CFP - ASAL Conference 2007: 'The Colonial Present : Australian Writing for the 21st Century' (1-4 July 2007; University of Queensland)

The 2007 ASAL (Association for the Study of Australian Literature) conference will explore 'the temporal continuum of a past that "is not even past", and the austral convergences of literatures across the Southern hemisphere'.

Proposals for 20-minute papers are invited on the following themes:

• legacies, complicities and implications across the South;
• transnational and postcolonial frameworks in current criticism;
• the role of testimony, memoir and life narrative;
• the presence of poetry;
• the historical novel and millennial writing.

Please send 300-word abstracts along with a brief biography to:

Gillian Whitlock (g.whitlock@uq.edu.au) or

Chris Tiffin (C.Tiffin@uq.edu.au)

by 23 February 2007.

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

Notice for Postgraduates: Partial Financial Assistance

Postgraduates may apply to the conference convenors of ASAL 2007 for financial assistance towards the cost of essential travel and accommodation.

Applications should include:

• details of the degree in which you are enrolled;
• an estimate/quote of anticipated expenses; and
• notice of any financial support that may be provided by your institution (or other sources).

ASAL's policy is to award financial assistance to postgraduates on the basis of:

a. The demonstrated necessity of the funding.
b. The applicant's distance from the proposed activity.
c. The acceptance of the abstract detailing the applicant's proposed conference paper.

Preference will be given to applicants who are not in a position to receive funding from other sources. Postgraduates wanting to apply should signal their interest when they submit their abstracts to the convenors.

CFP - Edited book - Everyday Multiculturalism (Deadline for abstracts: 16 Feb 2007)

EVERYDAY MULTICULTURALISM
Amanda Wise & Selvaraj Velayutham (editors)

Following a successful conference on Everyday Multiculturalism organised by the Centre for Research on Social Inclusion at Macquarie University, Australia, we have received expressions of interest from a number of publishers keen on publishing a collection on this topic. They have encouraged us to attract a good international spread of papers. While research on multiculturalism and racism is well developed, qualitative research into everyday modes of lived multiculturalism remains fairly limited. We invite papers that explore quotidian experiences of cultural difference and diversity. Quotidian diversity has been variously described as 'togetherness-in-difference' (Ang 2000), and 'inhabiting difference' (Hage 1998). We take the term to mean those perspectives on cultural diversity which recognize the embodied or inhabited nature of living with cultural difference.

We welcome expressions of interest from scholars doing grounded research on the topic of multiculturalism which explores the ways in which people experience and (dis)engage with cultural difference using case studies from around the world but which also make broader theoretical points relevant beyond the locality involved. Accessible theoretical papers which engage with the concept of the everyday are also welcome.

We are interested in papers that explore the intersections and relationships between cultural groups, rather than research taking a single ethnic group as a focus.

Papers can also examine:

• Interconnections between the everyday and larger discourses of multiculturalism and nation;
• Everyday affinities and solidarities
• Everyday disjunctures, discomforts, and racisms between cultures;
• Modes of living with and across difference in cities, suburbia or regional areas;
• Food, neighbouring, shopping, school, sport, etc. as sites for multicultural encounters and negotiations at the neighbourhood level;
• Multicultural place-sharing and battles over place identity and belonging.

Perspectives from any discipline are welcome, especially sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, and human geography. Please send a proposed title, a 500 word abstract and a short bio by 16 February 2007 to Banu Senay - banu.senay@scmp.mq.edu.au

Accepted contributions (5-7,000) words will have to be completed by 31 July 2007 with a view to publication in early 2008.

For all enquiries please contact:
Dr Selvaraj Velayutham - selvaraj.velayutham@mq.edu.au
or
Dr Amanda Wise - amanda.wise@mq.edu.au

REPORT - "Transnational Dialogues on Bollywood" by Amit Sarwal (Conference held 30 Nov 2006; Melbourne)

On Thursday 30th November 2006, The Australian National University and Monash University jointly organised a one-day conference titled “Transnational Dialogues on Bollywood: Australian Perspectives” at the Monash Law Chambers, Melbourne.

The convenors of this conference, Debjani Ganguly (ANU) and Andrew Hassam (Monash University) succeeded in bringing together a group of scholars from India (Makarand Paranjape, Anjali Gera Roy, Nagamallika G.) and Australia (Andrew Hassam, Debjani Ganguly, Vijay Mishra, Goldie Osuri) to “explore the transnational impact of Bollywood on public spheres around the globe and to assess its contribution to creative industries in Australia.”

The conference addressed the following themes, with particular reference to the Australian context:

• Transnational circulation of Bollywood as a marker of Indianness
• Bollywood as a shared cultural idiom among the Indian diaspora
• Translation of Bollywood themes, genres, styles into various popular cultural forms around the world (e.g. the Melbourne Commonwealth Games, new media art, intercultural youth films)
• Impact of Bollywood on material culture, such as food, fashion and fitness
• Production, distribution and reception of Bollywood films
• Bollywood’s contribution to creative industries

>>> READ AMIT SARWAL'S FULL REPORT (MS-Word doc).

Please Note:
A follow-up workshop is in the process of being planned for January 2008 at the Centre for English Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Scholars who are interested in participating can contact Prof. Makarand Paranjape for more information: makarand@mail.jnu.ac.in or makarand.paranjape@gmail.com

CFP - Moving Cultures, Shifting Identities conference (3-5 Dec 2007; Flinders U, SA)

This conference will examine issues of migration, transnational connection, displacement heritage, global space and cultural memory created by the movements of peoples between cultures in the modern world.

