School of Culture and Communication - Research Publications
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ItemLiterature as regime (meditations on an emergence)(Manchester University Press, 2002)At the beginning of Joseph Roth’s novel The Radetzky March a young infantry lieutenant, seeing the Emperor accidentally put himself in danger in the course of the battle of Solferino, pushes him to the ground and receives the bullet intended for the Supreme War Lord. Many years later, now a captain and ennobled, Joseph Trotta finds in his son’s school reader an account of this incident.
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Item'Race portraits' and vernacular possibilities: heritage and culture(Cambridge University Press, 2001)'Heritage' is a term both broad and slippery. Beyond the literal meaning of property passed between generations, its contemporary evocations include 'inherited customs, beliefs and institutions held in common by a nation or community . . . [and] natural and "built" landscapes, buildings and environments held in trust for future generations' (Davison et. al. 1998, p. 308). Even this elemental definition strongly associates cultural institutions and heritage. Most cultural institutions articulate inherited customs and beliefs through a sense of heritage which, in turn, certifies their authenticity and legitimacy. Parliamentary conventions, halls of fame and honour boards, much judicial ritual, the use of uniforms, anniversary commemorations of all sorts and university degree conferring ceremonies are strong examples of such practices. At the same time the more material and codified notion of heritage as things held in trust explicitly organises the work of many cultural institutions.
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ItemChained to their signs: remembering breastplates(Pluto Press, 2001)At first glance, breastplates might seem to be just another device in the technology of colonial capture in Australia. Take the photograph of Bilin Bilin wearing a plate inscribed 'Jackey Jackey - King of the Logan and Pimpama'. The plate, the chain and the conventions of photography produce a Yugambeh elder as a shackled criminal on display - he is both a primitive in tableau and one of 'the usual suspects'. The image seems to both document captivity and evoke those 'frontier photographs' of Aboriginal prisoners in the desert bound together with heavy chains attached to manacles around their necks. This initial impression is right in that it recognizes some of the ways in which colonial captivity is not only about actual imprisonment but equally about how captivity is understood, represented, interpreted and made historical. Still, in this chapter I want to persuade you that breastplates and photographs of breastplates performed other roles: as cross-cultural objects and signs.
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ItemFrom the religious to the psychological sublime: the fate of Young's Night Thoughts in Blake's The Four Zoas(Locust Hill Press, 2002)Blake's 537 watercolor drawings to Young's Night Thoughts were produced between 1795 and 1797. He began work on The Four Zoas toward the end of this period, in 1796 or 1797. This temporal proximity, along with the profound formal and thematic influence of Night Thoughts on The Four Zoas, explains in part why the watercolors that illustrate the former frequently seem to allude to events detailed in the latter.
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ItemSpreadsheets, sitemaps and search engines: why narrative is marginal to multimedia and networked communication, and why marginality is more vital than universality(British Film Institute, 2002)Media Studies both benefits from and is overdetermined by its double origin, among sociologists increasingly convinced of the centrality of communication to modernity, and among literary schools diminishingly persuaded of the relevance of past literatures to the lived experience and likely futures of their students and themselves. The clash of cultures has been immensely fruitful. But the dialectic of humanities and social science approaches has occasionally broken down: one critical example is the failure of ‘ethnographic’ audience studies top square off with qualitative and statistically based analysis of audiences, leaving a yawning gap between micro-studies of ‘real people’ and macro-studies of whole populations. Studies of the new media are beginning to bridge the gap through the wide-scale interactive dialogues that have begun to break down the impasse. A second unfortunate effect has been the felt necessity to preface any methodological proposal with a diatribe against whatever the author perceives as the previous dominant discourse in the discipline.
