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

NEW ISSUE OF PERIL NOW ONLINE!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EVENTS - Melbourne's Museum of Chinese Australian History Activities

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

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

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

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

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

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

JOIN US TO CELEBRATE CHINESE NEW YEAR!

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

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

gang re:Publik
Indonesia Australia Creative Adventures

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

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

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

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

To order books please contact thegang@gangfestival.com

Published in 2008 by Gang Festival Inc.

ISBN 9 78064650 133 8 (pbk.)

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

http://www.gangfestival.com/

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

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

Excerpt from the book blurb:

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

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


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

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

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

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

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

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

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

tamariskbooks@aol.com
www.tamariskbooks.com

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

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

The International Work-related Education Conference:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Important dates

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

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


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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CALL FOR POEMS

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

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

DEADLINE EXTENDED to 28 February 2009.

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

Poems accepted via online contribution form only.

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

Thanks!
Ivy Alvarez

NEW JOURNAL REMINDER - PLATFORM: Journal of Media and Communication

ANNOUNCEMENT: NEW POSTGRADUATE JOURNAL

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

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

AIMS:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NEW JOURNAL ISSUE - Asiatic - Dec 2008

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

Access to the journal is free.

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

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

Asiatic EDITOR:
Mohammad Quayum
www.quayum.net

OBITUARY - Vin D'Cruz (1933-2008)

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

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

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

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

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

TWO UPCOMING EVENTS featuring TOM CHO


1. Gendermash

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

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

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

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

NEW BOOK - Race and Ethnic Relations (OUP)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

>> More information can be found at THIS WEBSITE.