VOL 6.2, 2001:   editorial   |   inasa   |   executive   |   essays   |   conferences   |   news   |   publications
 
 Conference Notices

Conference Report: ACLALS 2001
 Resistance and Reconciliation
Bruce Bennett

The conference theme for ACLALS 2001 was "Resistance and Reconciliation: Writing in the Commonwealth". Over 300 academics, editors, publishers and writers from most countries of the Commonwealth, Europe and the USA attended. Keynote speaker was J M Coetzee on "The Humanities in Africa". A particularly successful plenary on indigenous Australian narratives was chaired by Anne Brewster with papers by Doreen Mellor (National Library), Sue Hosking (Adelaide) and Adam Shoemaker (new Dean of Arts at ANU). Other successful plenaries were by Harish Trivedi (Delhi) on hybridities; and Shirley Geok-lin Lim (Hong Kong and UC Santa Barbara) on regionalism and globalism. It's expected that a book will emerge in due course. The next triennial ACLALS conference will be held in Hyderabad in January 2004.

Bruce Bennett was director of the conference which was organised by an executive committee that included Satendra Nandan and Jen Webb (University of Canberra) and Jacqueline Lo (ANU).

Eleanor Dark Radical Novelist: Centenary Seminar
University of Queensland Social Sciences and Humanities Library, Brisbane
26 August 2001
 
Eleanor Dark is most familiar for her trilogy The Timeless Land-progressive in its time for its treatment of race, if differently controversial now. Her earlier novels had a number of defiant New Women characters who sound like daringly subversive characters even now. Dark's work retains continuing political relevance but still remains comparatively unrecognised. Although she was born 100 years ago, her novels still offer much to contemporary readers.
 
Announcing a one day seminar to be held in the conference room of the University of Queensland Social Sciences and Humanities library on Sunday 26 August 2001, 9:15am-4:45pm.
 
Speakers: Nicole Moore, Marivic Wyndham, Susan Carson, Kerryn Goldsworthy, Kay Ferres, Frank Bongiorno, Barbara Brooks, Carole Ferrier and Pat Buckridge.
 
Seminar will be followed by a launch of the latest issue of Hecate journal (with a special focus on Eleanor Dark) and of the just out Australian Women's Book Review.
 
Registration Costs (includes morning tea, lunch, and late afternoon function)
  • Full: $50

  • Concession: $25

  • $20 half day

The programme can be download (in rich text format) by clicking here, but late proposals may still be accepted. Papers can be 25 minutes or panel papers of 10 minutes.
 
For further details contact Carole Ferrier (c.ferrier@mailbox.uq.edu.au)
Abstracts can be directed to Alix Winter (awinter@mailbox.uq.edu.au)
 
Presented by the Centre for Research on Women, Gender, Culture and Social Change at the University of Queensland (Director Associate Professor Carole Ferrier), the Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at Griffith University (Director Professor Wayne Hudson), and the Australian Studies Centre at the University of Queensland (Director Associate Professor David Carter). Sponsored by the University of Queensland Library.

Sixth Biennial EASA Conference: Reconciliations: 100 Years of Australian Federation
Lecce, Universita' degli Studi, Presidenza Facolta' di Lingue e Letterature Straniere, via Calasso.
24 – 29 September 2001

Lecce, Universita' degli Studi, Presidenza Facolta' di Lingue e Letterature Straniere, via Calasso.
Under the patronage of the Australian Embassy, Rome.
Member: The Common Culture Programme for the Centenary of Australian Federation.

Provisional Programme

Monday
24 September
Afternoon		 15.30-18.00: REGISTRATION Presidenza Facoltà di Lingue Moderne, Palazzo Sperimentale, via Calasso, Lecce, 1st floor
Evening 19.30-21.00: FORMAL OPENING
Welcome, Authorities Introduction — H.E. Murray Cobban, Australian Ambassador, Rome -, Lecture, Writers, Artists, Speakers.
  • Keynote Speaker: Garth Nettheim, Nation and Narration.

  • Indigenous Artists (Broome)

  • Pianoforte Recital by Ali Wood (Brisbane).

