FESTIVAL - Inaugural OzAsia Festival (21 Sept - 7 Oct 2007; Adelaide, SA)

The inaugural OzAsia Festival will be held from 21 September to 7 October 2007. The OzAsia Moon Lantern Festival will take place on the evening of 25 September.

The OzAsia Cultural Symposium will take place on 22nd and 23rd September and features Mr Wakao Koike from The Japan Foundation, Prof. Nicholas Jose from Adelaide University, Dr. Lachlan Strahan from DFAT, writer Ms Merlinda Bobis and OzAsia Patron Mr Hieu Van Le.

The OzAsia Festival will present and celebrate work from Australians who identify with an Asian cultural heritage; collaborative work between Australian and Asian artists; and a cross-section of the cultures of Asia, both traditional and contemporary.

OzAsia features remarkable performances from some of Australia’s most eminent artists, including William Yang, Leigh Warren, Hung Le, Joanna Dudley, Hossein Valamanesh, Yumi Umiumare, and Gabriella Smart. Our visual arts program is proud to show artists who have endeavoured to understand the complexities of not only cross-cultural arts production, but also the artistic relationships between live performance and visual outcomes.

>> For more information and updates, bookmark the OzAsia website!

NEW BOOK - John Fitzgerald's _Big White Lie_

Big White Lie: Chinese Australians in White Australia
John Fitzgerald (UNSW Press, 2007)

Much has been written about the White Australia Policy, but very little has been written about it from a Chinese perspective. Big White Lie shifts our understanding of the White Australia Policy – and indeed White Australia –by exploring what Chinese Australians were saying and doing at a time when they were officially excluded. Big White Lie pays close attention to Chinese migration patterns, debates, social organisations, and their business and religious lives and shows that they had every right to be counted as Australians, even in White Australia. The book’s focus on Chinese Australians provides a refreshing new perspective on the important role the Chinese have played in Australia’s past at a time when China’s likely role in Australia’s future is more compelling than ever.

>> To order Big White Lie, visit this UNSW page.

CFP - Special Issue of _Studies in Australasian Cinema (Vol 2.2 [2008]; Deadline: 1 Sept 2007)

Title: Asian Australian and Asian New Zealand Cinema
Guest Editors: Audrey Yue, Belinda Smaill and Olivia Khoo

The cultural and historical flows that have characterised the shifting terrain of cultural diversity in Australia and New Zealand are particularly apparent in Asian Australasian cinema. This is the case not only in many documentaries that have sought to “represent Asia to Australia,” but also the contemporary work of directors such as Tony Ayres, Clara Law and Khoa Do. It is also evident in the representation of Asian Australian subjectivity in films from Little Fish to Japanese Story or Bondi Tsunami. This special issue of Studies in Australasian Cinema seeks to attend to the importance of Asian diasporas in Australian and New Zealand cinema. This includes the complex transnational transactions that are a feature of all national cinemas. The editors seek articles pertaining to, but not limited to, the following themes:

• Representation of the Asian diasporas in Australian and/or New Zealand films, both contemporary and historical
• Australian or New Zealand filmmakers working in the Asian region
• The distribution of Australian cinema in the Asian region
• Offshore Asian production taking place in Australia
• Film produced by Asian Australian or Asian New Zealand filmmakers
• The management of Asian Australian cinema by creative industries
• Asian Australia feature film, documentary, short film or experimental film
• Cultural Policy and Creative Economy in Asian Australian cinema

The editors of the journal’s special issue now invite abstract submissions of 250-300 words on any aspect of the above. Each abstract should include your name, address and institution.

Important dates:
Deadline for Abstract Submissions: 1 September 2007
Acceptance Notice: 30 September 2007
Deadline for paper (6000-8000 words) submission: 15 December 2007
Project Journal Publication Date: May 2008

Abstract submissions (as word documents by email attachment to):
Audrey Yue (The University of Melbourne): aisy@unimelb.edu.au
Belinda Smaill (Monash University): Belinda.Smaill@arts.monash.edu.au
Olivia Khoo (The University of New South Wales): o.khoo@unsw.edu.au

FORTHCOMING BOOK - Rediscovered Past: China in North Queensland (Edited by Kevin Wong Hoy)

Rediscovered Past is an exciting collection of fresh research into Chinese Australian history and archaeology in north Queensland.

This collection “offers a wealth of research garnered from primary sources … addressing a wide range of historical and heritage conservation issues. The deliberate concentration on north Queensland is satisfying in allowing a more complex engagement with the region and its specificities.”

