News from the Faculty of Arts, Monash University, Melbourne Australia
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.
Gough Whitlam: A Moment in History
The latest book from Professor Jenny Hocking, Gough Whitlam: A Moment in History, has been shortlisted in the non-fiction category of the 2009 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. Earlier in the year the book was also shortlisted for The Age Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2009.
Comments from the judges stated:
“No stranger to the political biography, Hocking gives us a portrait of a man who has cast a longer shadow on Australia’s history than most of his predecessors or successors as Prime Minister. There have been many books on Whitlam as Prime Minister—yet no detailed biographic account of his long and remarkable life, of his journey to the Lodge. Hocking combines fine writing with exemplary research including extended interviews with Whitlam and his family. A vivid and engaging book.”.
Gough Whitlam: A Moment in History is published by Miegunyah Press.
More information about the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards.
Visit Jenny Hocking’s profile page on the National Centre for Australian Studies site.
Travel in Atomic Sunshine
Robin Gerster’s book, Travels in Atomic Sunshine: The Australian Occupation of Japan has been shortlisted, in a group of three, for the 2009 NSW Premier’s Australian History Prize.
Travels in Atomic Sunshine was also shortlisted earlier this year for the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards.
Travels in Atomic Sunshine is published by Scribe Publications, 2008.
On Thursday 24 September 2009, Monash University’s Research Unit in Film Culture and Theory collaborated in its inaugural public event: a lively and thought-provoking seminar devoted to Quentin Tarantino’s divisive and highly popular new film, Inglourious Basterds.
Hosted by The Age critic Philippa Hawker, the speakers were:
This event was presented by the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation in association with the Research Unit in Film Culture and Theory at Monash University.
The talks given on the night were filmed and can now be viewed, free of charge, at the Slow TV site of the Australian arts and current affairs magazine The Monthly.
For more of Adrian Martin’s analysis of Tarantino’s film, consult the forthcoming issue of the Australian art magazine UN, his extended essay on ‘sadistic cinema’ (in French translation) in the next issue of Trafic, and his feature piece “Revenge is Useless” which appeared (in Spanish translation) in the September-October issue of Cahiers du cinéma España.
On the 23rd-25th of August 2009, the University of Copenhagen in partnership with Monash University’s School of English, Communications and Performance Studies and Social Aesthetics Research Unit held a symposium on aesthetics, culture and social life, in Copenhagen, Denmark. The event brought together scholars at the forefront of investigations into socio-aesthetics and cultural analysis. It was the first of a series of planned symposia engaging with the theme of Socio-Aesthetics. Drawing together scholars from various fields of the humanities and social sciences, the focus upon interdisciplinary exchange was noteworthy, with delegates interrogating a wide range of phenomena.
The three-day conference saw contributions from more than 40 academics from Monash University, the University of Copenhagen and many other international institutions. The symposium included two keynote speakers, Gerhard Schulze and Scott Lash. Both provided telling, yet dramatically divergent accounts of the dimensions of the aesthetic in social and economic life.
The symposium was a great experience that has set high expectations for the next socio-aesthetics symposium, tentatively scheduled 2011, in Melbourne. Congratulations to all delegates and organizers for their considerable efforts.
See Social Aesthetics Research Unit for further research activities and events.
For further information on the Symposium read Michael Walsh’s report or view the University of Copenhagen’s SocioAesthetics site.
Dr Therese Davis, co-director with Dr Adrian Martin of the new Research Unit in Film Culture and Theory, recently participated as an international guest in Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Indigeneity and Performance, a series of international research workshops funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK.
Dr Davis gave a presentation on how Indigenous filmmakers in Australia are adopting and adapting film as a means for transmitting Indigenous cultural knowledge and history in ways that are radicalising conceptions of historical film and knowledge.
The Heritage and Material Culture workshop analysed functions of heritage within specific social/cultural groups as well as in cross-cultural situations. Heritage was considered not just in terms of transmitting and preserving objects, discourses, values and practices, but also in an expanded sense as mobilising historical understanding or social memory to nourish a desire for solidarity between generations.
Further information on Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Indigeneity and Performance is available from the Beyond Text site.
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