Humanities and Social Sciences

Past Events

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998


Past Events 2007

Between the Walls was prsented by Professor Russ West-Pavlov, Professor of English Literature at the Free University of Berlin (currently visiting Professor at the Australia Centre, University of Melbourne) as part of the Cultural Frictions Seminar Series.
Date: 8 March 2007

Transforming Cultures Annual Lecture 2007 was presented by Professor Toby Miller. "Madeover Nation: The United States of Reinvention?"
Date: 11 July 2007

Possession? Captain Cook in the Political Imagination was a cross-disciplinary Colloquium exploring contemporary thinking around the figure of Cook.
Date: 12-13 July 2007

Urban Myths and Modern Fables was a TfC-UTS Gallery Partnership, in which members of TfC were involved in a panel discussion with selected artists from the exhibition on themes of mutual interest.
Date: 28th September 2007

Urban Citizenship in Berlin and Sydney was a public seminar hosted as part of the Open Cities project. Invited speakers took part in a forum hosted by TfC.
Date: 10 October 2007

SISA: re-use, collaboration and cultural activism from Indonesia was a TfC-UTS Gallery Partnership, in which TfC members were involved in a Roundtable discussion around the theme of Indonesian activism, art collectives and alternative Indonesian contemporary art.
Date: 30 November 2007

Local Noise Website Launch.  Local Noise is an ARC funded project running since 2005 and led by Dr Tony Mitchell and Prof. Alastair Pennycook, UTS. Its focus is on Australian hip-hop and the localisation of hip-hop in different cultural, societal and educational contexts.
Date: 30 November 2007

 


Past Events 2006

Not another hijab debate: New conversations on gender, race, religion and the making of communities, was a National Conference sponsored by Trans/forming Cultures.
Date: Saturday & Sunday, 9th & 10 December 2006
Download a programme of events here. (Excel)

Professor Jon Goldberg-Hiller from the University of Hawai'i gave a seminar with Trans/forming Cultures on indigenous activism and recognition in Hawai'i.
Date: Friday, 15th December
Download a copy of his discussion paper " The Persistence of the Indian: Legal Recognition of Native Hawaiians and the Opportunity of the Other" (pdf).

Professor Dipesh Chakrabarty of Chicago University, presented a seminar entitled: "The History and Politics of Recognition" at UTS on Thursday, 7th December.

Border crossing and border reinforcing. Politics of citizenship and movements of migration in postcolonial Europe.
TfC and IIS present a guest lecture by: Sandro Mezzadra (University of Bologna; University of Western Sydney)
Date: Tuesday, 21st November, 6:00pm

Landscapes of Meaning. South Asia-Australia connections: environment and people is an International symposium sponsored by Trans/forming Cultures, the Cultural Research Network, the Asia Pacific Futures Research Network and the South Asia node of the Asia Pacific Research Network.
Date: 18th - 20th October 2006
Information: A programme of events can be downloaded here (pdf)

Stop the Illegal Occupation: acting for peace and justice in Palestine
Tanya Reinhart, Professor of Linguistics at Tel-Aviv University, presented the workshop.
Date: 10th October.

" Return of the Sacred, the Language of Religion and the Fear of Democracy in a Post-Secular World" Trans/forming Cultures Annual Lecture
Professor Ashis Nandy, Director of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, presented the Annual Lecture,
Date: September 2006

Digitising Democracy: Digitisation, Pluralism, and Public Service Communication. Trans/forming Cultures Seminar.
Speaker: Georgine Bonn, University of Cambridge.
Date: 10 August 2006.

The ARC project on Sanctuary and Security: Muslim Women's Networks in Contemporary Australia was launched at a public forum on Gender, Race and Public Space at UTS on Thursday, 23rd March 2006.
Click here for more information.