Rediscovered Past is an initiative of Chinese Heritage in Northern Australia Inc. The publication will be hot off the press soon (approx. August 2007)!

>> Download order form for Rediscovered Past (MS-Word document; includes contents listing for the publication).

CFP - 9th Women in Asia conference (29 Sept - 1 Oct 2008; University of Queensland)

Ninth Women in Asia Conference: "Transition and Interchange"
29 September-1 October 2008
School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Queensland

The University of Queensland is hosting the ninth Women in Asia (WIA) Conference, to be held from 29 September-1 October, 2008.

The WIA Conferences have been held regularly since 1981 and are supported by the Women's Forum of the Asian Studies Association of Australia. These are international conferences, with attendees from throughout Australia and the Asian regions, including those who are working on or in the region.

Participants include academics and students; representatives of NGOs and other organizations involved in aid and development; artists and performers; and interested members of the general public. The conference provides excellent opportunities for networking and getting to know others in the field.

The theme for the 2008 conference is Transition and Interchange, which we hope will stimulate discussion on temporal and geo-cultural changes and interactions that may be understood in any different ways and in many different contexts.

Call for Papers: Contributions are invited from a broad range of participants from various disciplines on a large number of themes concerning the lives of women in Asia. Participants are encouraged to submit proposals for panels (with 3-4 papers per panel). Individual proposals are also welcome. A conference website will be established in the coming months.

Immediate enquiries can be addressed to wia@uq.edu.au

Conference Organisers: Associate Professor Helen Creese, Dr Rosemary Roberts, and Dr Tomoko Aoyama, School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies, the University of Queensland.

The conference is supported by the University of Queensland and the Asian Studies Association of Australia.

Exhibition - Owen Leong (Opening Night: July 20 2007)

Owen Leong
July 20 - August 9, 2007

Opening Night Event | Friday July 20, 6-8pm
Preview available upon request

Owen Leong mobilizes aesthetics of race, liminal states, abjection and transformation in contemporary art. Working with video, sculpture and installation his works harness simple gestures of the performing body with materials such as milk, honey, prosthetic wounds, and sugar antlers. His video performances blur the boundaries between real and fictional selves to explore how the body is physically, socially and culturally framed. More recently, his installation works evoke love, darkness and longing. A ghost heart made of aluminium mesh casts two phantom shadows while bleeding in reverse. Installations such as this produce spatial anxieties in which time dissolves and gravity evaporates into loss and desire.

Leong has exhibited extensively in Australia and internationally. His work has been shown in London, Liverpool, Manchester, Poznan, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Singapore and Hong Kong. In 2005 he was awarded an Australia Council New Work Grant. He recently completed a three-month artist residency at Chinese Arts Centre, Manchester. In 2008 he will be artist-in-residence at the Moya Dyring Studio, Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris.

RYAN RENSHAW
Contemporary Australian and International Art

137 WARRY STREET FORTITUDE VALLEY QUEENSLAND 4006
T 07 3666 0350 F 07 3666 0377
OPEN 11-5 WEDNESDAY-SATURDAY
www.ryanrenshaw.com.au

CFP - Special Issue of Journal of Chinese Cinemas (due: 28 September 07)

Call for Papers: Special Issue of Journal of Chinese Cinemas, vol. 2, no. 3 (2008)

Title: Chinese Cinema as New Media
Guest Editors: Helen Hok-Sze Leung and Audrey Yue

Journal of Chinese Cinemas is the only refereed academic publication in English devoted to the study of Chinese film.

The impact of new media on Chinese cinemas has changed the ways films are produced, distributed and consumed. From the use of special effects in kung fu blockbusters (da pian), the subversive play of e-gao on the Internet, to the innovative cinema convergences in creative Asian film economies, new media technologies have not only modernised Chinese cinemas, they have also enabled participatory modes of spectatorships, cultivated new cinephilia, and challenged film authorship. While the development of new media in changing cinema cultures has preoccupied recent film studies in the West, there has been no sustained focus on the impact of new media on Chinese cinemas. This special issue, edited by Helen Hok-Sze Leung and Audrey Yue, aims to fill the gap.

The editors of the journal special issue now invite abstract submissions of 250-300 words on any aspect of new media and Chinese Cinema.

