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Public lectures : School of Culture & Communication : The University of Melbourne

Professor Claire Colebrook, University of Edinburgh

4.30-5.30 pm, Wednesday 28 November
Wood Theatre, Economics and Commerce Building

This paper looks at the shifting relation between pleasure and beauty from the nineteenth century to the present.  How is it that the pleasure taken in beauty was once definitive of aesthetic value, but is now deemed to be less worthy than experiences such as shock, disgust or disorientation?  The paper will conclude with a consideration of the ways in which contemporary artists negotiate the relation between a Romantic aesthetic of pleasure in beauty and a post-modernist aesthetic of distance.

Claire Colebrook teaches at the University of Edinburgh and has written books on Deleuze, irony, literary theory and gender.

This is the podcast for ACDJ: The Green Economy (podcast)

Public lectures : School of Culture & Communication : The University of Melbourne

Gilbert Caluya, University of Sydney

4.30-5.30, Thursday 1 November
216B, Large Seminar Room
West Tower, John Medley Building

While much focus has been drawn to ‘Homeland Security,’ in comparison the security of the home has received little critical attention. In this seminar, Gilbert Caluya will present a part of his research into what he calls the spatial politics of everyday fear, focusing on home security and home safety as manifestations of contemporary domestic anxieties. How does fear function to produce the home and what socio-political effects emerge from this domestic configuration? This seminar will situate home security within the larger problematic of defensible space as it emerged in Cold War America. Through an exploration of home security and home safety discourses, technologies and practices the seminar aims to illuminate the political effects that everyday precautionary practices have on us, our homes and our families.

Gilbert Caluya is currently completing his PhD on the spatial politics of everyday fear with the Gender and Cultural Studies Department, University of Sydney where he also lectures on postcolonialism, feminism and queer theory. He is the recipient of the University of Sydney Medal, the Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives Thesis Prize, and is currently holding two scholarships for his PhD research. His work has previously been published in the Journal of Intercultural Studies, M/C  journal, ACRAWSA e-journal and he has co-written a chapter on ‘Culture and Sexualities’ with Elspeth Probyn in the forthcoming The Sage Handbook of Cultural Analysis, edited by Tony Bennett and John Frow.

• God beats science in schools: study - National - theage.com.au
  teachers “were finding it virtually impossible to spend enough time on core subjects because their curriculums had become cluttered with an overwhelming number of life-skill subjects including manners and nutrition.”
  (tags: Australia, education)
• US army enlists anthropologists
  ‘Weaponised anthropology’ - the ethical issues around this would be interesting.
  (tags: war anthropology)

• There’s diddly-squat that can go wrong, that’s an order | The Australian
  Interesting article on the Beijing Olympics.
  “Visiting Australian media also wanted to know if the toilets in the purpose-built media village would require us to sit or squat.”
  (tags: Beijing Olympics)
• Laptops may damage male fertility
  the perils of modern file…
• Trams crash in city - National - theage.com.au
  like i keep saying.. the public transport system is slowly but surely entropying.
  (tags: transport)
• Hello sailor, it’s Costello opening with the chinaman technique - National
  how can the use of this cricketing term not be offensive? surely the age of all people should know better.
• Is Pink the New Color of Death for Women?
  Pink cigs for women? Does that even really work. I dont know too many female smokers that would prefer pink.

Masks of China: Ritual and Legend
8 October 2007 to 24 March 2008

Discover rare and spectacular masks from China in this exhibition exclusive to the Immigration Museum.

Featuring handmade masks of wood, paper, copper, bronze and fabric, Masks of China explores the significance of masks in Chinese culture and history.

The ancient yet still living tradition of mask-making brings together beliefs, myths and symbols from Shamanism and Buddhism, and reflects China’s many ethnic minority cultures.

Constructed and painted by hand, some more than 200 years old, these masks symbolise China’s rich and diverse cultural landscape.

