Arts Collected Works - Theses
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ItemPerforming Emiria Sunassa : reframing the female subject in post(University of Melbourne, 2012)The central figure of this thesis is Emiria Sunassa, a woman who was born in 1894 in Tanah Wangko, North Sulawesi. She grew up in colonial Indonesia, and later during the 1940s, amidst the transition from colonial to Independent Indonesia, she became the new nation�s most prominent female painter. Sources show that Emiria lived an extraordinary life as a nurse, plantation administrator, tiger and elephant hunter, businesswoman, poison-maker, and as a princess from the island Sultanate of Tidore who fought for Papuan independence from the Dutch. During the early 1960s Emiria �disappeared� from Jakarta, which later meant that those who remembered her often regarded Emiria as a �mystery�, and over the decades that followed she gradually disappeared from Indonesian public memory. The recent excavation of Emiria in the late 1990s and 2000s prompts the question of how does one embark on the task of reconstructing the subject of Emiria amidst so many conflicting narratives, artifacts and imaginings, and partial and fragmentary memories? This thesis examines Emiria�s creative practice, political commitments and everyday life as located at the centre of the discursive and practical project of the formation of a modern Indonesian culture during late colonial Indonesia. It introduces a framework for reconceptualising Emiria�s subjectivity through the performative tropes of princess/ primitive; home/ mother; and body/ self to enable an articulation of the feminine which has been negated or co-opted through singular or totalising narratives of the nation and colonialism. Emiria�s performance of these tropes is central as a historicising vehicle for the thesis and as a way for rewriting Emiria�s slippery, multiple and fragmented subjectivity. The thesis shows how Emiria transformed this apparent fragmentation as a strategy to continually reinvent herself, thus eluding subjugation and enclosure within categories fixed through nationalist and colonial power structures. I show how Emiria�s performances of the feminine can thus be reconfigured as potential sites for rupture and contestation.
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ItemFictions of memory : Christoph Hein's pre- and post-unification literature(University of Melbourne, 2016)This thesis examines the theme of memory in six novels by the East German author Christoph Hein. It analyses three works that the author published before 1990 � Der fremde Freund (1982), Horns Ende (1985) and Der Tangospieler (1989) � and three published after the Wende � Willenbrock (2000), Landnahme (2004) and In seiner fr�hen Kindheit ein Garten (2005). In doing so, it presents a longitudinal account of Hein�s treatment of memory over the course of his career, and pays particular attention to the author�s depiction of the dynamics at work in memory politics (Ged�chtnispolitik) in GDR and unified German society.Whether in history, politics, media studies or neuropsychology, recent decades have seen rapid growth in memory studies as an area of interdisciplinary scholarship and increasingly recognised, inter alia, the importance of memory in the organisation of individual and collective life. While literary accounts of the past are not isolated from other disciplines, such as history or politics, much attention has been paid to literature�s capacity to both depict the past and offer meta-commentary on what it depicts, through illustrating the processes, media and mental structures through which individuals attempt to reconstruct their past and the social, political and metaphysical limitations of these attempts. In its approach to memory, literature and the relationship between them, this study draws upon the research of Aleida Assmann and Jan Assmann on collective memory, Ansgar Nunning, Vera Nunning and Astrid Erll�s work on narratology and the memory function of literature, as described by the Erinnerungskulturen project at the University of Giesen. In the context of GDR studies, the thesis considers literature as a potential �Gegen-Erinnerung� that comments on and qualifies the official memory of the East German state according to the foundational narratives of socialism and antifascism. The opportunity to use memory theory to examine Hein�s novels is particularly enticing given the recent dearth of scholarship on the author, the most recent monograph having appeared in 2002. This lack of full-length scholarly works on Hein contrasts with the author�s own productivity in this same period, during which he has published a further four novels, often to critical acclaim. In this latter respect, Hein remains one of the few authors