Branding Cities and Urban Borders: Cosmopolitanism and Parochialism in Europe and the Asia-Pacific
Conference: 12 - 14 January 2006


Past Events 2005

History of Australian Television Conference - UTS & the Powerhouse Museum
Conference: 8 - 10 December 2005

2005 Postgraduate Student Seminar Series
Details of the seminars

Creative Sydney: its 'brand' and the type of city university it needs
Workshop: 20 October 2005

Eighth Women in Asia Conference - Shadow Lines
Conference: 26 - 28 September 2005

Gendering Governance and Security in Australia, Asia and the Pacific Workshop
Sponsored by the Asia-Pacific Futures Research Network & the Japan/Korea and China Network Nodes
Workshop: Sunday 25 September

Professor Dipesh Chakrabarty Lecture: "The Legacies of Bandung: Decolonization and the Politics of Culture"
Connecting ideas of decolonization from the 1950s to contemporary debates on cosmopolitanism.
Seminar: 26 September 2005

UTSpeaks: The Ocean Australia Forgot - Waking up to our opportunities as an Indian Ocean Society
Devleena Ghosh & Stephen Muecke
Seminar: 13 September 2005

Seminar by Devinder Sharma: Liberalisation of Agriculture and Sustaining the Future of Food and Agriculture
Devinder Sharma
Seminar: 22 August 2005

Report 'Women in Immigration Detention... more questions than answers' by Eva Cox and Terry Priest - released August 2005. This paper details some of the ways in which Immigration Detention Facilities are administered and how the system can cover up abuses of the basic rights and needs of detainees.

Constructions of the 'West' in Recent Cultural Debates in Postsocialist Hungary
Dr Anna Szemere
Seminar: 5 August 2005

A Seminar By Dr Meenakshi Bharat: "City slick vs. village hick: A Study of changing perceptions in Hindi films"
Dr Meenakshi Bharat
Seminar: 21st July 2005

Modern Empires: Makings, Makeovers, and Make-beliefs
Gopalan Balachandran (India)
Seminar: 18 July 2005

The French Atlantic
Bill Marshall (UK)
Seminar: 20 May, 2005

Jean Baudrillard: From Representation to the Performance of Representations
Richard Smith (UK)
Seminar: 12 May, 2005

Fresh and Salt: Water and Border debates in Australia and Asia
Workshop/Symposium: 8-10 May, 2005.
Speakers funded by: the Asia-Pacific Futures Network and ICEAPS International Centre for Excellence in Asia Pacific Studies at ANU.

Andrew Lam: A child of two worlds
Seminar: 5th May, 2005

Other Worlds Conference
Conference: 28-29 April, 2005

Transformations
Conference: 7-9 February, 2005


Past Events 2004

Clash of Civilisation: Myth or Reality?
Imam Zaid Shakir
Public Lecture: 14 December, 2004

On the Future of Parochialism: Teaching media in Tuen Mun
Professor Meaghan Morris
Public Lecture: 14 October, 2004

The Ital ian Effect: Radical Thought, Biopolitics and Cultural Subversion
Conference: 9-11 September

New Urbanism: A public discussion
Seminar: 31 August, 2004

Culture and Creativity in Australia: The role of arts and cultural organisations in innovation in the arts
Seminar: 27 August, 2004

Building on Sand: Nation, borders, myth and history
Symposium: 27 August, 2004

The Eagle Has Not Landed: The failure of the Middle East peace process
Dr Ilan Pappe
Public Lecture: 19 August, 2004


Past Events 2003

Disability Studies at the Cutting Edge
Colloquium: 12 September, 2003

Cultures in Collision: transnationalism and identities
Colloquium: 9 May 2003

Writing Events New Writing in Cultural Studies
Post-Graduate School: 14 & 15 April, 2003


Past Events 2002

Nationalism and Globalism
Forum: 15 & 16 July, 2002


Past Events 2001

Women Reporting Violence: The silenced voices of the 'race' election
Forum: 8th November, 2001

Remembering/ Forgetting: writing histories in Asia, Australia and the Pacific
Post-Graduate School: 5 & 6 July, 2001

Imprison and Detain: racialised punishment in Australia today
Forum: 24 May, 2001


Past Events 2000

Double\Edged
Conference: 7 & 8 December, 2000

Subaltern, Multicultural & Indigenous Histories
Post-Graduate School: 20 & 21 July, 2000


Past Events 1999

Protesting Globalisation: prospects for transnational solidarity
Conference: 10 & 11 December, 1999


Past Events 1998

Localising Modernity / Cultural Histories
Conference: 14 & 15 December, 1998

Post Innocence: narrative textures & new media
Forum: 3 October, 1998

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Past Events Papers & Abstracts 2006

Branding Cities and Urban Borders: Cosmopolitanism and Parochialism in Europe and the Asia-Pacific
Conference: 12 - 14 January 2006 Downer Room, Australia House, The Strand, London (12 & 13 January) Menzies Centre, 4th floor, Cnr The Strand & Melbourne Place, London (14 January only) Conference research sponsored by the Australia Research Council.

