

Now available online for purchase!
100% of all proceeds go to the A/P/A Institute Graduate Assistant in Archives Fellowship

Yellow Peril: Collecting Xenophobia is a visual essay commemorating the "Archivist of the Yellow Peril: Yoshio Kishi Collecting for a New America" exhibition held at A/P/A Institute in 2005 and 2006, which was curated by John Kuo Wei Tchen with assistance from NYU alumni Dylan Yeats and Anne Kim. The book features images of yellow peril items that were on display and are in the Yoshio Kishi / Irene Yah Ling Sun Collection (made possible in large part by a donation made in memory of Dr. Wei Yu Chen) and provides a historical context/explanation of yellow peril and how this phenomenon came to be. Essay written by Dylan Yeats, Foreword by John Kuo Wei Tchen, photographs by Peter Wing (see the project portfolio on his website HERE), and book designed by Kiku Yamaguchi, BabyAlpaca Design, this beautiful publication is for sale for $18 from A/P/A Institute only, and all proceeds go towards funding the stipend portion of the Graduate Assistantship in A/PA Archives. For more information, email apa.archives@nyu.edu or call (212) 998-3700.

To purchase copies of Yellow Peril: Collecting Xenophobia, visit: http://www.apa.nyu.edu/yellowperil/