International
Seoul National University
The Communications and Media Studies Section at Monash University has an on-going relationship with staff in the Department of Communication at Seoul National University.
Monash academic staff members have been teaching into postgraduate (PhD and Masters) coursework units at Seoul National University—and have participated in a number of media studies conferences in South Korea with their SNU colleagues.
Seoul National University academic staff and postgraduate students are participating in a series of Monash University media conferences—the first of these conferences, an International Symposium on Media and Popular Cultural Flows in East Asia, Monash University, Clayton Campus, Melbourne, was held on August 4-5, 2006. The conference was funded by the Australian Research Council Asia Pacific Futures Research Network and the Korea Foundation. The conference was co-organized by staff from staff in Communications and Media Studies, Japanese Studies and Korean Studies.
The second event in the series was International and Intercultural Communications in the Age of Digital Media conference held in August, 2008.
ECPS and Asia-Pacific Communications Consortium
The International and Intercultural Communications in the Age of Digital Media conference was the first event on behalf of a new international consortium of Communications departments. The consortium includes departments from Monash University (ECPS), Communications University of China, Seoul National University, and Hong Kong Baptist University.
A follow-up event is anticipated to be held at Hong Kong Baptist University in 2009. A major focus of these conferences is post-graduate research. The third day of the August 2008 Monash conference was devoted to post-graduate research. Postgraduates from Hong Kong, mainland China, South Korea and Australia participated. Postgraduate papers from the conference will be published in two planned special issues of the journal Colloquy.
Staff and graduate students from ECPS, HUMCASS, PSI, Melbourne University, Queensland University of Technology, University of Tasmania, and Swinburne University of Technology presented papers, as did eleven postgraduates and six staff from the East Asian partner institutions.
University of Sussex
Dr. Michael Bull, Reader in Media and Film Studies at the University of Sussex was a keynote speaker at the 2008 Music, Culture and Society Conference organized by staff from Monash University Communications and Media Studies Section.
University of Copenhagen
Monash University Communications and Media Studies staff members have been hosted by members of the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies at the University of Copenhagen. Joint activities with Copenhagen staff have included co-editing journal issues and seminars.
Monash Communications staff and their partners at the University of Copenhagen are planning two international conferences on the theme of Aesthetics and Society - one in 2009 in Copenhagen, and a follow-up conference in 2010 in Melbourne.
The Copenhagen conference will be held in August 2009. Preliminary details of the conference follow:
Socio-aesthetics: A symposium on aesthetics, culture and social life
This symposium aims to bring together scholars from communications, sociology, cultural studies, urban studies, management, organization studies, material culture studies, marketing and consumption studies to debate the merits of aesthetic approaches to culture and social life. The underlying premise is that aesthetics is no longer the preserve of art historians and philosophers of art, rather changes in society, culture, economy, urban dynamics and everyday life, push us towards considering the aesthetic components of traditionally non-aesthetic domains. The symposium will consider the following kinds of questions:
- Aestheticization and changes in capitalism (ie, so-called ‘cultural capitalism’ and ‘post-fordism’)
- Aestheticization and the design, packaging and marketing of everyday goods
- Aesthetics and creativity in the workplace, organizations and institutions
- Aesthetics and interpretive approaches to the social sciences
- Aesthetics and questions of identity, agency and subjectivity
- Aesthetics and analyses of the public sphere, civil society and sociability
- Aesthetics and technology/technical devices
- Aesthetics and the design and cultural life of cities
Participants:
Jeff Alexander (Yale)
Michael Bull (Sussex)
Ron Eyerman (Yale)
Jukka Gronow (Uppsala)
Harvey Molotch (NYU)
Robert Witkin (Exeter)
Antonio Strati (Trento)
Barbara Czarniawska (Gotheberg)
Lloyd Sandelands (Michigan)
Eiko Ikegami (New School)
David Inglis (Aberdeen)
Ron Jacobs (SUNY)
Ian Woodward (Griffith)
David Roberts (Monash)
Marta Herrero (Plymouth)
Peter Snow (Monash)
Kevin Foster (Monash)
Michael Walsh (Monash)
John Carroll (La Trobe)
Austin Harrington (Erfurt)
Organizers:
Peter Murphy
Eduardo de la Fuente