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ItemArchitectures of the senses: neo-baroque entertainment spectacles(MIT Press, 2003)It was sometime in November 2000. I was walking along an Arabian street, taking in the rhythms of the arabesque decorations and the spectacular, multi-colored buildings; being entertained by the exotic street musicians; and occasionally being lured into various bazaars that offered the temptations of products ranging from Persian rugs and glassware, to Versace gowns and DKNY accessories. At one point, I found myself at a pier. I looked up at the sky and, while soft, fluffy clouds punctured its blue (yet somewhat solid) surface, it seemed like it was going to be a beautiful day. But what do I know? No sooner had I thought this than the rumbling sounds of thunder vibrated through the air and flashes of lightning lit up the now-transformed dark and ominous clouds. And the rain came pouring down, creating restless ripples in the previously still waters near the pier. So I left Arabia and walked across the road to Lake Como, where I took in the sights of the palazzo Bellagio as it stood majestically in the background. Initially, the enormous lake reflected the palazzo in its tranquil waters, then thousands of small tubes began to puncture its surface, and the first bars of music suddenly filled this vast space. I recognized the tune Frank Sinatra's "Lady Luck" - and it was, indeed, a toe-tapper. As hundreds flocked around balconies overlooking the lake, the lake's water began to magically take on a life of its own: spurts of water swayed left and right, back and forth in perfect unison with the rhythms of Sinatra's crooning. And the audience continued to look on, mesmerized by the spectacle they witnessed, astounded by the rhythmic motions of water, which included stretches of up to fifty meters erupting to heights that exceeded one hundred meters.
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ItemBaby bitches from hell: monstrous little women in film(Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, 2005)The Surrealists were fascinated by what they perceived as the dual nature of the little girl, her propensity for innocence and evil. This theme has also proven an enduring one in the history of the cinema and provided the basis for many acclaimed films from The Innocents to Lolita. The view of the female child as particularly close to the non-material world of fantasy and the imagination was central to the beliefs of the Surrealists. They regarded childhood as "the privileged age in which imaginative faculties were still à l’état sauvage – sensitive to all kinds of impressions and associations which education would systematically 'correct'". "Dissecting mystery is like violating a child", Bunuel was fond of saying.' In the 1924 Manifesto, Breton claimed, "The spirit which takes the plunge into Surrealism exultantly relives the best of its childhood."
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ItemRacialized 'othering': the representation of asylum seekers in news media(Open University Press, 2005)An incident occurred off Australian territorial waters on 26 August 2001 that had significant consequences in the Australian parliamentary elections held that year. A Norwegian ship, the Tampa, rescued 433 survivors, mostly asylum seekers, from a sinking Indonesian ferry and took them to Christmas Island , part of Australian territory. Categorizing the rescued passengers of the Tampa as 'boatpeople' and 'illegal immigrants', the ruling Liberal Party sought to appeal to sections of the electorate by having Australian Special Forces board the ship in an attempt to stop the passengers from disembarking on Christmas Island - and thus being in a position to apply for asylum. What is of interest to our present concerns, however, is the role of the press in what subsequently came to be referred to as the Tampa affair. Some of the popular newspapers carried stories which reproduced the language of the government, as indicated in the headline in the front page of the Herald Sun on 31 August 2001: 'BACK OFF: Howard rejects UN call to take illegals'.
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ItemEthnicity, national culture(s) and the interpretation of television(Open University Press, 2000)Much of the academic debates concerning 'race', ethnicity and the media have been around issues of representation, power and identity, the constraints restricting minority broadcasting, and the aesthetics of resistance. While these provide various interrogations of the notions of 'race' and ethnicity, and are necessary interventions into the politics and economics of media representations and their hegemonic role in society, this chapter shifts the focus, attempting to explore a few of the current debates regarding both media and 'race' from the perspective of the audience, through the discussion of two studies which examine the interpretations of television programmes by ethnically and/or culturally diverse audiences. We will encounter, en route, the pertinence of 'tradition' in the explanations of understanding and interpretation in philosophical hermeneutics; developments in post-colonial studies and their relevance to notions of 'race' and ethnicity in the international context; and finally, a plea towards the need to revise the questions regarding the nature of cultural imperialism.
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ItemSusan Norrie( 2004)The work of Susan Norrie, which now spans more than two decades, is challenging, provocative and inspirational. As with all visionary artists, Norrie’s practice has developed and changed over time, now incorporating painting, objects, still and moving images and sound. from her paintings to her installations and video projections, Norrie’s work combines technical brilliance and extraordinary talent with an acute and restless intelligence.