Each abstract should:

• include your name, address, and institution;
• focus on one particular site (e.g. film, star, website, practice, etc.)from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and/or the Chinese diaspora (Chinese and English names if appropriate);
• and offer an innovative approach to the theorisation of new media, widely discussed in the fields of cinema studies, cultural and new media studies. Approaches may include, but are not limited to, issues of special effects and digitisation, theories of visuality and virtuality, creative film economies, convergence, new cinephilia, participatory media, cybercultures, embodiment, piracy, Internet fandom.

Important dates:

• Deadline for abstract submissions: 1 December 2007
• Acceptance notice: 1 February 2008
• Deadline for paper (6000-8000 words) submission: 1 July 2008
• Projected journal publication date: February 2009

Abstract submissions (as word documents by email attachment) to both:
Helen Hok-Sze Leung (Simon Fraser University, Canada): helen_leung@sfu.ca
Audrey Yue (The University of Melbourne, Australia): aisy@unimelb.edu.au

Contact for journal information:
Song Hwee Lim (Chief Editor, Journal of Chinese Cinemas): S.H.Lim@exeter.ac.uk

Website for paper format: See Notes for Contributors (PDF) at www.intellectbooks.co.uk.

CFP - "Protect Australia Fair": A Special Issue of Antipodes (Deadline: 1 Feb 2008)

“Protect Australia Fair”: A Special issue of Antipodes: A North American Journal of Australian Literature

Guest Editors: Nathanael O'Reilly and Jean-François Vernay

Nathanael O'Reilly and Jean-François Vernay invite contributions for a special issue of Antipodes devoted to international perspectives on fear and protection in Australian culture, focusing primarily on literature, film, visual arts, literary theory, psychoanalytic approaches and philosophy.

The special issue of Antipodes will be published in December 2009.

Antipodes, edited in New York by Nicholas Birns, has published work by Australia's leading writers, poets and critics, including Tim Winton, A.D. Hope, Thea Astley, Les Murray, Thomas Keneally, Janette Turner Hospital, Peter Carey, Dorothy Porter, Elizabeth Jolley, John Kinsella, David Malouf and Frank Moorhouse. Antipodes is a highly-respected peer-reviewed journal (C1 in Australian parlance) indexed in both the MLA International Bibliography and in AUSTLIT.

Contributors may wish to consider the following possible topics, which we’ve provisionally divided into three spatial zones of fearfulness, or explore challenging new ones.

National and International Fears

• Pluralism and multiculturalism fears
• Population and natural resources fears
• Law and authority
• Civil unrest, violence, riots
• Terrorism and counter-terrorism
• Xenophobia, past and present
• Invasion narratives
• Immigration: refugees, asylum seekers, detention centres and fear
• Science and technology fears
• Complacency warnings versus ‘Relaxed and comfortable’ lifestyle

Culture, Local, Regional and State-level Fears

• Fear and spirituality
• Fear and collective identity
• Fear and indigenous issues
• Fear and critical whiteness studies
• Fear in city, inner-urban and suburban environments
• Fear in regional and country Australia
• Fear in and of the natural environment
• Fear in cinema and literature: the thriller, the horror genre, disaster movies, speculative fiction, dystopias, post-nuclear and post-millennium themes
• Fear and language, communications, media
• Affluence, employment and fear of material loss
• Fear and performance
• Fear and fashion

Individual and Personal Space Fears

• The threatened body
• Selfhood, identity, representation
• Fear and desire
• Family and domestic fears
• Homophobia in a heterocentric society
• The paranoid mind
• Psychoanalytic fears
• Self-protectiveness, exposure anxiety

The suggested length for essays is 4,000 words. Essays should be suitable for an interdisciplinary and international readership. All submissions will be double-blind-refereed by an international panel of distinguished scholars and members of Antipodes’ editorial board. Essays must conform to MLA style. Please refer to the sixth edition of the MLA Handbook.

You may submit your enquiry, expression of interest or finished essay to Nathanael O’Reilly at Nathanael_o@earthlink.net or Jean-François Vernay at vernayj@yahoo.com.

Deadline for final submissions: February 1, 2008.

Bionotes:

Nathanael O'Reilly was born in Warrnambool, Victoria and attended Monash University and the University of Ballarat before leaving Australia to work overseas. He is completing a Ph.D. in Literature at Western Michigan University; his dissertation examines suburbia in contemporary Australian fiction. His articles, interviews, reviews and poetry are published in North American, European, Asian and Australasian journals. Nathanael is the Secretary, Newsletter Editor and Webmaster for the American Association of Australian Literary Studies.

