Journal of Australian Studies, Editorial Trainees, Expression of Interest

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The International Australian Studies Association (InASA) and the editorial advisory committee of the Journal of Australian Studies are seeking expressions of interests from HDR candidates, graduate students in editing programmes, or ECRs, who are interested in Australian Studies and would like the opportunity to gain editorial experience as an editorial trainee with the leading journal in Australian Studies.
We expect to appoint two trainees, one based in Brisbane and one based in Melbourne, initially for one year and renewable for up to three years, beginning in July 2013.
As editorial work on the journal is voluntary, trainees would not be paid, although each trainee will receive an award of $500 per annum to defray costs. Trainees will participate in the deliberations of the editors, and will be invited to attend meetings of the Editorial Advisory Committee. They might be asked to accept special responsibility as a group to work on a particular project for the journal. We envisage that the traineeship will involve approximately 2 hours of work per week.
Expressions of interest should be in the form of a letter accompanying a brief curriculum vitae, with the names of two referees, and a one page outline of why you are interested in the position, and what skills you will bring to it.

For further information please contact Maggie Nolan, one of the current editors of the journal, at Marguerite.Nolan@acu.edu.au

Please submit expressions of interest to Professor Kate Darian-Smith, InASA Vice-President and member of JAS’s Editorial Advisory Committee , k.darian-smith@unimelb.edu.au (inc. subject line: EoI: Journal of Australian Studies)

Expressions of Interest close at the end on May 31, 2013.

The Conference on Human Development in Asia

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The Conference on Human Development in Asia invites scholarly interactions among academics, researchers, doctoral students, and representatives from industry, entrepreneurs, and non-profit and non-governmental organization professionals to join us from August 6-8, 2013 in Hiroshima, Japan.

COHDA 2013 is held during the 68th Hiroshima Peace Memorial and Remembrance Week. We will organize events and tours during the conference.

The Deadline for Submissions is April 20, 2013. COHDA 2013 themes include:

Education
Population and Ageing
Healthcare and Social Support
Politics and Conflict
Inequality and Justice
Gender and Culture
Migration and Identity
Environment and Technology
Economy and Sustainability

URL: http://www.presdafoundation.org/human-development-asia-conference/
Contact: cohda.registration@presdafoundation.org

Merlyn Myer Biography Stipend

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Overview
In honour of the 30th anniversary of Merlyn Myer’s death, and to celebrate the importance of acts of memory both public and private, the Merlyn Myer Biography Stipend has been established to assist Australian non-fiction literary writing through the art of biography.
In 2013, two stipends valued at $50,000 each will be awarded to Australian authors undertaking a major biography under commission from an Australian publisher.

The Stipend and The Commission
The stipend is paid directly to the author and is intended to assist with living expenses, research (including travel) and incidental costs during the writing of the work. Most particularly, the stipend is paid as a supplement to the author’s contracted fees, allowances and/or advances. Subject to the author’s proposed time-frame for the work, the Fund reserves the right to pay the $50,000 in instalments. Acquittal of the stipend will be a three page report from the author and publisher plus copies of the final work. Evidence of expenditure of the stipend will not be required.
The stipend will be awarded on the basis of a recent commission, being one contracted on or after 1 January, 2012. Alternatively, the stipend will be conditionally awarded on the basis of a commission-in-principle. In this circumstance, the stipend only becomes payable once the commission has proceeded to a fully executed contract – and in any event, no later than 30 June, 2013.

Assessment Criteria
A Biography Panel made up of experts in the field of non-fiction literary writing and publishing will assess proposals and select the two most outstanding projects.
Assessment criteria will focus on an author’s previously demonstrated
• excellence in non-fiction, narrative writing
• liveliness and readability of structure and style
• rigor and perspicacity in biographic and/or historical research.
While the subject of the biography need not be Australian born or have resided in Australia, the Biography Panel will give priority to projects where a study of the subject’s life has the potential to cast original perspectives on contemporary Australia’s understanding of its culture and social history.
Biographic studies which focus on more than one individual may be considered. Memoirs and autobiographical works are not eligible. .

