School of Culture and Communication - Theses

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    How to do things with sadness : from ontology to ethics in Derrida
    Pont, Antonia Ellen. (University of Melbourne, 2010)
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    Daryl Lindsay : vision for Australian art
    Thomas, Benjamin Keir (University of Melbourne, 2008)
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    The characterisation of oil paintings in tropical southeast Asia
    Tse, Nicole Andrea (University of Melbourne, 2008)
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    Divide and embody : the moment of putting pen to paper in J.M. Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello novels
    MacFarlane, Elizabeth C. (Elizabeth Catherine) (University of Melbourne, 2007)
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    A fragile thing : marketing remote area Aboriginal art
    Healy, Jacqueline A (University of Melbourne, 2005)
    This dissertation examines the marketing of Australian Aboriginal art from remote area communities with a particular focus on the new marketing practices that have evolved in response to government policies. I will argue that the pressures to achieve economic sustainability are leading art centres to put greater emphasis on business rather than artistic development. Indigenous communities do not view art centres solely as businesses, but as mechanisms for cross-generational and cross-cultural communication. I will argue that the marketing of their art is a means of communicating their culture to a broader audience as well as creating employment opportunities within their communities. Chapter 1 defines the role of art centres, examines the contribution of art centres and arts advisors in the marketing of Indigenous art, and explains the role of different tiers of government in creating the infrastructure for the Indigenous art market. Chapter 2 argues that the economic rationalist perspective disregards the cultural, social and environmental issues facing Indigenous communities. It traces the shaping of the Indigenous tine art market through government policy and funding programs, Then it examines the impact of government funding arrangements in skewing community priorities through three funding scenarios: the development of a culture centre, withdrawal of government subsidy from an art centre and the exhibition Balgo 4-04. Chapter 3 surveys approaches to the marketing of art that achieve cultural outcomes rather than business results recounting examples of innovative marketing from Warlayirti Artists Aboriginal Corporation (WAAC), which were initiated with both business and cultural objectives. Chapter 4 explores the motivations of Indigenous communities in establishing art centres. It traces the history of Turkey Creek and the formation of the Warmun Art Centre and its marketing strategies. Chapter 5 addresses the economic issues faced by art centres in competing with private dealers in the marketplace. This study reveals the uniqueness and fragility of art centres operating in remote areas. I argue that the art centres' existence, and the fundamental role they play in maintaining the integrity of the market place through their marketing strategies, is threatened by the business model. In so doing, I question the current direction of government policy.
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    Closing the distance. Identity and self-representation in the Japanese literature of three Korean writers in Japan: Kim Sok Pom, Lee Hoe Sung and Kim Ha Gyong.
    Foxworth, Elise Edwards ( 2008)
    The theme of cultural identity is topical in the academy and society at large but it is especially significant for the Korean diaspora in Japan. This thesis investigates the means by which Japan-based second-generation Korean novelists Kim Sok Pom, Lee Hoe Sung and Kim Ha Gyong characterize 'zainichi Korean identity' in six semi-autobiographical novels written in Japanese between 1957 and 1972. I argue that a close reading of The Death of the Crow (1957) and The Extraordinary Ghost Story of Mandogi (1971) by Kim Sok Pom, The Cloth Fuller (1971) and For Kayako (1970) by Lee Hoe Sung1, and Frozen Mouth (1966) and Delusions (1971) by Kim Ha Gyong allows for an in-depth understanding of the experiences of Koreans born in Japan before 1945 and the effects of racial oppression on minority identity formation. Specifically, I evaluate and compare the methods by which ethnicity and images of the self are articulated by these three writers in their creative fiction. The thesis argues that, despite the diversity of the views the three writers off er on ethnicity and cultural identity, a theme which they all share is how to overcome the problem of identity fragmentation - the problem of negotiating incongruous hybrid­ Japanese/Korean identities. Ambivalent experiences of belonging or dislocation, vis-a-vis both Japan and Korea proper, surface as a continual source of concern for second-generation zainichi Korean writers and their protagonists. How hybridity and difference are articulated as a lived experience by Kim Sok Pom, Lee Hoe Sung and Kim Ha Gyong is at the heart of this thesis. Their protagonists are Japanese-appearing Korean men, who move between the two worlds of Japanese and (zainichi) Korean culture, and search for a unified identity, or at least contemplate what such an identity might be. In effect, they attempt to 'close the distance' between competing and conflicting images of the self while at the same time pointing to a new politics of identity and sense of belonging, where diversity no longer suggests distance but the possibilities inherent in a truly inclusive society.