Jointly organised by :
University of Technology, Sydney: Centre for Trans/forming Cultures
Middlesex University: Centre for Social Policy Research
King's College, London: Menzies Centre

The keynote lectures - Parochialism and Cosmopolitanism - by Professor Michael Keith (Goldsmiths College) and Professor James Donald (University of New South Wales).

Download full programme  (56Kb)
Download abstracts (86Kb)


Past Events Papers & Abstracts 2005

History of Australian Television Conference - UTS & the Powerhouse Museum
Conference: 8 - 10 December 2005

UTS and the Powerhouse Museum held a three-day conference exploring the histories of television in Australia.  The conference was associated with the Australian Television History Project (UTS) and set the scene for the forthcoming Powerhouse Museum exhibition on the history of Australian television, marking the 50th anniversary of the beginning of television broadcasting in Australia.

Keynote Speakers: Ted Thomas  and Graeme Blundell
Speakers included: Prof Graeme Turner (UQ), Prof Ien Ang (UWS) and Assoc Prof Gay Hawkins (UNSW)/ John Hartley (QUT)/ Albert Moran (Griffith)/ Michael Meadows & Derek Flucker (Griffith) Frances Bonner (UQ) /Barbara Alysen (UWS), Stephen Atkinson (UniSA), Rozzi Bazzani (freelance/Herald Sun), Wendy Borchers (ABC) Felicity Collins and Sue Turnbull (La Trobe) Robert Crawford (Monash), Jock Given (University of Melbourne), Nick Herd (UTS) Chris Healy (Uni of Melbourne) Jason Jacobs (Griffith), Alan McKee and Andrew King (QUT), Ailsa McPherson (freelance), Barbara Masel (freelance), Albert Moran (Griffith), Nick Richardson (RMIT), Jason Sternberg and Chris Lawe-Davies (QUT and UQ).

Download abstracts of the conference: TV History Conference Abstracts (pdf) (3584Kb).
For  3 day conference programme (pdf) (178Kb)

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Creative Sydney: its 'brand' and the type of city university it needs
 Workshop: 20 October 2005

Hosted by the UTS Library, Transforming Cultures Research Centre and the UTS Emerging Fields program for New Media & Digital Culture

Workshop:   There is ample evidence that Sydney is the driving-force of audio-visual media production in Australia.   Perhaps Sydney's expertise in film, TV, new media and related industries is now what makes the city special in the  Asia-Pacific region.  It this a valid observation? What challenges and opportunities are presented by this proposition?  And how might UTS engage with these issues as it becomes more meshed into the life of the city?

The larger context:   This workshop is part of a series of  national and international meetings discussing the creative, cultural and educational value of branding cities.  There will be meetings in London (January 2006), Shanghai (April 2006), Hong Kong (June 2006), and Sydney again (June 2006).

Speakers: Prof Stephi Hemelryk Donald   (UTS), Dr John Gammack  (Griffith University), Dr Glen Searle (UTS), Dr Chris Gibson (University of Wollongong), Dr Marc Rerceretnam  (University of Western Sydney), Prof Ross Gibson (UTS)

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Eighth Women in Asia Conference

The Women in Asia Conferences have been held every two years since 1981 and are supported by the Women's Caucus of the Asian Studies Association of Australia. The theme of this year's conference is 'Shadow Lines', which has to do with movement across borders, borders that may be understood in many different ways and in many different contexts.