Making Application
The Sidney Myer Fund invites Expressions of Interest from biographer/publisher teams to establish the eligibility and essential qualities of proposals. It is estimated that up to five Expressions of Interest will be selected and invited to submit a Full Proposal. Full Proposals will be assessed by the Biography Panel and two will be recommended to the Sidney Myer Fund Trustees to receive a Merlyn Myer Biography Stipend.
All applications to the Fund must be submitted online by midnight EST on Friday 15 March, 2013.

Expressions of Interest
An Expression of Interest will be no more than 1,500 words in length and should be jointly prepared by biographer/publisher teams. It should be submitted online by the author.
The Expression of Interest will contain the following information:
1. Is the work under current commission (contracts must have been signed on or after 1 January, 2012) or is the project a commission-in-principle?
2. What is the proposed time-line for the project?
3. A brief biography of the author including extracts of peer review and/or published criticism.
4. A brief statement by the author concerning:
a. the significance of the biographic subject;
b. the significance of the project to the author’s vocational development.
5. A brief statement by the publisher concerning:
a. the author’s qualities as a writer/researcher and their appropriateness for the commission;
b. the contribution the author has made and/or could make to the field of non-fiction literary narrative;
c. the significance of the project to their publishing objectives.
Support material for the Expression of Interest will be limited to extracts of peer review, letters of recommendation and/or criticism of the author’s previous work and must be submitted as part of the online submission.

Full Proposals
Full Proposals will be at the invitation of the Fund and will be jointly prepared by biographer/publisher teams and submitted by the author.
They will be no more than 2,500 words (plus support material).
The Full Proposal offers an opportunity to expand on the initial submission while including responses to the following:
1. How will a study of the proposed subject’s life cast original perspectives on contemporary Australia’s understanding of its culture and social history?
2. Is the biography authorised? If so, please provide details.
3. What are the particular challenges likely to be faced by the author and/or publisher in completing the work (this could relate to identifying documents, securing access to individuals and objects, obtaining permissions, etc.)? What strategies are in place to manage these challenges?
4. Who is the likely readership for the published work and how will it be promoted (nationally and, where appropriate, internationally)? How might the project contribute to the development of the genre and professional opportunities for Australian biographers?

Essential support material for the Full Proposal will include:
• soft copy extracts of the author’s previous work; OR
• hard copies X 5 of extracts of the author’s previous works.

Submissions to the Fund are protected by strict privacy protocols.

Time-frame and Deadlines
Submissions are now invited.
Click Here to commence your submission.
All enquiries regarding the Merlyn Myer Biography Stipend should be directed to Program Manager, Stephen Armstrong by email in the first instance: stephen@myerfoundation.org.au
A. Expressions of Interest must be received by Friday 15 March, 2013.
B. Short-listed applicants will be contacted by Thursday 28 March, 2013 and invited to submit Full Proposals.
C. Full Proposals must be received by Friday 19 April, 2013.
D. Successful applicants will be notified no later than 31 May, 2013.

Eligibility
The proposal must be for a biographic study.
Multiple biographic subjects will be considered.
Autobiographic works and memoirs are NOT eligible.
Only one submission per author/publisher team will be considered.
The author must be an Australian citizen or permanent resident.
The work must be under commission* by an Australian publisher:
• Extant works must have been contracted on or after 1 January, 2012
• Commissions-in-principle must proceed to being fully executed commissions before the stipend is payable and in any event, no later than 30 June, 2013

* Special Note
The terms and conditions of the executed contract between the author and publisher must at a minimum reflect current industry standards. Once applications have been submitted, applicants will be contacted by the Program Manager to verify the terms and conditions of the commission (as executed or proposed). This information remains strictly confidential and will not be made available to the Biography Panel or other third parties.
The stipend must not take the place of or in any way reduce the value of the commission/advance payable to the author. Commission agreements which do not reflect reasonable industry standards as advised to the Fund by The Society of Authors will not prove competitive in the assessment process.

