Arts Faculty News

The National Urban Water Governance Program, Monash University, is delighted to announce four exciting new postgraduate research opportunities available in 2009.

Scholarships are available for two PhD students and two Masters (by research) students which have been generously funded through the Program’s Industry partnerships.  Each tax-free scholarship also has a dedicated research and travel allowance.  This unique opportunity will allow four candidates the opportunity to contribute towards understanding the changing face of urban water governance in Australia and internationally. The successful candidates will work closely together on their individual projects and have the opportunity to draw on the expertise of the broader National Urban Water Governance Program team. While the general scope of each project has been developed, each student will have the opportunity to refine this with guidance from their supervisors.

Applications must be submitted by 6th March 2009

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Dr Tony Gould from the School of Music Conservatorium has this week been awarded Australia’s most valuable and prestigious individual music prize – the Australia Council for the Arts’ Don Banks Music Award. The Australia Council presented eminent Australian jazz pianist and composer with the $60,000 award at a ceremony celebrating his rich contribution to Australian music at Bennetts Lane Jazz Club.

Australia Council chief executive officer Kathy Keele said that Dr Gould’s achievements placed him at the forefront of Australian jazz and improvised music.

‘Dr Gould has made a stellar contribution to Australia’s cultural life as an outstanding pianist, composer and music educator,’ she said.

‘His work combining improvisation with classical music traditions has been key to his enormous impact on Australian music, and especially on his many students. He has been at the vanguard of improvised music and helped craft a distinctive Australian musical voice.’

Dr Tony Gould’s career stretches over more than 30 years of achievement. He has more 13 original recordings under his belt, including collaborations with some of Australia’s most eminent jazz musicians including John Sangster and David Jones, and has supported some of the biggest names in jazz, from Dave Brubeck to Oscar Peterson. His full orchestral version of Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood was premiered by the Queensland Philharmonic Orchestra.

Recent awards include: APRA / Australian Music Centre (AMC) Classical Music Award for “Outstanding Contribution to Australian Music in Education” (2005) Australia Council Music Board Fellowship (2006-2007) Distinguished Artist residency at Arthur Boyd’s artist’s studios in Bundanon (2007) Order of Australia (AM) (2007).

Louise North

Dr Louise North, newly appointed Senior Lecturer and Deputy Head of Journalism, has just published her first book with US publisher Hampton Press.

The Gendered Newsroom: How Journalists Experience the Changing World of Media is a vivid exploration of the gendered production of news–and in particular the experiences of women–in the Australian print news media.

The book engages with the question of how gender shapes newsroom culture and in so doing is concerned with production practices and cultural processes. It considers the dilemmas, constraints, negotiations and compromises which shape journalists’ day-to-day routines.

It probes specific questions about gender in asking:
What is journalism and what is a journalist?
How is newsroom culture embodied?
How do female journalists experience newsroom culture?
How has global industry change impacted on the workplace and what does this mean for journalists?
How does feminism get played out in the newsroom?
What is the relationship of newsroom culture to the content of the news?

The Gendered Newsroom

The author’s astute empirical research provides a distinctive account of how Australian print news media journalists experience newsroom culture.

The in-depth interviews with journalists ranging in age and industry experience reveal a complex culture coming to terms with dramatic industry change.

US academic Carolyn Byerly says the book “scopes out new terrain, and it sets a new standard not just for feminist media scholarship but for all critical research on media. I have seen no other author more willing to probe so many different aspects of news production”.

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Philip Chubb

PHILIP CHUBB | For all our preparation, it was pure luck that my family survived..

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Dr Anna-Mart van Wyk (Monash South Africa) and Dr Sue Onslow (LSE IDEAS)

Date: 30-31 January 2009
Venue: Monash South Africa, 144 Peter Road, Ruimsig, Johannesburg, South Africa
Organizers and hosts: Dr Sue Onslow, LSE IDEAS and Dr Anna-Mart van Wyk, Monash South Africa

A small oral history conference co-hosted by The Southern Africa Initiative at LSE IDEAS and the International Studies Section at Monash South Africa, took place from 30-31 January 2009 on the Monash South Africa campus.

The conference, entitled Southern Africa in the Cold War, Post-1974, was a unique combination of a small group of select international academics and active participants in the domestic and regional conflict between the various African liberation movements in Southern Africa (i.e. Zimbabwe, Namibia, South Africa), the white minority governments of South Africa and Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, and former Soviet and Cuban representatives.

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