  • Cinema (Courtesy of Australian Embassy, Rome – in cooperation with the Australian International Cultural Relations, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Canberra).
Tuesday
25 September
Morning		 8.00: OFFICE
9.00-10.30: PLENARY SESSION: Overview of ReconciliationS
  • Keynote Speakers, Speakers led by Edmund Rice Centre for Justice and Community Education, Sydney (Jude Butcher, Phil Glendenning); Comunità Sant'Egidio, Rome (Claudio Betti). CHAIR:
  BREAK
  11.00: PLENARY SESSION
  • Keynote Speaker: Henry Reynolds, What The Historian Can Do To Contribute To National Reconciliation

  • Open Forum. CHAIR: Adi Wimmer
  BREAK
Afternoon 15.00-16.00: PARALLEL LECTURES OR WORKSHOPS
  • Academic: ReconciliationS (provisional)
    • Education: Worby, Wisker. CHAIR:

    • Pioneering: Josephi, Stephenson, Gallagher. CHAIR:

    • Different States: Ferrier, Hagan/Castle, Lehman. CHAIR:

    • Angioi, Griffin.
  BREAK
  16.30-18.00: PARALLEL LECTURES OR WORKSHOPS
  • Academic: ReconciliationS (provisional)
    • Lehman, Wimmer, Ballyn/Frost. CHAIR:

    • Land Rights: Bennetts, Borch. CHAIR:

    • Education: Ellis, Pratt, Elder. CHAIR:

    • Law: Castejon, Dorsett/Godden, Malbon. CHAIR:

    • Media: Jeffrey, Taylor, Rees. CHAIR:

    • Political: Rossiter, Schlunke, Callahan.

  • Academic/Community: in cooperation with Provveditore agli Studi di Lecce and Regional, Provincial and Local Authorities
  BREAK
Evening 20.00: PLEANARY SESSION
  • Creative Writers: Bernard Cohen, Julian Croft, Katherine Gallagher, Ruth Hegarty, Rosanna Masiola Rosini, Mark O'Connor, Peter Skrzynecki, Andrew Taylor, Janette Turner Hospital.
Wednesday
26 September
Morning		 8.00-8.45: OFFICE AND BOOKSHOP OPEN
9.00-11.30: PLENARY SESSION: Overview of Federation
  • Keynote Speakers: Frank Brennan, Brian Matthews, David Headon. (10 MINUTES BREAK)

  • Papers: Ken Stewart, Cassi Plate. CHAIR: G.Lehman.
  BREAK
  11.45: OPEN FORUM
  • Film: “Replaying Australian Federation”.

  • Paper: Veronica Brady. Panel and Committee: Edmund Rice Centre. CHAIR: D.Callahan.
  BREAK
Afternoon 14.00-15.30: EASA Biennial General Meeting. (Chair: Adi Wimmer).
15.30-16.00: PLENARY SESSION
  • Keynote Speaker: Richard Nile (Teaching Australian Studies Internationally)
  BREAK
  16.15-17.45: PLENARY SESSION: Literature
  • Keynote Speakers: Hassall, Bennett. CHAIR:

17.45: PLENARY SESSION:
  • Janette Turner Hospital. CHAIR:
Evening 19.00: Guided Tour of Lecce. Visit the Art Exhibitions of works by Jimmy Pike, a collective of Western Australia artists curated by Angela Melia Valente, then to the Philip Hughes Exhibition (Francis Kyle Gallery, London).
Thursday
27 September
Morning		 9.00-10.30: PLENARY SESSIONS: Ethical Developments.
  • Environmental Values: George Seddon, Norbert Platz.

  • Mark O'Connor will read his “Environmental Poetry”, followed by discussion. CHAIR:

(BREAK)
10.45-12.45: PLENARY SESSION: The Life of the Spirit
  • Ethical Values: Michael Walsh.

  • The Olympic Games: Clarke/Gilbert, Morgan.
  BREAK
Afternoon 15.30 (time provisional): Conference Trip to Otranto
OTRANTO: Aboriginal Artists (Broome)
SESSION: City Hall.
  • Keynote Speaker: Marilyn Lake.