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ACADEMIC APPOINTED VISITING PROFESSOR OF AUSTRALIAN STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO

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The Centre for Pacific and American Studies (CPAS) at the University of Tokyo hosts an annual Visiting Professor in Australian Studies at their Komaba Campus, Tokyo. Associate Professor Catriona Elder has been appointed to the position for 2013-14, and will take up the Visiting Professorship in October 2013.

A leading scholar in the field of 20th-21st century Australian cultural identity, especially relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Australia, Associate Professor Elder will devise and teach subjects exploring Australian society and culture at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, engage in research and promote Australian-Japanese cross-cultural exchange.

Associate Professor Elder has taught Australian Studies in Australia for many years and many of the topics she will touch on while teaching in Tokyo were explored in her book Being Australian (Allen & Unwin), published in 2007. She said “I think that book probably needs to be updated. It will be different thinking and teaching about Australia from outside the nation. I have plenty of new ideas to share. However, I also expect to learn a great deal from being in Japan and working with my students.”

Associate Professor Elder’s Department – Sociology and Social Policy – is internationally known for the work they do on migration and many of her colleagues focus on East Asia in their research. Associate Professor Elder will be continuing her research on immigration and multiculturalism, focusing on gender and initiating work on migration from Japan and Korea. She will continue her research on Indigenous knowledge and reconciliation in Australia.

Associate Professor Elder also noted “I have been doing some research on love, romance and popular culture recently. I have been thinking about romance fiction and nations; the idea of forbidden love. This emerged from some earlier work I completed that explored the context of Australian servicemen who fathered children while in Japan after WWII. I am planning to meet with Japanese scholars who do similar work in the Japanese context”.

…

The Visiting Professor in Australian Studies at the University of Tokyo is supported by the Australia-Japan Foundation (AJF), a non-statutory, bilateral foundation in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade which aims to strengthen Australia-Japan relations. The selection process is chaired by Professor Kate Darian-Smith (University of Melbourne in association with the International Australian Studies Association (InASA), the peak global Australian Studies organisation.

Contact for interviews:
Associate Professor Catriona Elder
E: catriona.elder@sydney.edu.au
T: +61 (0)2 9351 2650

CFP: 3rd Asian Conference on Cultural Studies, 24-26 May 2013, Osaka, Japan

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The International Academic Forum in conjunction with its global partners, 
including the Cultural Studies Association of Australasia, is proud to announce the Third Asian Conference on Cultural Studies, to be held from May 24-26 2013, at the Ramada Osaka, Osaka, Japan.

Conference Theme: Intersecting Belongings: Cultural Conviviality and Cosmopolitan Futures 


Contemporary challenges and contexts of the local, regional, national and global raise urgent questions about cultural conviviality and cosmopolitan futures across the world. These are times when trans-cultural, trans-national and multicultural belonging are particularly being tested through environmental catastrophe, economic volatility, parochialism, fundamentalism, notions of cosmopolitan and multicultural exhaustion, and war. A key challenge lies in the paradox of culture, in which belonging has become a fundamental question of preservation, atavism, tradition and survival as well as hybridity, transgression, possibility and transformation. The aim of this conference theme is to respond to this paradoxical challenge by opening up discussion, critical reflection and analysis about emerging social and cultural identities that are formed at the intersection of multiple and multi-sited belongings.

We welcome papers that focus on (but not limited to):

* Seeking refuge 
* Unruly belonging(s) 
* Intersections of gender, race, religion, sexuality
* Transforming cultures
* Trans-cultural displacement/belonging
* New imaginings/formations of home
* Citizenship beyond borders
* Communication, new technologies and belonging 
* Cultural narratives of belonging/not belonging
* Cultural politics of survival/transgression
* Cosmopolitan exhaustion/renewal
* Belonging in the Anthropocene
* Construction of identities
* Multiple and complex belongings
* Intersecting narratives and identity
* Re-locating culture across borders 


Deadline for Submissions is 1 February 2013.