Keynote Speakers:

Dr Ananya Jahanara Kabir, a specialist on Kashmir
Dr Vera Mackie whose research focus is women in Japan
Dr Harriet Evans, a specialist on China
Dr Nicole Constable, a specialist on Southeast Asia
Ms Carla Bianpoen who specializes in contemporary women artists in Indonesia
Ms Ellene Sana who works with Philippine migrant women

For more information, refer to the Women in Asian conference 2005 website

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Gendering Governance and Security in Australia, Asia and the Pacific Workshop
Sponsored by the Asia-Pacific Futures Network and the Japan/Korea and China Network Nodes.
Workshop Sunday 25 September 2005

For full program (pdf) (80Kb)

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Professor Dipesh Chakrabarty Lecture: "The Legacies of Bandung: Decolonization and the Politics of Culture"

Connecting ideas of decolonization from the 1950s to contemporary debates on cosmopolitanism.
Seminar: 26 September 2005

More information (pdf) (218Kb)

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UTS Speaks: "The Ocean Australia Forgot - Waking Up to our Opportunities as an Indian Ocean Society".

Devleena Ghosh and Stephen Muecke
Seminar: 13 September 2005

More information

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Seminar by Devinder Sharma: Liberalisation of Agriculture and Sustaining the Future of Food and Agriculture
Seminar: 22 August 2005

Devinder Sharma is an award-winning Indian journalist, writer and thinker, whose books and articles offer a uniquely Indian perspective on global trade issues.   As a leading agricultural economist, well known for his views on food and trade policy, Mr Sharma is at the forefront of the global debate on genetic engineering, globalisation and free trade. Trained as an agricultural scientist, he was the Development Editor of the Indian Express newspaper and now researches and writes about food security, biotechnology and the implications of free trade for developing countries.  His forthcoming book, Keeping the Other Half Hungry, is an incisive analysis of how the globalisation is accelerating the marginalisation of small farmers in the Third World.  His other books include:
GATT and India: The Politics of Agriculture GATT to WHO: Seeds of Dispair In the Famine Trap From Liberalisation to Liberation: Revitalising Indian Agriculture.
His articles appear online at: India Together www.indiatogether.org and Share the World's Resources at www.stwr.net

Sustaining the Future of Food and Agriculture in the WTO Regime: Developing Country Perspective Download (pdf) (70Kb)

The Indian Experience of Liberalisation of Agriculture Download (pdf) (96Kb)

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Constructions of the 'West' in Recent Cultural Debates in Postsocialist Hungary
Dr Anna Szemere
Seminar: 5 August, 2005

Can one talk of  a coherent notion of the West in the discourse of postsocialist Europe ? The very act of carving out a space between East and West and calling it Central Europe by Hungary , the Czech Republic and Poland suggests that the West - East mapping of Europe is inadequate in the post -Cold War era. Neither has the idea of the West remained unchanged in this period. The political controversies of the Bush administration with its traditional European allies, France and Germany and its unconcealed attempts to re - divide a Europe by mustering support from former East European nations are evidence of the cartographic and strategic re- configuration of the West.

There is a great deal of semiotic confusion about the signifier " Europe " as well . While the West is being reconstrued almost daily , so is the East . The new European identity is defining itself not only by ' generously ' incorporating much of Central and Eastern Europe but by creating the Turkish, the Russian, and the Balkan Other. Are the wealthy Western nations seen as civilizersor colonizers of local cultures? How such constructions are made and challenged in and through the realm of cultural production? Dr Szemere's talk looked at the discursive construction of the West in Central Europe using the example of recent cultural debates in Hungary.

Anna Szemere teaches cultural sociology at Portland State University . She has published numerous articles and book chapters on popular culture issues and politics in Eastern Europe . Her book Up from the Underground : The Culture of Rock Music in Postsocialist Hungary came out in 2001. She served on the Executive Committee of the International Association of Popular Music (1997-99) and on the International Advisory Board of Popular Music (1986-96).