  • Readings by Ruth Hegarty and Peter Skrzynecki
Evening CONFERENCE DINNER
Friday
28 September
Morning		 8.00: OFFICE
8.45-9.45: PARALLEL SESSIONS: Academic: Literature (provisional)
  • Azurmendi, Collis, Foti. CHAIR:

  • Hocking, Lynch Percopo, Ross. CHAIR:

  • Englaro, Bird, Albertazzi. CHAIR:

  • Kusnir, Kwast Greff, Pons. CHAIR:

9.45-10.45: PARALLEL SESSIONS: Academic:
Literature
  • Wildburger, Pfisterer, Wolny/Ciuk. CHAIR:

  • Kapetas, Power, Roberts. CHAIR:

National Identity and the Individual (provisional)
  • Gelder, Gillen, Hubbs/McConnochie. CHAIR:

  • McCredden, Ambery, Ackland. CHAIR:

10.45-11.45: PARALLEL SESSIONS:
Oz and O/S (provisional)
  • Alomes, Gerster, Tavallaei. CHAIR:

  • Ronning, Pulford, Drysdale. CHAIR:

Cinema/Media (provisional)
  • Croft, David. CHAIR:

  • Nicholls, Percopo. CHAIR:

(BREAK)
12.00: PLENARY SESSION: Australian People and Society
  • Keynote Speaker: David Carter, Public Intellectuals, Book Culture and Civic Society (Past President, International Australian Studies Association). CHAIR:
  BREAK
Afternoon 15.00-16.30: TOWN AND GOWN: Academic and Community.
  • Post-1947 European Contributions to Multicultural Australia. Keynote Speakers: Gaetano Rando and Peter Skrzynecki. CHAIR:

  • Teaching English as a Second Language. Keynote Speaker: Maya Cranitch.

(BREAK)
16.45-17.45: PARALLEL SESSIONS
  • Englaro, Magagnino, Wisker. Australia as cultural Energizer: Translation and Creative Writing Overseas. TESOL (or strictly community interest): Christiansen, Ray, Merlini, Metcalf. CHAIR: Maya Cranitch

  • Italia/Oz: Leoni (Coordinator), Baraldo, Masiola Rosini, Valente; students in Oz.

  • Education: Brown, Simoes, Elpon. CHAIR:
Evening THEATRE: David Williamson's Brilliant Lies directed by Bianca Galipo', Italian/Australian Director at Cantieri Teatrali Koreja, Lecce, via Guido Dorso 70.
Saturday
29 September		 Community Day:
From Migration to Multiculturalism Meeting
COMMITTEE will include City Council Members, Senior staff, University of Lecce, Observatory of the Diasporas: Franco Merico, Isabella Bernardini, Monica Genesin, Angela Melia Valente, Luigi Del Prete, Bernard J. Hickey, Marisa Turano, Vincenzo Romiti, Anna Mazzone and Australian scholars and residents.
ABORIGINAL ARTISTS, ART EXHIBITIONS
ARRIVERDERCI MEETING: Closing Ceremony of “ReconciliationS: 100 Years of Australian Federation”, the Sixth Biennial Conference of the European Association for Studies on Australia (Chair: Adi Wimmer). Under the patronage of the Australian Embassy, Rome.


Transforming Cultures/Shifting Boundaries:
 Asian Diasporas and Identities in Australia and Beyond
The University of Queensland, Brisbane
30 November – 2 December 2001

This interdisciplinary conference focuses on the state of Asian diasporic studies in Australia and elsewhere. "Asian diasporic studies" is becoming a more complex configuration of racial issues, cultural flows, and identity politics, inflected by the continuing impacts of globalised cultures and new technologies.

One of the aims of the conference is to understand the construction of 'Australia' both as a site for migration of peoples from the Asian/Pacific region and beyond and also as an already hybridised location whose popular and intellectual cultures increasingly trouble the notion of an 'authentic' majority culture against which immigrant identities can be understood as Other. Global advances in media and communications technologies have ensured that, not just peoples but cultures are on the move, challenging the notion of a clash of authentic, original ethnic or cultural identities.