Moving Cultures, Shifting Identities will explore the cultural connections between homelands and new lands, and the complexities of reshaping cultural identities and shifting allegiances between cultures of departure and cultures of arrival. The conference will have three main streams:

1. The public policy stream will cover issues of economics, population, forced migration, security, “core values”, education and the managing of cultural impacts of migration.

2. The history of migration stream will include sessions on pre- and post-World War Two migration, recent arrivals and diasporic communities.

3. The Cultural Migration stream will include sessions on memory, writing, language, cultural maintenance and sustainability, and the plurality of migrant identities.

Conference themes
Papers are invited on the following:
• The demographics of people flow: who moves where? And why?
• Forced migration in the Asia Pacific
• Cultural, political and economic factors shaping migration. How are connections made?
• Bordering the nation: migration and national security
• Transnationalism, citizenship and sovereignty
• Gender and generational issues in the migration experience
• Linguistics, diaspora and migration• Settling down, settlement patterns and return migration
• Can multi-cultures and multi-ethnicities produce one nation?
• Multiculturalism
• Language maintenance in the new culture
• Foodways
• Migration, place and situated identities
• Connections with the new place and (re)negotiating with the old
• Home and Away: What is transferred from the home culture to the new culture? What cannot fit in the baggage?
• Imaginary homelands: life-writing, creative writing and film responses to the migration experience
• Unsettlement: the idea of the settler colony
• Cultural memory: heritage and exchange
• Transplanted cultures as tourist attractions
• Fusion, “cultural hybridity”, cosmopolitanism

Guest speakers
The conference will feature plenary session addresses by leading international scholars in the field, as well as parallel presentations by researchers and policy-makers.

Proposals for panel sessions will be considered as well as abstracts for individual papers. Panel proposals should include a theme for the session, the names of all speakers, the titles of their papers, and a session summary of 250-300 words.

Abstracts of 250-300 words should be submitted for each paper, whether they are included in a panel session proposal or not. Where abstracts are intended for a proposed panel session, this should be indicated on the abstract.

Abstracts and session proposals should be sent to:
Nena Bierbaum
School of Humanities
Flinders University
GPO Box 2100
Adelaide, South Australian 5001

or by email to nena.bierbaum@flinders.edu.au by 31 March 2007.

All abstracts will be refereed. Further information may be obtained from the Flinders Humanities Research Centre for Cultural Heritage and Cultural Exchange website.

Moving Cultures, Shifting Identities is a conference organised by the Flinders Humanities Research Centre for Cultural Heritage and Cultural Exchange, the Centre for Research into New Literatures in English (CRNLE) and Flinders International Asia Pacific (FIAP).

CONFERENCE CONTACT
Nena Bierbaum, School of Humanities, Flinders University, SA.
Ph: (+61 8) 82012578 or 82012257
Fax: (+61 8) 82013635

NEW SPECIAL ISSUE - ACRAWSA E-Journal "Queer Race"

NOTE: For access to full text, ACRAWSA membership is required. Visit the ACRAWSA site for more information.

Special Issue: "Queer Race" 2.2 (2006)
Edited by Damien W. Riggs

You can view issue abstracts HERE.

Of particular interest to Asian Australian Studies are the following:

"THE (GAY) SCENE OF RACISM: FACE, SHAME AND GAY ASIAN MALES"
GILBERT CALUYA
As adept as we have become in tracing the discursive and institutional contours of contemporary Australian racisms, such a focus sometimes shifts attention away from the ‘lived experience’ of racism, in Fanon’s sense. What does it mean to face racism? What does it mean for gay Asian men to face racism on the gay scene? How is it possible to face racism? Indeed, do we face racism or does racism ‘face’ us? Drawing on autoethnographic research, this essay focuses on the lived experience of anti-Asian racism on the gay scene. It analyses cultural examples of racial wounding on the gay scene to tease out the constitutive role of shame for gay Asian men’s racial-sexual subjectivities.

"WHAT A DRAG! FILIPINA/WHITE AUSTRALIAN RELATIONS IN THE ADVENTURES OF PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT"
ELAINE LAFORTEZA
This paper tracks the ways in which the deployment of Orientalist logic (in)forms the Australian film The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert (1994) and responses to the film. I argue that Orientalism within Priscilla privileges a white hegemony that denies the potentialities of queer as destabilising normative coherence. I focus on the white protagonists’ relationship with Cynthia, the Filipina character, in order to interrogate how whiteness and Orientalism (in)forms their contact with one another, and I process queer (to a heterosexist social order) characters as normative protagonists because of their whiteness. Here, I insinuate my own readings of the film to show that while Orientalist whiteness shapes the film, it also produces and is produced by perceptual practices that deploy investments in and/or resignify the scope of white Orientalism. I track this simultaneous affirmation and reconceptualisation of normative structures through the characters’ use of drag. Such impermanence maintains whiteness as the speaking/subject position. Consequently, queer potentialities for extending the scope of white Orientalism cannot eventuate. This paper pushes towards recognising whiteness and Orientalism as integral facets of queerness within Priscilla and through responses to the film. With this, the multiple ways in which queer identities are experienced can be addressed.

"I THINK YOU’RE THE SMARTEST RACE I’VE EVER MET: RACIALISED ECONOMIES OF QUEER MALE DESIRE"
ALAN HAN
This paper explores how queer white men become both the desiring subjects and desirable objects of the queer male gaze. By analysing the personal experiences of queer Asian men, this paper argues that queer white men claim possession of desire as capital through racialised economies of queer male desire. These economies privilege queer white men by racialising queer Asian men and other non-white queer men, and ascribes them desirability according to the queer white male gaze. By racialising nonwhite queer men, queer white men’s whiteness is unracialised, and so, conceals their possession of desire as a white possession. I argue that it is only by exploring how queer white men claim possession of desire as capital within these racialised economies of queer male desire, that we can consider how they dominate the queer male gaze.