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City slick vs. village hick: A Study of changing perceptions in Hindi films
Dr Meenakshi Bharat
Seminar: 21st July, 2005

Over the past two to three decades, Bollywood films have shown a remarkable change in the way they perceive the city. Earlier films like Mother India, Upkar, Mera Gaon Mera Desh, Ponga Pandit, to mention just a few box office successes of the past, reveal a marked and significant use of rural settings. But under the recent wave of global awareness, the village, the rural has been virtually given the boot. 'Global' sensibilities, emphasizing the need for 'globally' pertinent subjects, deploy marketing strategies that are primarily global in target. The evolution of the nation from a developing entity to that of a developed one seems to demand the representation of a face more internationally amenable and accessible, more understandable than the earlier, more esoteric rural one. While identifying the specific changes in the perspective of filmmakers, my presentation will explore the reasons, other than the instigatory above, for this transition to overly urban themes and urban characters. The effort will be to essay a probe into the dynamics and the problematics entailed in the construction of the urban sheen and sophistication by largely city-bred and city-located directors and producers in Hindi cinema.

Dr Meenakshi Bharat is a Reader in English and Head of the Department of English at Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi.  Her critical interests include film, children's literature and Postcolonial Studies.  Her publications include The Ultimate Colony (Allied Publishers: New Delhi, 2003) and Desert in Bloom: Contemporary Indian Women's Fiction in English (Pencraft: New Delhi, 2004).  She is currently working on a collection of essays on the Indo-Pak relationship in Films.

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Modern Empires: Makings, Makeovers, and Make-beliefs
Gopalan Balachandran (India).
Seminar: 18 July 2005

A Seminar by Gopalan Balachandran.  Professor Balachandran is Professor, International History and Politics, Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva. He is Editor of The Indian Economic and Social History Review; Fellow, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics; Member, Academic Committee, Europaeum; and Member, Steering Group of the European School of Public Policy and Leadership. His publications include India and the World Economy, c. 1850-1950 (Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, The Reserve Bank of India: 1951-1967 (Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), John Bullion's Empire: Britain's Gold Problem and India between the Wars (London: Curzon, 1996).

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The French Atlantic
Bill Marshall
Seminar: 20 May, 2005

French Studies in universities is often dominated by an approach centering on France the nation-state and even adopting a French cultural nationalism. Drawing on concepts from Paul Gilroy and Michel de Certeau, I ask the question, what might happen, what might be enabled, by thinking of Frenchness as diasporic and mobile?

Bill Marshall is Professor of French at The University of Glasgow and was a Visiting Research Fellow at TfC for May 2005.

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Jean Baudrillard: From Representation to the Performance of Representation
Richard Smith (UK).
Seminar: 12 May 2005

Abstract:
This talk outlines a shift in radical thought from dualistic or critical theory to non-dualistic poststructuralist and non-representational theory. My argument is in two main parts. In the first part, the simulacrum described by Baudrillard throughout his oeuvre is shown to be quite alien to the established definition of a simulacrum as adopted by critical theorists and portrayed in such films as The Matrix. In the second part, it is explained how Baudrillard's theoretical approach fcuses on the performative aspects of media representations rather than their 'meanings'. To conclude, I discuss how Baudrillard's approach resonates with the ideas of non-representational theorists who are just starting to argue that we need to turn our attention away from the meanings of representations towards their performances and effects.
Biography:
Richard Smith is a lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Leicester in the UK.

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Fresh and Salt: Water and Border debates in Australia and Asia.
Workshop/Symposium: 8-10 May 2005.

Although the ideas for this workshop have been developing for some time, the recent tsunami has demonstrated the urgency of such debates for academics, governmental agencies and activists in Australia. The impact of the 2004 Asian tsunami has highlighted the range of alliances, dependencies and associations within saltwater-based cultures in the Asian-Australian oceanic regions. This workshop and symposium therefore aim to debate the meaning of water in cultural and political understandings of international borders and national sovereignty. At the same time, the state of Australian water reminds us that water borders also run through our local political imaginaries. This workshop/symposium is premised on the hypothesis that the uses, claims and place-imaginaries in Australia's fresh water system connect oceanic international perspectives to local Australian articulations of river water.

The work shop/symposium will include contributions from policy specialists, resource management experts, cultural theorists and social scientists, in order to refresh the debates on sovereignty and territory through a focus on the culturally articulated borders to be found at the intersection of coastal (salt) and inland (fresh) waters.