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    Hollywood Holidays: case studies of global film tourism sites and their ideological impacts
    Blackwood, Gemma ( 2011)
    This thesis presents a study of film tourism through considering the emergence of the film tourist and of film tourist sites in the mid twentieth century in California. The thesis traces the development of the phenomenon globally over the century and into the new millennium. This area is now a vibrant field of research in tourism studies and my own focus for the thesis is on the concept of the film tourist gaze as it is enunciated in the work of John Urry and others. This study explores the rise of film tourism and its impacts, through a cinema-culture conduit: both studio-created tourism and locations-based travel. I investigate the real impacts of film spectatorship upon local ecologies, and national branding campaigns on national cinemas. I argue that film tourism sites, through acts of “real-life” visitation after a screening experience, enhance the ideological messages contained in originating film texts through the tourist’s repetition of the film’s core narrative and themes at film sites. The practice of film tourism materialises the ideological fantasies contained within the cinema form, yielding interesting insights into the motivations of the film tourist. In each chapter, both the narrative of the individual film(s) and the tourist space itself are interrogated for their prevailing ideologies. The capitalist modes of consumption and production and the fetishisation of loss that the locations invoke, are revealed. From an analysis of five case studies – including three location-based case studies and two studio-based – I map out a constellation of cinematic cultural sites that are crucial to understanding the development of the contemporary film tourist gaze. I consider how film tourism has the power to convey negative stereotypes and damaging images about place/race onto locations that are destinations in the second last chapter and in the last chapter, I examine how national cinemas may become susceptible to tourism sector policy shifts as the economic benefits of film tourism become globally recognised. I show how this has the potential to impact upon the types of films and narratives that are selected and utilised by national cinemas for film tourism campaigns.
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    The decorative works of Sir Edward Poynter and their critical reception
    Inglis, Alison Scott ( 1999)
    This thesis examines the decorative works of the nineteenth century British artist Sir Edward Poynter (1836-1919). His achievements as a decorative designer received considerable recognition during his lifetime but in more recent years have been overshadowed by his reputation as an academic painter. The neglect of this important component of Poynter's oeuvre by twentieth century scholarship is partly due to the destruction or dismantling of several of his major decorative commissions. Other schemes which were the focus of extensive public debate during the Victorian era — such as Poynter's designs for the Central Hall of the Palace of Westminster, the Lecture Theatre apse at the South Kensington Museum and the decoration of the dome of St Paul's Cathedral — were either not realised or only partially completed. This thesis aims to establish the extent and significance of Poynter's decorative career by a comprehensive analysis of the individual commissions and their historical context. These works encompass a variety of media, including painted furniture, stained glass, mosaics, ceramic tiles and frescoes. The accompanying catalogue and illustrations document the commissions with particular reference to their design and the stages of their execution. The thesis also locates Poynter's decorative schemes in the context of the wider debate regarding the nature and role of mural decoration during the second half of the nineteenth century. It elucidates, in particular, the crucial role played by materials and techniques in the contemporary reception of decorative works. Another important issue that arises from this study is the previously unrecognised importance of the Gothic Revival movement for the development of Poynter's career. Its influence is apparent in his belief in the role of architecture as a unifier of the arts, and in the emphasis in his decorative designs upon eclecticism and craftsmanship. Poynter's extensive involvement with the South Kensington Museum also had a major impact upon his decorative aesthetic. The strong Renaissance orientation of his mature work, which focusses on pictorial and narrative values, was directly reinforced by that institution. Poynter emerges from this study as an important but neglected figure in the history of nineteenth century British art, whose career illuminates both the positive and negative attitudes to mural decoration that characterise this period.