to have experienced success both in the GDR and after German unification. The longitudinal focus of this study contributes to existing work on Hein that examines aspects of continuity and discontinuity in his body of work across the historic rupture of German Unification. More broadly, it also contributes to studies of East German authors and public intellectuals and how they adapted to the changed publication climate and political landscape of the Federal Republic, finding new topics and audiences following the collapse of the �Leseland DDR�, in which they had occupied a prominent position on account of state censorship of the public sphere. What unites Hein�s GDR novels is that they retell the East German past through the life of the individual and concentrate on figures whose experiences under socialism were at odds with the East Germany�s institutionally-supported official memory of the past. This friction between personal and official memory is shown to have produced a number of coping strategies, where individuals either refused to discuss the past entirely or repressed personal experiences in conflict with the official memory of the state for reasons of expedience. Those unwilling or unable to do so are shown to have suffered repeated political persecution. While the Wende in 1990 posited Germany�s second �Stunde Null� of the Twentieth Century and the beginning of a new democratic order, Hein�s post-unification novels similarly focus on individuals whose experiences under capitalism challenge the ideals of democracy and the foundational narrative of the �Rechtsstaat� on which the Berlin Republic is based. His three post-unification novels examined here reveal the mixed fates for individuals under global capitalism, where the state appears to have limited ability to protect the welfare of its citizens against unemployment and transnational crime. At the same time, the state, together with a capitalist media operating under a profit imperative, is shown to have an interest and the ability to control the depiction of the past to protect its own foundational narratives, official memory and political legitimacy. In such a context, literary works such as Hein�s can reveal alternate and divergent narratives of the past that might otherwise go untold. Beyond their common interest in the potential conflict between personal and collective memory, this thesis demonstrates that Hein�s pre-and post-unification novels are also united by their awareness of the social and constructive nature of memory, its subjective limitations and ultimately its status as fiction. By revealing the dynamics that govern how individuals and collectives construct and re-construct a useable past to help them navigate the challenges of the present, and by offering alternate narratives of the past to those in power, this thesis argues that Hein�s novels are in many respects �fictions of memory�, which testify to the central place of memory in individual, social and political life.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableThe Cocharelli Codex : illuminating virtue : a fourteenth-century father's counsel to his son(University of Melbourne, 2016)
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ItemThe problem of the Other in the work of Merleau-Ponty : from epistemology to ethics(University of Melbourne, 2012)This thesis explicates Merleau-Ponty�s implicit ethics. Part one concerns Merleau-Ponty�s interrogations of alterity, from its early elaboration as the �trace of the other� through to its ontological re-casting in terms of the reversibility thesis as this applies to the visible (the phenomenal world) and the invisible (the domains of language and culture). I examine and refute various criticisms regarding The Reversibility Thesis. The viability of the reversibility thesis is crucial to ensure real connection and real difference, thereby overcoming skeptical objections and avoiding solipsism. The Other revealed is a genuine, irreducible Other - neither projected nor introjected. Part two argues that Merleau-Ponty�s non-dual ontology leads to a radical reconfiguration of our understanding of ethics. I begin with an examination of the intersections between phenomenology, neuroscience and Buddhist Philosophy, specifically how these can illuminate the domain of intersubjectivity. I propose that intersubjectivity, like subjectivity is most usefully understood as three-tiered - primary, secondary and tertiary. Until recently the accounts of subjectivity and intersubjectivity have overlooked the primary level. I argue that through a proper appreciation of this primary level together with Merleau-Ponty�s notion of hyperreflection ethics can be re-visioned. I further argue that this ethical dimension completes Merleau-Ponty�s ontology of interdependence.
