Arts Faculty News

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.

EU Registration for The External Relations of the European Union conference is now open.

Visit the Monash European and EU Centre site

Image © Elizabeth Burns Coleman

The conference will have a wide interpretation of ‘religious communication’, including, but extending religious communication beyond ‘communication studies’ understood as ‘mass media’, to include religious modes of communication such as prayer, sermons, revelation, art, theatre and ritual, as well as religious uses of mass media. We invite papers from the perspectives across the humanities and social sciences, including literature, music, performance, film and television, anthropology, sociology and history, as well as religious studies and theology. We also invite papers from all religious perspectives.

The conference is particularly interested in exploring:

• Religious affect and its relationship to different media (e.g. song, prayer, architecture, film, performance, images in general)
• Religious interpretation and textual hermeneutics (e.g. literalism versus symbolism)
• The use of communication media and art forms by religious groups to create a sense of community
• Communication as a ‘portal’ or window to the ‘divine’ and/or the ‘sacred’
• Cross-cultural adaptation and the creolisation of religious forms
• Religion and the sacred in popular culture
• Modernity, post-modernity and religious communication.

Deadline for submission of abstracts: 22 June 2009

View full submission details

Extended Deadline for Abstract and Proposal Submissions: Friday 3 April

The number of motion in respect of before and after? Irrecuperable diachrony of pure passingness? Reversible? Relative? Real? Living present? Original transcendence? Structure of consciousness? The various Western philosophical traditions have, since their inception, continuously attempted to grapple with the question of time, but still, the problems remain unsolved, the paradoxes tangled, the contradictions unsettled.

Performers and artists understand time as an essential dimension of their media. Many contemporary artists foreground the temporal as a theme in their practice and making. Movements, rhythms, bodies, sounds, objects, experiences, memories, dreams, imaginings and dwellings are recorded, performed and activated in their duration, moment, event and passing.

time transcendence performance brings together the expertise and experiences of scholars and artists in a format that permits the thinking and doing of time with an aim towards mutual elucidation. Drawing together papers, panels, diverse performance practices, exhibitions, installations, screenings and workshops, this transdisciplinary conference and inter-media event initiates a global discussion, investigation and critique of temporality in its performative, phenomenological and transcendental dimensions. The tangible consequences of this cross-fertilisation offers promise for researchers, scholars and artists alike. To begin this gathering and discussion, this conference invites presenters across discourses, disciplines and media, questioning and emphasising the taken for granted yet complex and mysterious phenomenon of time.

Email submissions and enquiries: ttp2009@arts.monash.edu.au

Full details on the conference website

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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Professor Terry Flew

The Communications and Media Studies Program in the School of English, Communications and Performance Studies hosted a highly successful conference at the Caulfield and Berwick campuses from 11-13 August. Opened by the Dean, Professor Rae Frances, it featured visiting Professors from Seoul National University, Hong Kong Baptist University and Communication University of China, continuing a formal research relationship between ECPS and these institutions. Professor Terry Flew (QUT, pictured) and Associate Professors Ramaswami Harindranath (Uni of Melb) and Robin Gerster (Monash) also delivered high quality key note presentations.

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Prof James Piscatori and Prof Bassam Tibi

A two-day international conference on Islam co-hosted by Monash and Deakin universities last month attracted world authorities on Islam Professor James Piscatori and Professor Bassam Tibi as keynote speakers.

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