Professor David Walker, BHP Billiton Chair of Australian Studies, Peking University

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Congratulations to InASA Executive member, Professor David Walker, who is the inaugural BHP Billiton Chair of Australian Studies at Peking University. In this capacity, Professor Walker will increase the profile of studies of Australian society, history and culture in China. In addition, he will provide academic leadership to a network of more than 30 Australian Studies Centres in Chinese universities.

Professor Walker is the author of Anxious Nation: Australia and the Rise of Asia, 1850-1939, (UQP: 1999), winner of the Ernest Scott prize for History in 2001 and Not Dark Yet: A Personal History (Giramondo: 2011). Not Dark Yet has now been reprinted and is being translated in into Chinese. Professor Walker recently released Australia’s Asia: From Yellow Peril to Asian Century,  a collection of essays co-edited with Agnieszka Sobocinska (UWA Press: 2012). Currently Alfred Deakin Professor of Australian Studies at Deakin University and Visiting Professor in the School of Foreign Studies at Renmin University, Professor Walker has held previous appointments as the Distinguished Visiting Chair of Australian Studies at the University of Copenhagen, the Monash Chair of Australian Studies at Georgetown University (USA). He has extensive experience in the development of Australian Studies programmes in PRChina, India, Japan and Indonesia.

The President of Peking University, Professor Zhou Qifeng, welcomed
the appointment of Professor Walker to the new position. “Peking University warmly congratulates on the appointment of Professor David Walker and anticipates working with him in promoting Australian studies and strengthening cooperation with Australian universities for the mutual benefits of our two countries and peoples.”

EASA CFP: Bordeaux, France, 4-7 September 2013

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“On the Margins”

The European Association for Studies of Australia (EASA) will hold its bi-annual conference at Bordeaux 3 University (France), 4th – 7th September 2013.

Guest Speaker: Alexis Wright

The conference theme, “On the Margins,” was selected so as to reflect current research undertaken within CLIMAS, the research group at Bordeaux 3 University that will host the event.

To Europeans, Australia was for a long time very much on the margins: relegated to the bottom right-hand corner of traditional world maps, it was colonised by the less respectable members of English society while its original inhabitants were largely unacknowledged in the country’s official history. From an Indigenous point of view, too, despite the disruption they have caused it is the white Australians who are marginal figures; after all what is 200 years in the country’s existence against an Indigenous culture of 30,000 to 50,000 years? However, the latter view cannot be said to be a mainstream one nowadays, and margin, clearly not a stable term when talking about Australia, gives rise to questions such as who is on the margin of whom or what? Is the margin mainly territorial or conceptual? Are those on the margin there by choice or not? How has the definition of the margin changed over the years and how is it likely to change again in the future?

Using the concept of the margin discursively, one can tie it in with the colonial perception of Australia as a binary opposite to Europeanness, the Antipodean as oddly out of kilter and in all senses less, yielding the contrast against which the white settlers could define themselves. One can also invoke the stereotype of the Indigenous as uncivilised, uncouth, in need of enlightenment etc, or see it as that expression of liminality that scares, defamiliarises, and proves impossible to control. The incommensurability of the Bush, the Outback and Dead Heart of the land, possibly imbued with Indigenous meaning, may also come to mind. Conversely, the margin may be seen to denote the fragile costal fringe that houses a settler population the size of Belgium and the Netherlands together on an ‘island’ twice the size of continental Europe. Australia imagined as margin provides a tense paradigmatic interface that keeps questioning our European values, and may lend itself to discursive interventions informed by Derridean spectrality, Freudian uncanniness, or a Foucauldian wish for control of difference. How does this margin reach the Centre, how does it displace it, speak back to it, to us?