CULTURAL EVENT - Chutney Generations (Liverpool Regional Museum, NSW; 16 December 2006)

Join us for Chutney Generations> on Saturday 16 December from 4 - 8pm
Liverpool Regional Museum, cnr Congressional Drive and Hume Highway.

Chutney, a salsa of tamarind, mint, coriander or tomato ground together into a tangy flavour is the metaphor for the cultural extravaganza that is Chutney Generations.

The exhibition celebrates the heritage of the Australian-Fijian-Indian commmunity, Liverpool’s largest ethnic group, while highlighting their contribution towards multicultural Australia.

Join us for what promises to be a fun and interactive day of dancing, live music, fashion parades, food sampling, henna painting and sari wearing.

To be officially launched by Paul Lynch MP, Member for Liverpool.

Free event. RSVPs appreciated by Wed 13 December.
phone: (02) 9821 1121, email: reception@casulapowerhouse.com
www.casulapowerhouse.com

RECENT SPECIAL JOURNAL ISSUE - Journal of Chinese Australia ("Rituals, ceremonies and processions")

The special issue of Journal of Chinese Australia titled, "Rituals, ceremonies and processions," was published in October 2006.

Articles include:

• Michael Williams, "Departed friends."
• Kevin Wong Hoy and Patricia Monaghan-Jamieson, "Chinese feasts and festivals in colonial Australia."
• Drew Cottle and Angela Keys, "Building the bridge of solidarity: The politics of the Chinese Youth League in Australia, 1939-73."
• Cora Trevarthen, "After the gold is gone: Chinese communities in northeast Victoria, 1861-1914."

JCA is an online journal dedicated to providing access to research and resources on the history and culture of Chinese people in Australia. It is a place for family and community researchers, historians and students to share their ideas and questions.

NEW JOURNAL ISSUE - Issue 2 of Aotearoa Ethnic Network Journal launched

Issue 2 of the AEN Journal was formally launched yesterday at Creative New Zealand's Auckland Office.

Now available online, the issue focuses on creativity, identity and ethnicity. A timely topic considering that national identity is one of three strategic policy goals of government. This new issue is infused with contributions from writers, poets, visual artists and film makers. We contextualise this with writing by leading academics, an architect and from creative organisations and the museum sector.

The AEN Journal includes poetry, prose and visual arts. It presents a diverse array of ideas, with twenty articles drawn from Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, Hawaii and the UK.

Contributors include the Governor General Anand Satyanand, Athena Gavriel, Catherine Nesus, Ellen Altschuler, Fe Sarmiento, Helen Bartle, Hye Rim Lee, Ian Clothier, Jameela Siddiqi, Julie Roberts, Karlo Mila, Mallika Krishnamurthy, Manase Lua, Natasha Beckman, Nigel Murphy, 'Okusitino Mahina, Pip Cheshire, Robert Sullivan, Sandor Lau, Sapna Samant, Sean Cubitt, Te Aouru Biddle and Vicky Te Puhi-o-Te Arawa Rangi.

This issue of the AEN Journal makes the point that creativity builds bridges and creates understanding within and between people.

Edited and designed by Wairua Consulting's Andy Williamson and Ruth DeSouza, the AEN Journal aims to create a space for critical conversations that help us shape an exciting and ethnically diverse New Zealand.

Wairua Consulting is proud to be a member of Te Ngira: The NZ Diversity Action Programme.

The AEN Journal is a free open-access journal and can be read online or download as individual articles or in full from http://journal.aen.org.nz

NEW PUBLICATION - First International Conference of Asian Queer Studies proceedings now online

This special issue of Intersections has emerged from the conference "Sexualities, Genders, and Rights in Asia: 1st International Conference of Asian Queer Studies," held in Bangkok, 7-9 July 2005.

It features articles by conference presenters, including both papers presented at the conference and new work. This issue also contains reviews of twelve recent works in the field of Asian Queer Studies, as well as arts reviews and poetry.

Next year’s “Queer Asian Sites Conference” (UTS, Sydney; 22-23 Feb 2007) is supported by the Cultural Research Network. The event is organised by AsiaPacifiQueer members Mark McLelland, Fran Martin and Audrey Yue.

RESEARCH DATABASE - The Cronulla riots and their aftermath

Dear all,

You are invited to contribute to an informal research database focusing on the Cronulla riots and their aftermath.

The Centre for Research on Social Inclusion at Macquarie University has been invited to compile this research database by a consortium of government and community services providers working in the Sutherland Shire. These include the Community Relations Commission For a multicultural NSW, Shire Wide Youth Services and Sutherland Shire Council.

This has established a Research Steering Committee, in which CRSI participates as the academic partner. The Committee has identified the need for cutting-edge research to be made available to those who are working on the ground in Cronulla, in the belief that their work could benefit from the insights of academic researchers and other experts.

We are therefore seeking to establish a comprehensive database of all research that has been undertaken, or that is currently being undertaken, on the causes and impacts the Cronulla riots, and on ways to address the aftermath of those riots. We are interested in research from both the academic and community sectors.

The database will include both synopses (250 words up to one A4 page) and where possible electronic copies of the following kinds of works:

• In-progress and completed research projects
• Planned research, including proposed research projects for which funds have been applied, but the funding outcome is not yet known
• Published and unpublished reports
• Published and unpublished papers of any kind (eg conference papers, seminar papers, journal articles, book chapters)
• Reports and papers that are works in progress, abstracts, outlines of projects, etc.
• Evaluations of community intervention projects related to the Cronulla riots
• Community surveys of any kind (from the academic and community sectors) related to the riots

We would like to invite you to provide us with any of the above, or other, kinds of research that you may be involved in or aware of. We would also like to ask if you could kindly forward this email to your colleagues.