Born in New Caledonia, Jean-François Vernay was educated at the Université de la Nouvelle-Calédonie and at the Université Toulouse-Le Mirail, from which he holds a Ph.D. As Founding Editor of Correspondances Océaniennes, a Nouméa-based postcolonial journal focussing on Oceanic cultures, he has been editing articles on postcolonial societies for five years, while regularly publishing articles in refereed journals and collections. His latest publications are a monograph entitled Water From the Moon: Illusion and Reality in the Works of Australian Novelist Christopher Koch (New York: Cambria Press, 2007), an article on Koch in Antipodes (June 2007) and on grunge fiction in AUMLA (June 2007).

AWARDS - 2008 Fulbright Awards round now open (Deadline: 31 August 2007)

Applications for the 2008 Fulbright Awards are now open.

Valued at up to $A40,000 - Fulbright scholarships are open to Australian citizens to undertake research or study in the United States for 3–12 months. Scholarships can be started between 1 July 2008 and 30 June 2009.

Applications are open to Postgraduates (to do research related to their Australian PhD. or enrol in a US degree); Postdoctoral, Professional and Senior Scholars from any field of study.

For further information and application forms see the section 'FulbrightScholarships / For Australian citizens' on our website at http://www.fulbright.com.au/

Applications close 31 August 2007.

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS - Australian Critical Race And Whiteness Studies Association Conference: Adelaide (Due 31/07/2007)

Transforming Bodies, Nations & Knowledges

Adelaide, South Australia, 10 –12 December, 2007

Since 1999 there have been a series of yearly conferences held in Australia, united by their critique of race privilege and their attention to matters of Indigenous sovereignty. Early conferences were integral to the formation of the Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association in 2004. These conferences have encouraged and supported the development of a rapidly growing body of Indigenous voices and knowledges within the Australian academy as well as an increased focus on issues of race and whiteness.

This year’s conference will be held in Adelaide, South Australia, and will encourage continued reflection upon issues of racial power and privilege in local and global contexts where Indigenous sovereignties continue to be denied, and in which whiteness maintains hegemony. It continues an explicit focus on issues of sovereignty and the importance of ensuring spaces for open, supportive dialogue.

The 2007 ACRAWSA conference, Transforming Bodies, Nations & Knowledges, draws on the aforementioned history of interventions into the cultural politics of race and whiteness both in Australia an internationally. The notion of ‘transforming’ signifies a commitment not only to examining and critiquing existing practices of dominance and discrimination, but also to the ways in which these have been challenged and transformed and continue to be so in the present and into the future. The conference seeks to address ways in which processes of transformation mutually implicate bodies, nations and knowledges. Possible questions include: What kind of bodies are produced by the powers of racism and colonialism? How do those bodies transform themselves into something else to resist or avoid relations of dominance? How do knowledges create and change bodies and nations? How can we challenge existing disciplines and knowledges to recognise spaces for Indigenous sovereignty and to oppose racism? How are nations being changed in contemporary global scenarios? How do nations demand and produce embodied responses to their practices of inclusion and exclusion?

Specific areas of concern may include:
Indigenous sovereignties
citizenship;
borders;
the law;
bodies, affect and subjectivity;
gender, sexuality and reproduction
religion;
power and knowledge production;
writing and other creative arts;
families;
professional knowledges and practices in
education, health and welfare

Such themes are central to a conference that seeks practical and politically orientated outcomes. The conference will appeal to people working in the areas of Indigenous studies, whiteness and critical race studies, gender/women’s studies and sexuality studies, education, law, history, psychology and social sciences, social work, cultural studies, media studies, literary studies, philosophy, art and design theory as well as those who are intellectually engaged in community and activist settings.

An invitation is extended to those wishing to present on issues such as those outlined above to submit an abstract of no more than 200 words, along with a short biographical statement, by 31/07/2007 to the following email address: abstracts2007@acrawsa.org.au

Conference organisers welcome expressions of interest for the following presentation formats: ‘traditional’ 20 min papers, three-paper symposia, round table discussions, artistic performances/installations and other forms of information dissemination that operate outside of the standard 20 minute presentation style.

More information on submission guidelines, conference details, and conference publications are available at: http://www.conference2007.acrawsa.org.au

Confirmed keynotes for the conference include Dr. Sara Ahmed on the topic of ‘The Politics of Good Feeling’, Dr. Irene Watson and Dr. Tony Birch.

EXHIBITION AND TALK - At the Campbelltown Arts Centre in New South Wales, from 6 July - 26 August

"QUEENSLAND - SUNSHINE STATE" at the Campbelltown Arts Centre in New South Wales, from 6 July - 26 August.