Information on the Symposium on Monday 9th May and Tuesday 10th May, 2005. Download (pdf)

Information on the public talk, Water Borders: the cost for refugees, Monday 9th May, UTS Tower Building 1.16.22. Speakers include Paula Abood, Julie Browning and Anthony Burke. Download (pdf)

View abstracts.

This event was supported by funding from the ARC Asia Pacific Futures Network and ICEAPS International Centre for Excellence in Asia Pacific Studies at ANU.

Asia Pacific Futures NetworkARC
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Andrew Lam: A child of two worlds
Seminar: 5th May, 2005

To celebrate 30 years of the Vietnamese community in Australia, the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre in partnership with Sydney Writers Festival has organised for Andrew to tour and speak in Australia. Transforming Cultures are pleased to support his visit to speak at UTS.

Andrew Lam is considered one of America's best writers on the Vietnamese-American identity and is an editor with Pacific News Service, a wire service that is subscribed to by 60 newspapers in the US. He is also a commentator on NPR (National Public Radio). In his spare time he writes short stories.

Andrew addressed and brought to light a range of topics pertinent to students of second generation Vietnamese-Australian and migrant backgrounds, including The Fall of Saigon, Diaspora, being a child of two worlds, cross-cultural identities and concepts of home.

Transforming Cultures Associate Researcher and HSS Writing Area academic staff member Dr Cathy Cole chaired this event.

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Transformations

Andrew Jakubowicz and Peter Manning (HSS Journalism) presented papers at the Transformations conference in Canberra on 7-9 February, 2005. The conference was among the most important gatherings on Australia's cultural diversity in recent years. Transformations analysed the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity and what it means for Australia's diversity planning, policies and programs.

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Past Events Papers & Abstracts 2004

Clash of Civilisation: Myth or Reality?
Imam Zaid Shakir (USA)
Response: Professor Michael Humphrey (UNSW)
Public Lecture: 14 December, 2004.

Muslim scholar and cleric Imam Zaid Shakir (USA) spoke on the popular Western misconception that Islam, through its tool of Jihad, is in perpetual warfare. Shakir argued that Jihad is not a tool for the 'clash of civilisations' and suggests that a failure of Western thinkers and policy makers to recognise this fact will lead to tragic misunderstandings.

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On the Future of Parochialism: Teaching media in Tuen Mun
Professor Meaghan Morris
Chaired by: Katrina Schlunke (Writing and Contemporary Cultures)
Public Lecture: 14 October, 2004

Parochialism gets a bad press in most discussions of globalisation, cross-cultural relations, "border-crossing" and cosmopolitan ideals. At the same time it is a mood and mode of life endemic to many cultural formations, not least those inhabited by the cultural avant-gardes of major cities. This paper will reflect on my experience of teaching film and media in an undergraduate liberal arts program in the far Western New Territories of the Hong Kong SAR (Tuen Mun), where cultural horizons are located in ways that can be hard for a Sydney parochial to grasp-not least because various post-media "futures" are also fully present in the classroom. I will use this discussion to consider the role of media studies in institutions of education, and how greatly this may vary with the social geography of globalisation.

An Adjunct Professor of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Science at UTS, Meaghan Morris is Chair Professor of Cultural Studies and Co-ordinator of the Kwan Fong Cultural Research and Development Program at Lingnan University, Hong Kong. She works on the role of cinema, the media, and popular culture in forming national and transnational cultures and her recent books include Too Soon, Too Late: History in Popular Culture (Bloomington,1998) and 'Race' Panic and the Memory of Migration, co-ed. with Brett de Bary (Hong Kong University Press, 2001). Hong Kong Connections: Transnational Imagination in Action Cinema, co-ed. with Stephen C.-K. Chan and Siu-leung Li, is forthcoming from HKUP, and New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society, co-ed. with Tony Bennett and Lawrence Grossberg, is in press with Blackwells.