Please note that the references and works will be uploaded onto a secure password protected intranet that will be accessible only to a small circle of practitioners involved in government and community services dealing with the impact of the riots. The intranet is being developed by the Centre for Research on Social Inclusion.

The use of password protected intranet will ensure that any works in progress or unpublished works are kept confidential. Unpublished work will only be quoted or used formally with the permission of the author.

The research will be used solely to assist the participating community organisations to gain a greater insight into the causes and impacts of the riots; to help them plan intervention projects; and to develop appropriate policy responses.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Dr Amanda Wise, who is leading this project, on Amanda.wise@scmp.mq.edu.au

Please make submissions by email to me at crsi@scmp.mq.edu.au

Thanking you.

Yours sincerely,
Dr Armen Gakavian - Centre Manager
Centre for Research on Social Inclusion, Macquarie University, NSW
Email: crsi@scmp.mq.edu.au
http://www.crsi.mq.edu.au

CFP - Visualising Childhoods (2-day symposium in April 2007; ANU, ACT)

Call for Papers and Presentations

In April 2007, the ANU Research School for the Humanities proposes to hold a 2-day symposium on "Visualising Childhoods" convened by ARC Professorial Fellow, David McDougall.

The Symposium will explore the ways in which children and childhood are represented in visual media, how visual media can be used in childhood research, and some of the practical, theoretical, and ethical questions raised by both activities. We invite scholars in the wide variety of disciplines interested in this topic to propose papers and presentations for the symposium, which may include the use of film, video, artwork, and still photography.

Some of the areas in which we would be glad to receive proposals are:

• Studies of the representation of children in films, photography, television, and advertising, historically and in the present
• Recent uses of film, video, and photography in child-focused social research
• Historical uses of film and photography in childhood research (e.g. Bateson & Mead's 1936 project on Balinese character development)
• Studies of the uses of visual media in advocacy on behalf of children (e.g. Lewis Hine's child labour photography, studies of children in war, etc.)
• Children's own creative use of visual media, and research based on studies of this work

Please send your proposals and suggestions to david.macdougall@anu.edu.au

VISITING FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM - Humanities Research Centre, ANU (Closing date: 5 Jan 2007)

The Humanities Research Centre was established by the Australian National University in 1972 to foster innovative research in the Humanities and provides funds to support both scholars of demonstrated achievement and promising younger scholars to work in the Centre.

Applications are particularly welcomed from scholars with interests in one or more of the HRC's Research Platforms:

• Biography and Society
• Creativity and Human Rights
• and Historical Re-enactment and Public Memory

Applications for fellowships to the Freilich Foundation to work in the area of bigotry and tolerance are also welcomed.

The Freilich Foundation exists for 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. Formally established in July 1999, and part of the Humanities Research Centre of ANU, the Freilich Foundation supports individual research and runs a range of lectures, conferences and seminars. The Foundation also runs a range of activities to support schools, including a biennial summer school. In 2008 the Foundation will be involved with the Recovering Lives conference and the Limits of Being Human conference.

List of 2008 HRC Conferences and their descriptions are available HERE.

The HRC will fund a number of short-term Visiting Fellows (of up to 12 weeks) to take up residence at the HRC. The Freilich Foundation will fund a few scholars (up to 12 weeks).

Scholars usually concentrate upon a particular Research Platform, although we also welcome non-thematic scholars.

FORMS (MS-Word documents):

• Application forms for HRC 2008 Visiting Fellowships
• Referees Comment Form
• 2008 Visiting Fellows Guidelines

CLOSING DATE: 5 JANUARY 2007

SCHOLARSHIP - PhD research scholarship, Centre for Research on Social Inclusion, Macquarie U, Sydney (Closing date: 11 Dec 2006)

Migration, Multiculturalism & Nation Cluster

A Macquarie University Research Excellence Scholarship is available in the Centre for Research on Social Inclusion for a PhD project based in the centre’s Migration, Multiculturalism and Nation cluster. The PhD topic is open but will fall within one of the following areas of research strength:

• Migrant, diasporic, or transnational communities.
• Multiculturalism, racism / anti-racisms, inter-ethnic relations, living with difference.

Applicants interested in qualitative interview based and/or ethnographic approaches are particularly encouraged to apply. Applicants should have completed an Australian four-year undergraduate degree in a relevant discipline (such as Anthropology, Cultural Studies, Human/Cultural Geography, Sociology, or Politics) with first class honours, or demonstrate equivalent research qualifications such as a Masters degree with a substantial research component.

The scholarship pays a living allowance currently $19,231 per annum, tax exempt (2006) and the tenure is 3.5 years full time subject to satisfactory progress. Tuition fees will be funded for the scholarship tenure with domestic students receiving RTS placement for their research degree tuition and International award holders having their fees sponsored.

Further information on the research area may be obtained by emailing the project supervisor Dr Amanda Wise on amanda.wise@mq.edu.au or phoning (02) 9850 8835. Dr Wise’s research profile and more details on the centre can be found at www.crsi.mq.edu.au.

Application forms, and conditions for MQRES awards, are available from the Higher Degree Research Unit by phoning (02) 9850 7663, by e-mailing pgschol@mq.edu.au, or by downloading from http://research.mq.edu.au/students/scholarships.