CONFIRMED KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:

len Ang (University of Western Sydney)
Karen Kelsky (University of Oregon)
David Parker (University of Birmingham)

Transforming Cultures/Shifting Boundaries welcomes abstracts for papers in any discipline addressing the following themes and topics:
  • issues for Asian diasporic studies as a discipline

  • contemporary transcultural and/or multicultural politics

  • Asian/Indigenous issues

  • sexuality, eroticism, and interracial relationships

  • textual representations and cultural profiles of Asian communities (literature, visual arts, film, popular culture, etc)

  • effects of 'virtual' communities and new technologies

  • minority-minority contentions and connections

  • transgender and queer issues in diasporic communities

  • diasporic community histories (e.g. genealogies, clans, associations)

  • issues surrounding the 'ethnic vote'

  • analyses of Asian diasporic cultural sites (e.g. Chinatowns, restaurants, 'enclaves')

CONFERENCE WEBPAGE: http://www.arts.uq.edu.au/cccs/events/conference.html

Please send abstracts to:

Anne Platt (Asian Studies Centre), Gordon Greenwood Building
University of Queensland AUSTRALIA 4072
Phone: 61-7-3365-6763 / Fax: 61-7-3365-6811 / a.platt@mailbox.uq.edu.au

Other enquiries to:

Dr Helen Creese (Department of Asian Languages and Studies),
University of Queensland 4072
Phone: 61-7-3365 6413 / Fax:61-7-3365 6799 / h.creese@mailbox.uq.edu.au

AsiaPacifiQueer 2:
 Media, Technology and Queer Cultures
The University of Queensland, Brisbane
3 – 4 December 2001

Call for Papers

AsiaPacifiQueer (APQ) is an on-going collaboration between scholars who are researching queer cultures and peoples in post-colonial societies of the Asia-Pacific, as well as Africa and Latin America. The first APQ conference was held at the University of Technology Sydney in February 2001. The second APQ meeting has been timed to follow on from the conference: Transforming CulturesIShifting Boundaries: Asian Diasporas and Identities in Australia and Beyond being held at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, on 1 and 2 December 2001 and those interested are welcome to attend both.

APQ2 will explore how individuals are constructed as gendered and sexed beings in contemporary mediascapes. The conference will focus on how media and communications technologies in postcolonial Asia-Pacific and other societies produce, govern, market, distribute, enable or exclude minority genders and sexualities in both the public and private spheres. Papers from all academic disciplines are welcome. Papers may explore postcolonial queer cultures through specific media such as print, film, television, and the Internet; discuss the influence of new technologies such as video recorders, webcams, mobile phones and pagers; or analyse the specificities of media, technological and cultural interaction in a given locale. Papers relating to the theme of 'diaspora' and the ways that media and communications technologies enable images and people to transgress the borders of race, nation, class, gender or culture are especially encouraged.

Please send 250-word abstracts to:
Mark McLelland m.mclelland@mailbox.ug.edu.au at the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland 4072.

Further information about both conferences including registration details will be made available on the APQ website : http://wwwsshe.murdoch.edu.au/intersections/apq/apqhomepage.html

What's Left of Theory?
The University of Tasmania
 8 – 10 December 2001

Fredric Jameson once said, we can't really know what a thing is until it has become something else. It might therefore be said that theory's truth will only be available to us when it has ceased to be. Which prompts the question: is theory still alive and well, or has it indeed mutated into something else? If it has vanished did it leave a trace? Is its successor stained with its legacy? But just as importantly, we can perhaps now, for the first time, determine what theory really is/was.

Fredric Jameson also said that in his opinion, theory itself is a product of a leftist impulse in critical thinking. Thus despite all the criticism that has been heaped on theory's progenitor structuralism for its apolitical approach to analysis, it was in Jameson's view at least, born of Marxist modes of thinking. This gives our question above quite a different spin: is theory a leftist enterprise? Or perhaps we should ask, was it a leftist enterprise? And if it was, is its successor still leftist? Or has there been a swerve to the right in critical thinking to go along with the movement beyond theory?