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The Italian Effect: Radical Thought, Biopolitics and Cultural Subversion
Conference: 9-11 September, University of Sydney
Keynote Speaker: Franco Berardi

Presented by: the Research Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Sydney, the Institute for International Studies and Trans/forming Cultures, University of Technology, Sydney, the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, University of Western Sydney and the Centre for Social Inclusion, Macquarie University.

After several decades during which the humanities in Australia and globally have been strongly influenced by French thought, in the new millennium the work of Italian thinkers is having a profound impact upon intellectual activity. The most notable signs of this "Italian effect" are the widespread interest in the work of Giorgio Agamben and the popularity of Antonio Negri and Michael Hardtâ's Empire, but this is only to scratch the surface of the productivity of contemporary Italian thought across a wide variety of disciplines. This conference addressed the current and potential international impact of radical Italian thought, focusing not only on Negri and Agamben but also on the work of Franco Berardi (Bifo), Paolo Virno, Maurizio Lazzarato and others.

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New Urbanism: A public discussion
Seminar: 31 August, 2004

Participants: Binghui Huangfu, Director Gallery 4A, Asian-Australian Arts Centre; Tammy Wong, Exhibitions Co-ordinator and artist; Thomas Berghuis, Art critic and Ph.D candidate, University of Sydney; Xing Ruan, Professor of Architecture, UNSW.

Chair: Stephanie Hemelryk Donald, Professor of Communication and Culture and Director of Trans/forming Cultures Centre.

New Urbanism introduces emerging Chinese photography and video artists to an Australian audience. It presents the individual responses of a new generation to the unprecedented changes that have re-shaped China's cities in the past ten years.

Featuring curators, critics, and practitioners of contemporary Chinese art, New Urbanism: a public discussion expanded on some of the ideas raised in the exhibition and discussed more generally, some of the impacts of urbanisation on contemporary Chinese culture: its generation of new youth cultures and sub-cultures, and the use of new media to express these; the demolition of traditional Chinese architecture, and its replacement with 'kitsch' Western designs; as well as the creation of new cultural spaces in cities' commercialisation.

This event was organised in collaboration with the Centre for Research on Provincial China.

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Culture and Creativity in Australia: The role of arts and cultural organisations in innovation in the arts
Seminar: 27 August, 2004

Following on from the successful seminar - Arts by Stealth? The ABC and the Arts - held in April this year, this second seminar was held to examine the current state of cultural creativity and innovation in Australia and what the role of broadcasters and other cultural bodies should be in fostering creative innovation.

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The Eagle Has Not Landed: The failure of the Middle East peace process
Public Lecture: 19 August, 2004
Speaker: Dr Ilan Pappe, University of Haifa, Israel

Theme: This lecture interrogates the failure of the Middle East peace process so far and concludes that it is because: 'The source of the problem, the root of the conflict, was never on the agenda of the peace effort... The source is the refugee question'.

Dr Pappe argues that their dispossession was caused by the ethnic cleansing of 1948 when the Israeli state extended its borders beyond those sanctioned by the United Nations, at the expense of the homes and land of over 1 million uprooted Palestinians. The recognition of the central importance of this historical dimension may allow a new approach to achieving a viable and just peace in Palestine.

A way out of the deepening crisis is only possible with an end to the military occupation of Palestine. Then three steps are necessary: acknowledgement by Israel and the world community of the dispossession of Palestinians in 1948; accountability for that dispossession on the part of Israel; and finally, on that basis, a negotiation towards acceptance by the Arab world of the presence of Israelis in the Middle East.

Biography: Ilan Pappe is an Israeli-born lecturer from Haifa University. Through his life experiences and scholarly research he came to challenge, as an academic and a citizen, the common historical narrative of his state. He is one of the so called 'New Historians' who in the late 1980s exposed the 1948 ethnic cleansing Israel carried out in Palestine. Drawn into a public debate in the country about Israel's present and past policies, he has criticised both the dispossession of the Palestinians in 1948 and the brutal occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip that enters its 37th year.
In 2002, in response to his public statements, the University of Haifa attempted to dismiss Dr Pappe, retreating only in the face of large scale international pressure. He is still in a precarious position for insisting on presenting Jewish society in Israel with a mirror that refutes denial.
Dr Pappe is the President of the Emil Touma Institute for Palestinian Affairs. His recent books include: The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1948-1951 (New York, 1992), The Israel/Palestine Question (London, 1999) and A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples (London, 2004).