Applications should be forwarded to:

The Scholarship Officer
Higher Degree Research Unit
Cottage C4C
Macquarie University
NSW 2109

Closing Date: Monday 11th December 2006

EXHIBITION - "the other APT" (1 Dec 2006 - 23 Jan 2007; Brisbane, QLD)

VENUE: Raw Space Galleries, 99 Melbourne St, South Brisbane, QLD

Opening 1 December, 2006 -> 7pm til late

the other APT explores issues for “ Australia’s” Native peoples and our role in the Asia Pacific Region, and also deals with the issues of migration of our neighbours including the importance of Place, Legend, Identity, Politics and Mutual Respect in the interest and importance of open Art Dialogue.

The exhibition will feature exceptional works from Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, Melanesian, Polynesian, Maori & Asian Artists based in Australia , commenting on the complexity of the here and now and providing refreshing alternative perspectives.

the other APT will coincide with the Asia Pacific Triennial at the Queensland Art Gallery, and is situated just around the corner.

Join us for a free opening program from 7pm featuring MC Brett Button, Indidge-n-art, Sarah Patrick, the Torres Strait Islander Dancers, Polytoxic, Ann Fuata, Tauline Virtue and more special guests.

Artists' Talks:

• Thursday 30 November, 3pm: Charles Street , Paul Bong, Mayu Kanamori
• Wednesday 6 December, 3pm: Christine Christophersen, Ann Fuata, Ritchie Ares Dona
• Thursday 7 December, 3pm: Jo-anne Driessens, Chantal Fraser & Polytoxic, Maia

Critique:

• Tuesday 5 December, 3pm: with Giles Petersen, Curator based in Aotearoa, NZ

Directions:
Catch the Train in – get off at South Brisbane Station, it’s just nearby. Raw Space Galleries is across the road from the Fox Hotel & the Brisbane Convention Centre.

Keep an eye out for updates on the website:
http://www.fineartforum.org/Gallery/cybertribe/other_apt

the other APT -> from the others, for the others

CALL for BOOK CHAPTERS: Diasporas of Australian Cinema (Deadline: 31 Dec 2006)

Flyer for Call is csimpson@scmp.mq.edu.au AND Renata Murawska at Renata.Murawska@mq.edu.au

All proposals received by 31 December 2006 will be considered. If you would like to ask further questions, do not hesitate to contact us at the e-mail addresses given above.

CFP (Final) - OURMedia Conference (10-13 April 2007; Sydney, NSW)

OURMedia – NUESTROSMedios 6
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
Sydney, Australia – April 10-13, 2007
www.ourmedia07.net

Sustainable Futures: Roles & Challenges for Community, Alternative and Citizens’ Media in the 21st Century

EXTENSION OF DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS AND EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST UNTIL NOVEMBER 20

CONFERENCE TOPICS AND STREAMS:

• Community Media Research
• Participation and Social Change
• Community Media and Policy
• Media Activism /Civil Society /Social Movements
• Local Culture /Media Diversity
• New Technologies / Media Convergence
• Community and Public Access Broadcasting
• Indigenous Media, Aboriginal Media
• Young People and Grass-Roots Communication

OURMedia/NUESTROSMedios
A network of alternative, community & citizens media research and practice http://www.ourmedianet.org

PROGRAM - Asialink Leaders Program 2007 - Deadline 15 Dec 2006

Applications are now open for the 2007 Asialink Leaders Program.

The 2007 Asialink Leaders Program skills emerging leaders across all sectors to manage successfully across cultures and borders. The program draws on the expertise of Australia's leading Asia institutions at the Australian National University, The University of Melbourne and University of Technology Sydney and includes high level speakers from government, business, media and the not for profit sector.

United Group Learning, with unrivaled experience and expertise in cross-cultural management, is a key partner in program design and delivery.

A new modularised approach provides program participants with increased flexibility. The program will be delivered in both Melbourne and Sydney consecutively.

More information: http://www.asialink.unimelb.edu.au/cpp/leadership

Download a brochure: http://www.asialink.unimelb.edu.au/cpp/pdf/AsialinkLeadershipProgram.pdf (PDF, 416kb)

Enquiries: Yue Li, 03 8344 3574 (direct), leadership@asialink.unimelb.edu.au

Deadline: Friday 15 December 2006

CONFERENCE - Japan Relates: Australia, Asia, The World (9-13 Dec 2006; Broome, WA)

Australia-Japan year of exchange conference

The Monash University Japanese Studies Centre celebrates the Australia-Japan year of exchange with a conference in Broome, Western Australia
9 - 13 December 2006 Cable Beach Club Resort, Broome

Visit the CONFERENCE WEBSITE

The conference will engage in a high level of discussion about the future of Japanese Studies in the context of Australia-Japan relations and the expanding role of those two nations in Asia. The conference will address the following themes:

• Australia-Japan relations in the context of a globalizing Asia
• Japanese Studies in the post-area studies era
• Changing goals of Japanese language education
• Japanese critical cultural studies
• Japanese communities in Australia
• Japanese cultural flows in Australia and Asia
• Translating Japan and Japanese for Asia and Australia
• Australia-Japan: From maritime connectivity to digital connectivity

Confirmed keynote speakers include Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Sadami Suzuki, Tasaku Tsunoda, Keiji Sawada, Mark Lincicombe, Robin Gerster, Leith Morton, Vera Mackie, Toshiko Ellis, Takeshi Terada

For further information, contact Joanne.Witheridge@arts.monash.edu.au

The conference is sponsored by The Japan Foundation.

VISITING PROFESSORSHIP - University of Tokyo (Australian Studies) - Closing date 15 Dec 2006

This senior position will be based in the Centre for Pacific and American Studies (CPAS), part of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of The University of Tokyo, and located at the Komaba Campus in inner Tokyo.