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ItemSamsara : Conflicting visions for Buddhist nuns in an interconnected world(University of Melbourne, 2012)This dissertation explores very human, lived experiences of rapid religiocultural change arising from globalisation and modernity and, in turn, new complexities stemming from ever-increasing encounters with cultural difference, religious pluralism, and 'modern gender expectations'. In a rapidly interconnecting world, Buddhism is migrating worldwide, proliferating outside those Asian nations in which Buddhism has existed for centuries. However, although Buddhism has become global, it has not done so without selective re-fashioning, resulting in multiple localised forms of Buddhism. Transnational interaction between different Buddhist communities is now commonplace; while these cross-cultural encounters often result in rich, rewarding relationships, they are also a source of religiocultural tension and, sometimes, conflict. The latter is exemplified by recent disputes about proposals to introduce full (Tibetan: gelongma) ordination for Tibetan Buddhist nuns. I conceptualise local and global debates about gelongma ordination as a tight matrix of interwoven but conflicting religiocultural imaginaries, visions and politics. To unravel this, I explore three main threads, which interweave throughout this thesis - globalisation, modernity and gender. Accordingly, I draw on my ethnographic fieldwork conducted in local and transnational Buddhist communities. I first present 'Drolkar Choling�, a nun's community in north India, where only novice ordination is available. I then present 'Keumgangsa', a nun's community in South Korea, where full ordination is routinely undertaken. Interwoven throughout my dissertation is discussion of the transnational Buddhist community, who regularly meet and together attempt to negotiate the continuing forms, practices and meanings of Buddhism. Like my field research, this thesis moves back and forth between local and transnational Buddhist communities to show how both local religiocultural politics and intercultural encounters shape, and mutually reshape, engagements with, and imaginaries around, the gelongma ordination debate. While some Buddhists and scholars argue that the central problem around the lack of gelongma ordination is one of religious orthodoxy, others argue it is sexism and patriarchy. I argue, however, that debates around gender and full ordination are grounded in attempts to negotiate the complex intersection of globalisation and modernity. In particular, I argue that disputes about gelongma ordination are driven by struggles over religious and cultural 'legitimacy', ontological (insecurities, gender and identity politics, and contests over meaning as Buddhist modernities collide. In other words, struggles over gelongma ordination reveal that there are different, often taken-for-granted, visions for how things could and 'should' be within Buddhist communities. In turn, this presented each Buddhist group with a profound conundrum: how to contend with difference in a 'global world�. What emerges is both a universal and a particular story, involving the sticky entanglements of interconnections across difference ... and, from a Buddhist perspective, the unsatisfactoriness of samsara - worldly life.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableOut of the shadows : female puppeteers and the changing tradition of Javanese shadow theatre(University of Melbourne, 2016)
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ItemAnimal welfare, rights and utilitarianism(University of Melbourne, 2012)This thesis explores the relationship between ethical frameworks and animal protection movements. Arguments against the industrialised exploitation of animals frequently rely on deontological structures and the language of animal rights. Conversely, it's often claimed that utilitarian theorists are limited to a regulative approach to animal protection, and cannot make effective arguments against the systematic use of nonhuman animals while there is a possibility this use may produce more utility overall. In this thesis I argue that classic animal welfarism can be supported by a theory of rights, and that utilitarianism can support the abolitionist program to at least the same extent as the current animal rights framework can. The first two chapters begin with an investigation of certain key themes in the debate. In Chapter Two I consider different concepts of autonomy, and demonstrate that some animals - pigeons - are capable of autonomy understood as second-order volition. Chapter Three focuses on the role of sentience as it used to ground both animal rights and fundamental interests in a utilitarian framework. I argue that sentience alone is not a suitable basis on which to ground the strong abolitionist rights that are sometimes claimed, but that it can function as a foundation for a hedonistic understanding of utilitarianism. Chapters Four and Five focus on deontological conceptions of welfarism. In Chapter Four I seek to refute a defence of the moral orthodoxy which assigns rights to all and only humans. I consider an argument based on the evolutionary underpinnings of our moral framework and argue that understood as a variety of tertiary speciesism, it cannot be justified. The harmful effects of restricting rights to humans are also discussed, and in Chapter Five I suggest we might better capture the mainstream perspective with a program of welfare rights for animals. I do this by demonstrating that such a framework is already in place. In Chapters Six and Seven I turn to the utilitarian defence of abolitionism. Chapter Six starts by asking whether the utilitarian can respond to the claim that we ought to breed animals for human purposes because these animals 'wouldn't have lived otherwise'. 1 consider this challenge as a variation of Derek Parfit's 'Repugnant Conclusion' and investigate various solutions, as well as puzzles relating to our asymmetrical attitudes towards preventing suffering and promoting pleasure with respect to decisions about breeding. While these problems don't permit of an easy solution, it is not clear they affect only utilitarian abolitionism. In the final chapter 1 investigate the harm of exploitation and ask to what extent the property status contributes to this harm in a utilitarian framework. 1 ultimately apply a Marxian analysis to show that systematic animal exploitation results in a net utility loss wherever animals are commodified within the current global market. This contributes, therefore, to a stronger claim that utilitarianism can support an abolitionist approach to animal protection.
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ItemUnsheathed : Unveiling our fear of love with Jean-Paul Sartre(University of Melbourne, 2012)
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ItemRe-Calling The Game : Oral History, Popular Memory and Followers of Australian Rules Football(University of Melbourne, 2012)