News from the Faculty of Arts, Monash University, Melbourne Australia
Lejla Voloder, from the School of Political and Social Inquiry, has won the Postgraduate Publication Award for 2008.
Lejla’s winning publication Autoethnographic challenges: confronting self, field and home was published in The Australian Journal of Anthropology.
Early bird registration for the time . transcendence . performance conference closes Friday 24 July.
Register online for time . transcendence . performance
If you have any issues registering, please contact TTP2009@arts.monash.edu.au
Further information about the conference is available on the School of English, Communications and Performance Studies site.
EU Registration for The External Relations of the European Union conference is now open.
Visit the Monash European and EU Centre site
Slicing the Silence
Professor Tom Griffiths of the Australian National University has been named joint winner of the 2008 Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History. The prize was awarded for Professor Griffiths’ 2007 book Slicing the Silence: Voyaging to Antarctica.
The prize is awarded to publications deemed to make a significant contribution toward the understanding of Australia’s history and is described as “Australia’s pre-eminent award for excellence in the field”. It includes a grant of $100,000.
The Advisory Committee for the prize made the following comments regarding Professor Griffiths’ book:
Slicing the Silence is a highly original and beautifully crafted book, which is a model for communicating complex historical research in engaging and widely accessible ways. Griffiths blends his own experiences of journeying to Antarctica with those of the explorers and scientists who went before him — so producing a multi-layered history of human interactions with the polar environment of the South. Slicing the Silence offers a broader, international view of Australian engagement with the wider world, and addresses the new global era of trans-national histories which span disciplines and continents within Australian spheres of human engagement. Griffiths strikingly manages to convey the embodied experience of the place, to make the reader wonder how they themselves might cope with the snow, the cold and the silence. It is an eminently readable and highly enjoyable book which will meet the test of scholars and general readers — a rare combination. The book opens up a new dimension of the Australian past and present; and which also, combined with its sheer literary merit, already has claims to become a ‘classic’ in the body of modern Australian historical writing.
Professor Griffiths completed his PhD, Hunters and Collectors: The Antiquarian Imagination in Australia, at Monash in 1994. He is now an environmental historian with the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University.
Slicing the Silence: Voyaging to Antarctica is published by University of New South Wales Press
Monash Arts (Global) student Thom Woodroofe has been named the 2009 Young Victorian of the Year.
At a ceremony in Melbourne, Lord Mayor Robert Doyle presented Thom with the award in recognition of his work in encouraging youth participation across the community.
Thom is the founder of Left Right Think Tank, Australia’s first independent and non-partisan think tank for young people.
Publicly launched earlier this year, it was developed to provide young Australians with the opportunity to contribute to government policy.
Thom said he was honoured and humbled by the title and looked forward to encouraging other young people to volunteer their time in ways they feel they can make a difference.
He also said he hoped to change the way many groups engage with young people.
“There is a culture of tokenism in many organisations’ approaches to youth participation that is more about bottom line than about encouraging and promoting the voices and ideas of young people, which many young people are often unknowingly seduced by,” he said.
Left Right has already expanded across four states, engaged thousands in its network and rolled-out innovative programs such as a Fellowships course for high-school students.
“The organisation is all about providing the platform for young people with great ideas to research them, discuss them and ultimately to link them with policymakers outside of the partisan political process that many are frankly bored with,” Thom said.
For more information on how you can get involved visit the Left Right website.
To find out more about the Bachelor of Arts (Global) degree at Monash visit the Faculty of Arts website.
Associate Professor Christian Kull
Associate Professor Christian Kull from the School of Geography and Environmental Science has been awarded the 2009 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research by Early Career Researchers.
Christian’s research focuses the social processes that transform landscapes, particularly:
More about the Faculty of Arts Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research by Early Career Researchers
Professor Pascaline Winand, Director of the Monash European and EU Centre, has been awarded a Jean Monnet Chair in European Integration and International Relations.
The Jean Monnet Programme was established by the European Commission in 1990 to promote ‘excellence in teaching, research and reflection on European integration’ in universities around the world. Jean Monnet Chairs are awarded to academics teaching European integration studies.
Linnea Andersson, an honours student with the Monash European and EU Centre, is a winner of the CERC Jean Monnet thesis prize.
European Commission: The Jean Monnet Programme for understanding European integration
Dr Tony Moore
Ahead of the launch in Sydney and London last week of a new edited collection, Making Meaning, Making Money: Directions for the arts and cultural industries in the Creative Age, the Australian newspaper published an extract by Monash University’s Dr Tony Moore, a lecturer in Communications and Media Studies with the National Centre for Australian Studies.
View the extract in the Australian, Let’s look beyond the elite
His controversial chapter entitled ‘The Art of Risk in an Age of Anxiety’, argues for a more democratic approach to arts policy in Australia, and for the importance of risk taking in creative production. Dr Moore explores how governments concerned to promote creative industries can enable risk-taking by artists and cultural entrepreneurs from a wider pool of talent engaged in popular culture, rather than over managing elite cultural institutions.
The book, edited by Lisa Anderson and Kate Oakley, was launched last week in London by John Newbigin, leading UK cultural entrepreneur and former policy advisor to Labour leaders Chris Smith, Neil Kinnock and Lord Putnam. Dr Moore joined panelists Prof Oakley, University of the Arts and City University London; Prof David Throsby, Economics, Macquarie University; and Prof Justin O’Connor, Faculty of Creative Industries, Queensland University of Technology. The event was hosted by the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies at Kings College London. Simultaneously Making Meaning, Making Money was launched in Sydney at the University of Technology.
Dr Moore’s chapter takes aim at elitism in Australian arts training and funding, and raises questions about the social supports that have assisted the creation of popular music, films, comedies and publications. He said in the Australian, ‘I am critical of the persistent romantic idea of the artist-hero and of the disconnection of Australian arts from contemporary working-class life. We need to counter the dichotomy of artist and philistine masses with an appreciation of the creativity of popular cultural forms, craft skills and the role of audiences in creating value for art.’
Dr Moore asks how governments can parlay creativity from subcultures and the suburbs into mainstream popular culture industries — themes he will pursue in a forthcoming book, Bohemian Nation and an ARC Linkage application.
On the successful London event, Director of the NCAS Bruce Scates said ‘the Centre considers it to be vitally important to establish international partnerships around seminars and conferences to ensure that its scholars’ research has an impact beyond Australia. The partnership with the Menzies Centre and Kings College London will ensure that Australian researchers, artists and policy makers as well as British colleagues have the opportunity to debate the issues raised in Making Meaning, Making Money.’
Further information about Making Meaning, Making Money: Directions for the arts and cultural industries in the Creative Age is available from Cambridge Scholars Publishing
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