News & Events
Subscribe to the TfC News and Events list. Download the latest TfC Calendar of Events [pdf]
TfC Talks
*FORTHCOMING*
TfC Lunchtime Talk: 2nd December, 12:30 - 2:00: Nayanika Mookherjee (Lancaster University, Department of Sociology) "Wartime rape and the 'Enabling Violation' of Universalist Feminisms"
Venue: The Bagel, TfC, UTS Building 3, Room 4.02.
Abstract: This paper explores the 'enabling violation' of universalist feminisms relating to gendered violence during wars and the production of the subject. Through this it examines the orientalising tropes within universalist feminist understandings of wartime rape of the Bangladesh war of 1971. This allows an interrogation of the evidentiary mode within testimonies and the geographical-ideological mapping of 'violence-prone' and 'peaceful' areas.
TfC Conference: 11-13th March 2008 Intercolonial Networks; Oceanic Circulations: Re-thinking the Indian Ocean.
The workshop will mark the inauguration of a new Indian Ocean research network supported by UTS. Download details here. [pdf].
PAST
15th July, 12:30 - 1:30: Anna Obradors Pineda (TfC Visiting Scholar) "Building a Critical Approach to Social Exclusion"
18th July, 12:30 - 1:30: Guita Hourani (Director, Lebanese Emigration Research Centre, Notre Dame University, Beirut).
24th July, 3:00 - 4:30: Gaia Giuliani (TfC Visiting Scholar from the University of Bologna) "The Body, Sexuality and Precarity"
24th July, 1:00 - 2:00 Daniel Fisher (Dept of Anthrop. Cornell Uni.),"When speech offers song: Country, family and the musical pragmatics of radio in Northern Australia".
22nd August, 12:30 - 2:00 Dipesh Chakrabarty (Prof. Chicago University), "Climate Change and Human History".
TfC Annual Lecture Series: 2008. Professor Christopher Pinney (Prof. of Visual Culture, University of London) will be presenting this year's Annual lecture entitled: "Photography and the Transformation of Culture", on Wednesday 17th September, 6:00. Join us beforehand for a cocktail hour at the UTS Gallery, and for a special viewing of their current photography exhibition "The Game of Places". RSVP. Further details.
Public Lecture: Laura Marks, "Baroque fascination in casino movies and Safavid carpets". 27th October, 5:30 for 6:00. In association with TfC and The Writing and Society Research Group, UWS. More information.
TfC-UTS Gallery Partnership Public Programme: 31 October 1-4:30. See here for more info on our Beyond Frame: Philippine Photomedia artist talk and panel discussion.
Articul8ate Seminar Series:
Organised by the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in association with TfC, Contemporary Design Practice and Cosmopolitan and Civil Societies.
Contact Cameron White for more information.
The Bagel: 
The Bagel provides a space for critically engaged discussion and informed debate.
Organised and hosted by TfC members.
Contact: Transforming Cultures for more information.
TfC Public Lecture by Michael Taussig, (Columbia University Professor) on 17th June. Michael Taussig: "Colour and Slavery". An audio transcript of the lecture is available through the TfC eAudio Repository. Follow the links to listen to "Colour and Slavery" [MP3]
Workshop News
Gender, Violence and Protection: 31 October, UTS. A forum investigating the politics of gender, protection and violence. See here for further details.
Migration and Hybridity Postgraduate Workshop. Tuesday, 12th August, 10:00-12:30
TfC Bagel, UTS Bon Marche Building (3), Level 4, Room 4.02.
Transforming Cultures Research Centre is organising a workshop for postgraduate students with Professor Anton Escher (University of Mainz, Germany). This workshop is an opportunity for ECRs and postgraduate researchers to engage in a discussion with Prof. Dr. Anton Escher around the topics of migration and hybridity and the identity-building of transnational communities. Postgraduate Workshop information sheet [pdf]
Forgotten Histories: Cultural Memory, History and the Nation
Transforming Cultures Research Centre and the University of Sydney will be co-organising this workshop to be held at the University of Sydney. Venue tbc. Friday 24th October, 10:00-4:00pm.
Contact: Ilaria Vanni (TfC) or Elizabeth Rechniewski (Uni of Sydney) for more information.
The last twenty years have seen an upsurge not only in the practice of memorialism but in the theorisation of the nature and function of cultural memory. In particular, the role of the media, state institutions, governments, politicians and political parties in officially selecting, promoting or indeed neglecting events has been the object of sustained analysis. The aim of this workshop is to develop an innovative, interdisciplinary approach to the problematics of collective memory and national identity, combining the insights of cultural geography and of the sociology of memory. Invited speakers will present a series of case studies of the politics of remembrance and forgetting ; a concluding session will discuss the theoretical and methodological perspectives that the various case studies provide.
The Listening Project Workshops:
Convenors: Tanja Dreher, Justine Lloyd, Penny O'Donnell
A series of workshops looking at the politics, technologies and practices of listening. The project develops a new area of study through an innovative model of networking, bringing together researchers across a range of disciplines as well as media and cultural producers.
Contact the project officer, Cate, for more information.
[Sponsored by the ARC Cultural Research Network and TfC]
Conference News
Provisional Insight: Siegfried Kracauer in the 21st Century
Date: 18 - 19th July 2008.
Venue: Monash Conference Centre, 30 Collins Street Melbourne.
Contact: Tara Forrest
Link: Film and Television Colloquium
Film and Television Colloquium supported by Transforming Cultures.
Speakers include:
Graeme Gilloch (Lancaster University); Lesley Stern (Uninversity of California, San Diego); Adrian Martin (Monash University); Ian Aitken (Hong Kong Baptist University); Helen Grace (Chinese University Hong Kong); Andrew Benjamin (Monash University); Jodi Brooks (UNSW).
Research News
Transforming Cultures members have successfully been awarded funding through the ARC Discovery and Linkage grants process to commence in 2008.
1. Chaos, Information Technology, Global Administration and Daily Life: James Goodman, Didar Zowghi, Jonathan Marshall (QEII) [ARC Discovery, 2008 - 2012].
2. Intercolonial networks of the Indian Ocean: Devleena Ghosh, Heather Goodall, Stephen Muecke, Michael Pearson [ARC Discovery Grant, 2008 - 2010].
3. Information and Cultural Exchange: a study of best practices in community building, participation and cultural citizenship through creative practices: Ilaria Vanni, Tanja Deher, Devleena Ghosh, Chris Ho, Tony Mitchell [ARC Linkage Grant, 2008 - 2010].
Recent News
Music and the Construction of Place: 
Convenor: Tony Mitchell, Transforming Cultures
A One Day Symposium examining various ways in which musicians produce place. Invited speakers will give seminars on the relations between a wide range of different musical forms of production from 'art music' to hip hop and the places both where they are produced and that they produce. A selection of papers will be published later in the year in a special issue of Transforming Cultures eJournal expected for early 2009.
Date: Friday, 9th May.
Recently, The Indian Ocean Project of UTS, in association with Curtin University, the University of Western Australia and Murdoch University, held a conference, "Ocean of Stories: Intercolonial Networks and Cultural Exchanges around the Indian Ocean" in Perth on 5th - 7th February 2008.
In association with the conference there was a masterclass for postgraduates and early career researchers held on Wednesday 6th February 2008.
Download the conference flier here [pdf].
Contact: Indian Ocean Project for further details.