The University of Tokyo, one of the most prestigious tertiary institutions in Japan, has a long-standing commitment to the study of Australia and has for many years hosted Australian academics. The University, with assistance from the Australia-Japan Foundation, created the Annual Visiting Professorship in Australian Studies in 1999, and offers this Visiting Professorship to one Australian scholar per year. Applicants must be Australian citizens.

Full details about the position and how to apply can be found HERE (MS-Word file).

CFP - 9th Biennial European Australian Studies Association conference (26-30 Sept 2007; Copenhagen, Denmark)

9th Biennial EASA Conference, 26-30 September 2007
University of Roskilde and University of Copenhagen, Denmark

"Translating Cultures: Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific"

The colon is an early indicator that EASA has decided to expand its area of activity to include New Zealand and the Pacific. Translating, on the other hand, indicates a process, an open-ended attempt at conceptualising what is meant by Australian, New Zealand and Pacific Studies. This can obviously, given the location of EASA and its conferences, be done from a European perspective, but it can also be explored from within each of the nations covered by the umbrella terms, and between those nations. In other words, to discuss Australian, New Zealand and Pacific Studies is an uncontainable practice, which we perform both with an acute sense of the object at hand, but also with a hopefully equally acute sense of our own subjectivities, as academics located in very different environments, with very different agendas and demands, which our performances as academics are supposed to meet.

We invite papers working in all kinds of academic fields, from sociology, anthropology/ ethnography/ethnology, literature, geography, history, environmental studies, cultural studies, postcolonial studies and probably a few others… The very broad title of the conference is also a broad invitation to everyone working in these fields to identify themselves with the EASA network and its conferences which have developed over a substantial number of years to become the primary site for discussions of Australian Studies in Europe, and now hopefully also New Zealand and Pacific Studies. So rather than attempt to single out particular suggestions for approaches, we conclude by inviting particularly people who see themselves as working on migrancy, indigenous studies, refugees and multiculturalism (including also for example Asian-Australian Studies). The reason for particularly singling out these fields of interest, is that they speak most readily and immediately to concerns which are very much at the top of the European agenda, and as such would provide another important opportunity to show that despite the geographical remoteness of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific, certain issues are of a global concern and reach, and constitutes a field where Europeans could meet the fellow colleagues through the prism of Australian, New Zealand and Pacific Studies.

Accompanying event:
One day immediately after the conference will be devoted to the third EASA Postgraduate Seminar, where advanced students can discuss their work with experts in their field in a lecture + workshop-format.

Conference Organisers:

• Mads Clausen, Dept. of English, Copenhagen University
• Lars Jensen, Cultural Encounters, Roskilde University, hopeless@ruc.dk
• Eva Rask Knudsen, Dept. of English, Copenhagen University
• Kirsten Holst Petersen, Depts. of Cultural Encounters and English, Roskilde University
• Stuart Ward, Dept. of English, Copenhagen University

Timetable:

• 15 January, 2007 - Email your 200 word abstracts (in an attached file) with title to Mads Clausen (mclausen@hum.ku.dk)
• 1 March, 2007 expiry of early bird registration fee
• 1 August 2007 deadline for full registration

CALL FOR SHORT FILMS and ARTICLES - An Asian Australian Occasion (May 2007; St Lucia, Qld)

CALL FOR SHORT FILMS AND ARTICLES

THEME: ASIAN AUSTRALIAN
FORMAT:

• DVD or VHS. Duration 6 to 15 mins max. pref. Will also accept links to Internet clips (i.e. favourite You Tube) for review.
• Articles/essays in Word - 1000 - 1500 limit. "Zine" style artwork as JPGs also welcome.

DEADLINE: December 30

EVENT: “An Asian Australian Occasion”
A Free One Day Film Festival and Panel Discussion
May 2007 @ UQ Duhig Library Conference Room

Organised by Brisbane students in association with
The Asian Australian Studies Research Network (AASRN) and
The University of Queensland Library

EVENT OUTLINE:
“An Asian Australian Occasion” will showcase a combination of panel discussions and short films that creatively construct and interrogate conceptualisations of Asian Australian culture and identities. This special one-day event also aims to promote dialogues between both senior and emerging academics, artists and activists.

The program will feature a range of films that focus on questions of belonging and mobility in the everyday lives of Asian Australians; this includes Fish Sauce Breath, Delivery Day and Chinese Take Away.

The panel discussions will be chaired by Dr Jacqueline Lo, of the ANU and the Asian Australian Studies Research Network. Other panelists include Benjamin Law (QUT), who is writing an 8-part Asian Australian sit-com, and Jen Tsen Kwok (UQ), whose research explores the political cultures and subcultures of diasporic Chinese communities in multicultural Australia. There will also be a screening of more experimental works including Sydney artist My Le Thi's PHO NOW.

A booklet featuring the program, panelist bios, short articles, plus a listing of links to notable Internet clips about Asian Australian identities is also being planned.

Volunteers for the planning committee and on the day are also needed.

Enquiries can be sent to Indigo.

AASRN PANEL - Asian = UnAustralian? Panel at the CSAA conference (Canberra, ACT; 6-8 Dec 2006)

"Asian = UnAustralian?"
Panel presentation by the Asian Australian Studies Research Network

Panel Chair: Dean Chan (Edith Cowan University)

Asian Australian Studies sites itself in and of Australia. The discipline interpolates Asians in Australian narratives and discourses, while drawing on contemporary Asian discourse and diasporic theory from a range of international spaces. This shift in focus and the creation of new disciplinary boundaries means that Asian Australian individuals and communities are addressed as complex hybrids with multiple cultural allegiances simultaneously located within and beyond the nation. This panel explores the challenges of locating diasporic practices and identities within the troubled and embattled battlefield of the nation.