Please download Paper (PDF document) and Discussion transcripts.

Please view Question and answer session transcript (HTML format).

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Building on Sand: Nation, borders, myth and history
Symposium: 20 August, 2004

Participants: Ilan Pappe (Uni Haifa), Lyndall Ryan (Uni Newcastle), Devleena Ghosh (UTS), Ihab Shalbak (UNSW), Tony Birch (Uni Melbourne), Ephraim Nimni (UNSW), Ghassan Hage (Uni Sydney), Ann Curthoys (ANU).

Theme: The symposium Building on Sand: Nation, borders, myth and history compared situations where histories, and so historians, have been central to conflicts about national identities and in the justifications for national origins. Three situations were discussed, in each of which nation states had emerged from contested borders or dispossessions and where sustained dispute has occured about the role of the past. These are: India/Pakistan; Israel/Palestine; and Australia, as both British settler colony and indigenous people's country.
The papers during the day explored the parameters of the conflicts in each area; discussed the nature of settler colonialism and its persistence into 'post-colonial'times; pointed to the critical importance of civil societies on all sides in generating change. Perhaps most importantly, they reflected critically on the potential for historians and activists to work collaboratively across the lines of conflicts to develop 'bridging narratives' or possibilities for engaged, if not 'shared', historical inquiries and outcomes.

A selection of the conference proceedings have been published in the Trans/forming Cultures eJournal

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Past Events Papers and Abstracts 2003

Disability Studies at the Cutting Edge
Colloquium: 12 September 2003

Participants: Simon Darcy, UTS; Phillip French, CEO DsaRI; Professor Liz Jacka; Helen Meekosha, UNSW; Professor Ashley Craig, UTS; Dr George Taleporos, Monash University; Dr Jani Klotz; Dr Lyn Davis, DACA; Professor Andrew Jakubowicz; Dr Gerard Goggin, University of Queensland.

When the media foreground the exploits of disabled athletes or a group of wheelchair users blockade a downtown intersection in protest at the lack of accessible public transport, we begin to see that disability is more than a personal issue. When a refugee burns himself to death because his disabled daughter cannot gain entry to Australia, we can see that disability has political and social dimensions. Since 1981, which the UN declared the international year of disabled persons, people with disabilities have been making increasing calls for the recognition of the social causes of disability in a world that prioritises the interests and perspectives of the "temporarily able bodied". This call is not only addressed to the public or government - increasingly academic disciplines are being challenged to question their assumptions about the able-bodiedness of the fields they study.
Disability Studies at the Cutting Edge examined the impact of disability on theory, research and professional practice.

Abstracts and Papers

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Cultures in Collision: transnationalism and identities
Colloquium: 9 May 2003

Participants: Professor Andrew Jakubowicz, Dr Mandy Thomas, Dr Develeena Ghosh, Dr Val Colic-Peisker, Professor Stephen Muecke, Dr Paul Gillen, Associate Professor Ghassan Hage, Dr Greg Gow, Dr Amanda Wise

Cultures in Collision was a one-day colloquium involving scholars engaged in research in the areas of migration, ethnicity, identity, transnationalism, cross-culturalism and refugees.

Abstracts and Papers

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Writing Events - New Writing in Cultural Studies
Post-Graduate School: 14 & 15 April, 2003

Participants: Michael Taussig, Columbia University; Tony Birch, University of Melbourne; Anne Brewster, UNSW; Professor Stephen Muecke, Ross Gibson, UTS; Amanda Lohrey, University of Queensland; Katrina Schlunke, UTS

New Writing in Cultural Studies was a two-day workshop that focused on questions of future writing practices. What is possible after detached assessment and critical distance? Is fictocritical writing simply a compromise genre or a passing fashion? This workshop provided writers with the challenge to make each text or performance constitute itself as its own event, to consider cultural studies as an area which may stand the best chance of inventing the concepts (and illuminating perceptions) which link the intensely subjective with the elusively objective.

Papers

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