Panel proposals and papers are called for that address these questions in an interdisciplinary fashion. Abstracts should be no longer than 500 words and should give author's name, institution of author, contact details, title of paper and any audio-visual requirements.

Contact Ian Buchanan, School of English, University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS 7001: I.Buchanan@utas.edu.au, or (03) 6226 2356.

Encounters 2001
 Flinders University
12 – 14 December 2001

The Centre for Research in the New Literatures in English at Flinders University is proposing to run a 3-day conference: Encounters 2001, Wednesday 12 December-Friday 14 December at the Seafront Hotel, Penneshaw on Kangaroo Island (you may have seen the film of the white pointers devouring the dead right whale recently — just offshore from our venue!).

Encounters 2001 will focus on regional writing, with a special focus on South Australian texts and themes.

We hope we will hear papers on colonial and post-colonial themes and encounters, perhaps even anticipating the forthcoming 200 year celebrations of the meeting of Flinders and Baudin, an historic encounter which took place in the waters visible from the conference venue.

Given we must travel from Adelaide to Cape Jervis by bus and then across to the island by Sealink ferry — and return — and given three nights accommodation, we assume costs will be (including registration) approximately $320-$350.

Because the venue is small, we need you to let us know if you are interested in attending as soon as possible.

Some people have already indicated that they are interested in touring the island after the conference. Please let us know if you too are so interested.

For further information, and for sending abstracts:

Syd Harrex, Graham Tulloch, Lyn Jacobs & Rick Hosking

Flinders University
GPO Box 2100
ADELAIDE 5001
FAX: (+61 8) 8201 3635
PHONE: (+61 8) 08 82013259
or 08 82015110 or 8201 2053

e-mail:
Richard.Hosking@flinders.edu.au
Katy.Hasenohr@flinders.edu.au

Rick Hosking
Department of English
School of Humanities
Room 237 Humanities Building

Work 'phone (+61 8) 82013259
Fax (+61 8) 8201 3845
Home 'phone (+61 8) 8339 4457
Home e-mail 5050hos@optusnet.com.au

Mail Address:

Department of English
School of Humanities
Flinders University
Box 2100 GPO
ADELAIDE 5001

Bodies and Voices
University of Copenhagen
21 – 27 March 2002
European Association for Commonwealth Language and Literature Studies, Triennial Conference

Papers and suggestions for workshops are invited on the topic:

Bodies and Voices strikes at the heart of many contemporary debates in colonial and post-colonial studies: debates about the colonised subject; colonisation of the body and the mind; representations of the other; subaltern agency; even the question Can the subaltern speak?

But the topic also opens up innumerable other areas of discussion and investigation at the intersection of classic concerns in Commonwealth literary, linguistic and historical studies with completely new perspectives from within or outside the field. To mention a few: historical anatomies of the body and the voice; global English versus local Englishes and other debates on language and cultural articulation; enslavement of bodies and voices, discourses of race and racism; the senses and histories of the senses; embodiment and incarnation; cargo cults and spirit possession; tattoos and accents; the survival of biological and cultural diversity in the 21st century; bodies of land, bodies of water; voices of air and fire; erotics of the body and the voice; the carnivalesque; drama and performance; mimicry and mime; indeed bodies and voices of everything from colonial administration to postcolonial discourse.

Interpretations of the conference theme ranging from the predictable to the surprising are encouraged. Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be sent by 30 November 2001 by ordinary or electronic mail to:

Bruce Clunies Ross (direct tel. +45 35 32 85 82)
bcross@hum.ku.dk

University of Copenhagen,
Department of English,
80, Njalsgade,
DK-2300 Copenhagen S,
Denmark. (tel. +45 35 32 86 00; fax +45 35 32 86 15).

Organizing Committee: Bruce Clunies Ross, Eva Rask Knudsen, Merete Borch, Martin Leer, Tabish Khair, Svetlana Klimenko, Justin Edwards, Line Henriksen, Ann Langwadt.

Registration forms with information about accommodation will be available soon. For information contact the conference organizer or a member of the committee.

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