Panel presenters:

• Jen Tsen Kwok: "The Production of Ethnic Identity and Difference in the First Speeches of Asian Australian Parliamentarians"
• Simon Choo: "Your habitus stinks! Emplacing durian through a sensory anthropology of food"
• Christine Clark: "Echoes of Home, but which one? Contemporary Art by Asian Australians"
• Jacqueline Lo: "'Queer Magic': Performing Mixed-race on the Stage"

Full information can be found on the AASRN Events page.

BOOK LAUNCH - Zhou Xiaoping and Regina Ganter (Melbourne; 14 Nov 2006)

La Trobe University and KAZARI invite you to the launch of two books:

Zhou Xiaoping's A dream of Aboriginal Australia (published in Chinese)

AND

Regina Ganter's Mixed Relations: Asian- Aboriginal Contact in North Australia

The flyer for this event is HERE.

• Introduced by Marcia Langton, Professor of Australian Indigenous Studies, University of Melbourne.
• Launched by Philip A. Kuhn, Professor of History Harvard University.

VENUE: KAZARI Collector, 450 Malvern Rd, Hawksburn (03 95102528)
TIME/DATE: 6.30pm; Tuesday 14th November 2006

RSVP to rsvp@kazari.com.au by the 10th November 2006.

Further information
John Fitzgerald, Professor of Asian Studies
School of Social Sciences, La Trobe University
Phone: +61 3 94793017 / Fax:+61 3 94791880

FORUM - Popular culture, art and community cultural development (Footscray Community Arts Centre, Melbourne; 17 Nov 2006)

Footscray Community Arts Centre in partnership with the Cultural Development Network presents

'Popular culture, art and community cultural development' forum

Artists and Community Cultural Development (CCD) workers must engage with popular culture, but doing so is fraught with tensions and dangers. To ignore it artists risk becoming irrelevant, to embrace it they risk selling out!

Writer and artist Tom Cho leads this forum, facilitated by Footscray Arts Program Coordinator David Everist, and looks at questions such as: What attention should artists pay to popular icons, idols, styles and fashions? Should CCD practice challenge popular culture and therefore exist outside of it? Can engagement with popular culture be a way into involving communities in the creative? Could that engagement lead to more subversive and broad-based arts practice?

Friday 17 November, 3pm
Gabriel Gallery
Footscray Community Arts
Centre45 Moreland Street, Footscray

A PDF flyer for the event is HERE. The forum is FREE.

For more information, phone David Everist on 03 9362 8888 or email david@footscrayarts.com

PGRAD WORKSHOP - Part of AAI 2: The 2nd Asian Australian Identities Conference (27 June 2007; Melbourne, Vic)

A postgraduate workshop at ANU House (52 Collins Street) on Wednesday 27 June 2007 will precede the AAI 2 conference (28-30 June 2007).

Postgraduates will have the opportunity to present works-in-progress for focused discussion with key Asian Australian studies scholars.

Workshop numbers are limited.

Applications describing the area of research and methodology (max. 200 words) and a short bio (max. 200 words) should be sent to aasrn-events@asianaustralianstudies.org BY WEDNESDAY 31 January 2007.

Workshop enquiries should be directed to Jacqueline Lo.

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

The conference and workshop are initiatives of the Asian AustralianStudies Research Network, which is generously supported by theInternational Centre of Excellence in Asia-Pacific Studies (ICEAPS).

CFP - AAI 2: The 2nd Asian Australian Identities Conference (28-30 June 2007; Melbourne, Vic)

The field of Asian Australian Studies has gained significant momentum since the inaugural 1999 conference in Canberra. In light of Australia’s changed political environment, what are the key challenges facing Asian Australian Studies today?

We welcome papers and presentations exploring Asian Australian identities, histories, cultures and politics.

Areas of interest include:

• Community, cultural heritage and cultural identity
• Literature, performance and film
• Visual arts and new media
• Popular culture

All presentations should be of 20 minutes duration. Abstracts (max. 200 words) and a short bio (max. 200 words) should be sent to aasrn-events@asianaustralianstudies.org BY THURSDAY 30 November 2006.

CONFERENCE CONVENORS:

Tseen Khoo, School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University, Vic
Jacqueline Lo, School of Humanities, Australian National University, ACT

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

The conference and workshop are initiatives of the Asian Australian Studies Research Network, which is generously supported by the International Centre of Excellence in Asia-Pacific Studies (ICEAPS).

WORKSHOP - Transnational Dialogues on Bollywood: Australian Perspectives (30 Nov 2006; Melbourne, Vic)

ANU–Monash University Workshop
Monash Conference Centre, Collins Street, Melbourne
Thursday 30 November 2006

Conveners:
Debjani Ganguly (Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, ANU)
and
Andrew Hassam (National Centre for Australian Studies, Monash University)

PDF downloads: PROGRAM = REGISTRATION = VENUE INFO

Today in countries such as Australia, the Indian film industry is best known by the label of Bollywood, a genre of popular films produced in Bombay (Mumbai) and made in Hindi. In the domain of popular and material culture, in Australia and elsewhere, Bollywood circulates as a potent aesthetic and cultural marker of Indianness. Clothes, jewellery, food, footwear and even dance fitness schools proudly wear the Bollywood label. At the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, held in March 2006, the opening ceremony featured an elaborate dance and musical ensemble on Bollywood themes. For a long time now, Bollywood films have circulated globally among the Indian and South Asian diaspora as a shared cultural idiom. They have also been immensely popular in the erstwhile Soviet Union and on the African continent. Further, in an age when creative, information and service industries propel economic growth, Bollywood and its modalities of production, distribution and reception, are seen as important players in global culture-industry networks. Countries of the developed world – Switzerland, Ireland, Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand – go out of their way to welcome Bollywood production teams to shoot in their pristine locales. Local cinema houses in Australia, US, UK and Europe regularly run shows of newly released Bollywood blockbusters. Many Hollywood producers now outsource their post-production work to Mumbai at costs lower than what they would incur in the US.

