News from the Faculty of Arts, Monash University, Melbourne Australia
Travel in Atomic Sunshine
Robin Gerster’s book Travels in Atomic Sunshine: Australia and the Occupation of Japan has won the prestigious New South Wales Premier’s Australian History Prize for 2009. The prize was awarded by the NSW Premier the Hon Nathan Rees at a dinner in Sydney on 27 October.
Travels in Atomic Sunshine is published by Scribe Publications, 2008.
Associate Professor Kevin Foster contributes to a discussion on Australian Defence Force’s involvement in the Afghan campaign via ABC’s Media Watch on 5 October 2009.
The Embedding in Afghanistan segment transcript and vodcast be viewed on the ABC Media Watch site.
How do I look? Aesthetics Through TheoryThursday 10 and Friday 11 December
Keynote speaker: Dr Alison Ross
Featuring a screening of the film Examined Life
The Centre for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies organises an annual postgraduate colloquium, where postgraduate students from the Centre and the wider Faculty are able to share ideas. The colloquium is an opportunity for postgraduate students and emerging scholars, conducting research in literary studies, cultural studies or critical theory, to present aspects of their work. The colloquium seeks to provide a forum for stimulating academic exchange in a relaxed and supportive atmosphere. Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
The title of this year’s colloquium will be ‘How Do I Look? – Aesthetics through Theory’. While contemporary research in the humanities considers a broad range of questions, aesthetics arguably remains a central concern for us all. The organisers invite potential participants to reflect on their own research with regard to contemporary considerations of aesthetics. The overall intention remains the sharing of original ideas and research; accordingly, participants are under no obligation to narrow their focus.
Prospective participants are invited to present a paper of 25–30 minutes length (plus discussion). Proposals should be emailed to colloquium09@arts.monash.edu.au by 30th October. Please include a title and an abstract of 100–150 words. Presentations incorporating audiovisual media are welcome. Please mention any technical requirements and preferences as to date and time.
Further information is available on the CCLCS Postgraduate Colloquium page.
Changing the Climate: 4th Utopias Conference invites papers from scholars, writers and others interested in the interplay between ecology and ecocriticism, utopia, dystopia and science fiction.
This conference will directly address the questions of dystopia and catastrophe with special reference to a problem that increasingly haunts our imaginings of the future, that of actual or possible environmental catastrophe. As Jameson himself wrote in The Seeds of Time: ‘It seems … easier for us today to imagine the thoroughgoing deterioration of the earth and of nature than the breakdown of late capitalism; perhaps that is due to some weakness in our imaginations’. Hopefully, this conference will play some small part in changing that particular climate of opinion.
Its keynote speakers will be:
Full information on submitting papers and registration is available on the conference site.
Anzac Beach, Gallipoli 1915 (from Australian War Memorial Collection)
Interested in studying abroad as part of your Monash degree?
Want to visit Anzac Cove and walk in the footsteps of legends?
In 2010, the National Centre for Australian Studies is offering three $3,500 scholarships to take you to Gallipoli and then on to our historic campus in Prato, Italy. You can earn 12 points towards your degree and also be eligible for further Monash subsidies.
To be eligible for the scholarships you need to complete (or have completed) any of the Australian Studies units offered on our Clayton Campus. If you complete AUS1060 Australian Idol or AUS2001/3001: Broken Earth: Journeys through the Australian Landscape in Semester 1, 2010, you are also eligible for the Monash Gallipoli Travelling Scholarship.
For further information on how to apply view NCAS Monash-Gallipoli Prize 2010.
Jane Montgomery Griffiths discusses the legacy of Sappho on Poetica, ABC Radio National.
A podcast of the program may be download from the ABC site: Searching for Sappho – exploring the legacy of the famous ancient Greek poet.
Dr Alan Dilnot discusses the use of music in fiction on The Book Show, ABC Radio National.
A podcast of the program may be download from the ABC site: The role of music in novels.
The newly formed Research Unit in European Philosophy in the School of English, Communications and Performance Studies brings together experts and scholars in the areas of Aesthetics, Ancient Philosophy, the History of Philosophy, Continental Philosophy, Hermeneutics and Philosophy and Judaism.
The unit’s core members are:
Forthcoming events for this year include:
During the course of 2010 workshops and seminars are planned on ‘Hellenism and Continental Philosophy’, Hamlet and a series of lectures on the ‘Philosophy, Theory and the History of Art’.
Dr Tony Gould from the School of Music – Conservatorium has received the 2009 Classical Music Award for Instrumental Work of the Year for The River Meets the Sea. The piece was composed with cellist Imogen Manins and percussionist David Jones.
The River Meets the Sea can be heard on the CD Under the Tall Trees from ABC Classics.
Kevin Foster, Associate Professor in the School of English, Communications and Performance Studies, has released a new book titled Lost Worlds: Latin America and the Imagining of Empire.
Lost Worlds is an illuminating account of how both an imagined and real Latin America has become a privileged, symbolic site for working through the crises of national identity of Britain, the United States and Australia.
“From British adventure fiction to football, from utopian workingman’s colony to the Falkland Islands, this book sensitively explores how the lost worlds of Latin America have served to reimagine and refashion the lost worlds of the English-speaking west.” Professor Noël Valis, Yale University
Published through Pluto Press, UK.
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