The exhibition has been developed by the China Museum of the Cultural Palace of Nationalities.

This exhibition has been generously supported by the State Ethnic Affairs Commission of the People’s Republic of China, the Australian Multicultural Foundation and the Scanlon Foundation.

Price: $12 adult, $6 concession, MV Members and children free. Includes museum entry.

http://immigration.museum.vic.gov.au/exhibitions/show.asp?ID=562436
Read the rest of this entry »

• Lost for words among the tight fists | The Australian
  Very interesting article on the needs of students both local and international as well as what universities are doing to react to the changes in the tertiary sector.
  (tags: Australia, education)
• Baby Got Back - Jonathan Coulton
  Definitely worth a listen and chuckle. You will find yourself singing along.
  (tags: music cover)
• Wake up, gen Zzz … - Opinion - theage.com.au
  “youth are no longer seen as future leaders of this country but a problem to be tackled through education reform, to be imbued with history lessons and inculcated with “Australian values”.” Discuss.
  (tags: Australia, politics)
• ecards for when you care enough to hit send
  finally ecards that say what i would…
• National Ride to Work Day - Bicycle Victoria
  Its going to be a great day, the sun will be out - cmon - go for it.
  (tags: Australia, environment transport)

Public lectures : School of Culture & Communication : The University of Melbourne

Brian Castro, Professorial Research Fellow in Creative Writing, University Of Melbourne.

6.30-7.30 pm, Thursday 18 October
Public Lecture Theatre, Old Arts Building

In a public lecture entitled Writing Asia at The National Library of Australia almost twelve years ago, Brian Castro argued that:

Economic growth … has a real potential to retard rather than to accelerate cultural influences and absorption. We seem to have somehow overlooked the blind spot that, even in cultural terms, the word Australia is now interchangeable with the term ‘Australian economy’. Asia is simply seen as a market-place, and there seems to have been few sensitive and insightful ideas into deeper cultural exchange.

That was just a few months before the advent of the Howard government. Read the rest of this entry »

As the market is flooded with everything from “Green bags” to environmentally responsible investment funds it becomes clear that capitalism is desperately trying to adapt to the pending social and environmental disasters of global warming and peak oil while still ensuring you consume.

In our second last forum for the year we explore the way in which capitalism is defending itself from environmental collapse and ask if a green capitalist economy is possible?

Speaker: Robyn Eckersley

Robyn Eckersley was educated at the University of Western Australia, Cambridge University (UK) and the University of Tasmania, and taught political science at Monash University from 1992-2001 before joining the University of Melbourne in 2002. Her research interests include global politics, environmental politics and political theory (particularly theories of justice and democracy). She is on the editorial boards of Environmental Politics; Environmental Values; Ethics, Place and Environment; Global Change , Peace & Security; Global Environmental Politics; International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development; New Political Economy; Organization and Environment; and Politics and Ethics Review.

When: Tue 30th October, 6:30 for a 7pm start.
Where: Stork Hotel [504 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne]
Cost: $5 (free for ACDJ members)
Contact: centre@democracyandjustice.org

1. Career Planning and Developing a Research Profile - Prof Lee Astheime [good notes and useful]
2. Research Mentoring for ECRs - A/Prof Lenore Lyons[good notes and useful]
3. Survival, and Career Building, as a Postdoctoral Fellow - Dr Christine de Matos[good notes and useful]
4. Building and Managing Relationships with Industry and NGOs - Dr Tim Scrase[not so good notes]
5. Developing Research Networks and Cross Disciplinary Linkages - Prof Stuart Cunningham [poor notes]
6. Research Issues and Trends in Asia and the Pacific: Partnerships for Research in Our Region - Prof Krishna Sen[not so good notes but very interesting]
7. Shifting Gears: Maximizing the Potential of Your Research - Prof Wenche Ommundsen[good notes and very interesting]
8. Research Grant Writing Skills, Trends and Tricks[good notes and useful]