This one-day workshop brings together scholars from India and Australia to explore the transnational impact of Bollywood on public spheres around the globe and to assess its contribution to creative industries in Australia. It proposes to address the following themes, with particular reference to the Australian context:

• Transnational circulation of Bollywood as a marker of Indianness
• Bollywood as shared cultural idiom among the Indian diaspora
• Translation of Bollywood themes, genres, styles into various popular cultural forms around the world – the Melbourne Commonwealth Games, new media art, intercultural youth films
• Impact of Bollywood on material culture – food, fashion and fitness
• Production, distribution and reception of Bollywood films
• Bollywood’s contribution to creative industries

Confirmed speakers:

• Debjani Ganguly (ANU)
• Devleena Ghosh (UTS)
• Andrew Hassam (Monash University)
• Goldie Osuri (Macquarie University)
• Vijay Mishra (Murdoch University)
• NagaMallika G. (Manipal Institute of Communications, India)
• Makarand Paranjape (JNU, New Delhi, India)
• Anjali Gera Roy (IIT, Kharagpur, India)
• Anupam Sharma (Films and Casting Temple, Sydney)

For details, please email:
Dr Andrew Hassam, National Centre for Australian Studies, Monash University

SYMPOSIUM - Youth, Media and Culture in the Asia Pacific Region (30 Nov - 1 Dec 2006; Melbourne, Vic)

A two-day international symposium exploring the practices and expanding field of research around youth and the media.

Monash University, Caulfield campus, Melbourne 30th November and 1st December 2006

Conference Conveners:
Usha M Rodrigues, Journalism, Monash University
Dr Belinda Smaill, Visual Culture, Monash University

Symposium WEBSITE

AIMS

To create a dialogue between researchers working across disciplines and across cultural borders.

To identify the key concerns for scholars working in the Asia Pacifi c in regards to traditional and new media.

To foster links between scholars, industry professionals and practitioners.

THEMES

• Youth consumption and production of media.
• Hybrid cultures, subcultures and issues of globalisation,
• The role of commercial media, public service broadcasting and community media.
• The impact of new media, especially the manner in which it facilitates new formations of community and identity.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:

• Bill Osgerby, London Metropolitan University
• Stephanie Donald, University of Technology Sydney
• Ian Weber, Texas A&M University

CONFERENCE - Not another hijab row: New conversations on gender, race, religion and the making of communities (9-10 Dec 2006; Sydney, NSW)

Conference WEBSITE

Despite a decade of 'race debates' in Australia, analyses of the intersections between gender, race and religion remain all but absent in the public sphere. In recent years Muslim women in particular have been subjected to intense public scrutiny, yet these controversies have largely been limited to provocative comments on the hijab and sharia law. Such narrow debates have served to silence the experiences and the concerns of Muslim women and of scholars and community workers who engage the intersections of gender, race and religion.

This conference seeks to establish a space for constructive dialogue around the perspectives which are marginalised in public discussions, focusing on how gender, race and religion have long been deployed in the construction of Australian national identity, and are particularly evident in current representations of 'aggressive' and 'misogynistic' Islam as the ultmate alien other in 'tolerant' Judeo-Christian Australia. In minority communities, questions over community leadership, representation, and responses to racism have often revolved around constructions of culture, faith and gender roles.

The conference will provide a forum for papers and presentations from all disciplinary perspectives in order to build a conversation across spectra of belief, scholarship and community. Rather than another 'hijab debate', the conference will explore the intersections of gender, race and religion in regards to:

• public space and public safety
• health, housing and education
• security and belonging
• employment and unemployment
• social inclusion and exclusion
• media and public debate
• the dynamics of community
• the politics of representation
• advocacy and activism
• feminisms
• nationalism and national identity
• 'law and order' and representations of crime

Registration is now open.

For more information contact:
Dr. Tanja Dreher: tanja.dreher@uts.edu.au, 02 9514 2757 or
Dr. Christina Ho: christina.ho@uts.edu.au, 02 9514 1946.

Following "Not another hijab row" is The Borderpolitics of Whiteness, 11th - 13th December, 2006.

GRANT/SCHOLARSHIP - Centre for Contemporary Art & Politics - PhD funded place - COFA, UNSW

The Centre for Contemporary Art & Politics, based at the College of Fine Arts, UNSW is offering a PhD place with an Australian Postgraduate Award in connection with an Australian Research Council funded project:

CONSTRUCTION, CONNECTION AND COMMUNITY: MEASURING ASIAN ART’S CONTRIBUTION TO CONTEMPORARY CULTURE

The project offers training in curatorial practice and the opportunity to work on exhibition projects with Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Gallery 4A and the Zendai Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai. The PhD thesis may focus on an aspect of either cross cultural curatorial practice, contemporary Asian art, diaspora/migration, contemporary theories of community, or on a theme related to the larger project.

Applicants must have a good honours degree, or Masters by Research or equivalent. Entry is by proposal.

Inquiries: A/Prof Jill Bennett, Director, CCAP <J.Bennett@unsw.edu.au>