William Yang will be involved in this exhibit and will give a talk 7.30pm Saturday 28 July, where you can see the exhibition at the same time.

The talk FOUR PLACES IN QUEENSLAND has been commissioned by the Campbelltown Gallery and it is a reworking of some of my Queensland stories that have already appeared in Sadness and Objects for Meditation, and there's some new ones too.

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS – Dangerous Consumptions Colloquium Monash University – MELB – 26th & 27th Nov 2007

The fifth annual Dangerous Consumptions colloquium will be held in Melbourne on the 26^th and 27^th of November 2007. The venue this year is Monash University’s City Conference Centre, located in Collins Street, Melbourne.

dcV will continue the tradition of encouraging theoretical analysis of the myriad forms of consumption available within contemporary societies. In past years, a range of theoretical perspectives have been utilised and adopted to explore and pursue explanation of consumption forms including alcohol, illicit drugs, gambling, sex, food, blood, tobacco, pleasure and celebrity magazines.

The event takes the form of a colloquium, in which all participants are able to hear and respond to all papers presented. The colloquium offers participants a unique opportunity to share ideas and understanding from across the spectrum of dangerous consumptions and a range of theoretical perspectives, in an open, relaxed and thoughtful forum.

As with all past dangerous consumption colloquia, registration costs will be kept to a minimum, and will be free of charge for postgraduate students.

The colloquium convenors are now calling for submission of abstracts outlining proposed papers. Abstracts should include the title of proposed papers, the name and email address of author(s), and if applicable any institutional affiliation. Abstracts should address any aspect of dangerous consumption utilising a socially theoretical perspective, and should be less than 250 words in length.

Abstracts should be forwarded as an attachment in Word format via email to charles.livingstone@med.monash.edu.au by 17 August 2007. Please use “dcV abstract - author name" as the subject line.

Inquiries or requests for further information can be directed to the above email address. A dcV website will be launched shortly and further details will be circulated at that time.

CFP - Panel at the Australian Anthropological Society Annual Meeting (Oct 30 - Nov 2)

CALL FOR PAPERS

For the panel at the Australian Anthropological Society annual meeting

Michael Gilding (Swinburne University of Technology), Tess Lea (Charles Darwin U) and Martin Forsey (U. Western Australia) are organising a panel at the Australian Anthropological Society annual meeting that will be held at the ANU, Canberra, October 30 – November 2. (see www.aas.asn.au/conf07)

The panel will focus on the issues associated with studying elites (and those who are nearly elite) and we are calling for TASA members interested in this topic to submit a paper to us. We are looking to generate debate on this topic and we welcome a broad level of engagement with the subject - dissenting voices are welcome in other words. We aim to produce an edited volume out of the papers produced for this panel.

Please direct your inquiries to Martin Forsey:
mforsey@cyllene.uwa.edu.au

Panel Abstract

Things are Looking Up: Researching the Rich, the Powerful and Those In-between

It is more than thirty years since Nader exhorted social researchers to ‘study up’, to cease gazing at the colonized in favour of research focused squarely on the rich and powerful on their home turf. She named access, attitudes, ethics and methodology as the main obstacles identified by her colleagues, but dismissed these objections either as issues faced in all types of fieldwork, as untested propositions, or as something we had to side-step if we are to really make a contribution to understanding the human condition. And yet, the project suggested by Nader has been barely touched by social researchers. Anthropologists in particular remains fixated on championing the subaltern, a focus that continues to hamper our ability to describe and comprehend relations of power and the social production of inequality. In calling for papers focused on the methodological, ethical and epistemological implications of conducting research among elites and the middle classes, we invite potential participants from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, those who have conducted research with upward inflections, those who are thinking of it and those who would not even consider it and are prepared to say why.

POSITIONS VACANT - RESEARCH ASSISTANTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN SYDNEY (closing: 03 Jul 2007)

POSITIONS VACANT

RESEARCH ASSISTANTS - UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN SYDNEY

Eligibility List for Research Assistants (Fixed Term; Full Time/Part Time)

Centre for Cultural Research (HEW Level 5)

Closing: 03 Jul 2007

Ref.: 70175

www.uws.edu.au/vacancies/?pro=position_details&pos_ID=4279

Eligibility List for Research Officers (Fixed Term; Full Time/Part Time)

Centre for Cultural Research (HEW Level 6)

Closing: 03 Jul 2007

Ref.: 70176

www.uws.edu.au/vacancies/?pro=position_details&pos_ID=4280