Besides, some recent historiographic decentrings in Australia have served to marginalize erstwhile dominant discourses in a way which further problematizes the notion of marginality, potentially destabilizing a good many of the above-mentioned clichés and yielding the possibility of approaching the embrace of a peripheral position as a convenient cover-up meant to screen from sight various continuing practices of economic exploitation. Traditional topics such as ‘exile’ or ‘the cringe’, as well as more recent affirmations of indigenization or cultural unease, may be revisited from this perspective which is likely to accord with the contribution of our Aboriginal keynote speaker.

We invite proposals for 20-minute papers which respond to the broad conference theme in relation to a wide range of disciplines and subject areas across the humanities and social sciences. These might include: history, fine arts, ecology, politics, mythology, literature, film, media and performance studies, music, geography, anthropology, architecture, law, popular culture, political science, sociology, archaeology, biography, cultural studies, migration and settlement studies, gender and women’s studies, war studies, sports studies, religion, education.

Papers could tackle the questions raised above, and a range of topics including, but not restricted to, those listed below:

Real and imaginary margins

Enforced and desired margins

The margin strikes back

The margin as a site of liminality

The margin as a site of resistance

The marginality of the centre and the centrality of the margin

The appropriation of the margin

Marginal genres and literary/artistic practices

Marginal discourses and linguistic registers

Marginal histories

Marginal aesthetics

Marginal gender and sexuality

The cultural consumption of the margin

The commodification of the margin

The sustainability of the margin

The marginality/centrality of violence and trauma

The porousness and indeterminacy of borders

Victim and/or perpetrator: contesting paradigms

Margin envy/trauma envy

The margin as the unrepresentable

Marginal spectrality/marginal uncanniness

The sublimity of the margin

Marginal means/tools/strategies vs. central themes/issues/concerns

Marginal politics, political margins

Rewriting the margins

EASA also encourages contributions from New Zealand Studies within the conference theme, and welcomes proposals from authors to read from their works at the writers’ evening and from translators to participate in a round table on translating Australian literature into European languages.

All delegates of the Bordeaux conference will have to be paid-up members of EASA. The membership fee is 40,00 EUR (discounts possible at 20,00 EUR). For all information about this you may contact the association’s acting treasurer, Professor Dominique Sève (dominique.seve@univ-lehavre.fr), or consult our website: www.easa-australianstudies.net

Please send a 200-word abstract attached as either a Word or PDF document together with a brief biographical note to susan.barrett@u-bordeaux3.fr by February 28th 2013.

InASA 2012 Conference: Come to Melbourne!

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The program for the 2012 InASA Biennial Conference, 5-7 December 2012 is now available:

http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/history/conferences/inasa-2012/inasa-draft-program.pdf

The Conference has a compelling line up of Keynotes – Kim Scott, Adrian Franklin, Gillian Whitlock and Susan Ryan – several plenary sessions and parallel streams.

It is not too late to register, so please do so if you would like to join us in Melbourne. The conference website with details is at;

http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/history/conferences/inasa-2012/

 

 

Distinguished Visiting Chair of Australian Studies, University of Copenhagen, 2013

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The Centre for Australian Studies at the University of Copenhagen invites applications for a Visiting Professorship in 2013. The Distinguished Visiting Chair in Australian Studies was founded in 2006, with the generous financial assistance of the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment, and Workplace Relations (DEEWR). The appointment is for the European autumn semester of each year (five months from September to January), and the position is next available from 1 September 2013. The post comes with a travel, accommodation and subsistence allowance worth up to AUD 25,000. Office and computer facilities will also be provided by the University.

The Chair holder is required to teach one course at postgraduate level in a subject area of his or her choice. This entails the delivery of one two-hour per week seminar over a period of 12 weeks (including two reading weeks), beginning in the first week of September with a one week break in mid-October. The Chair holder will also be responsible for examining the course in January. Additionally, the Chair holder will be expected to take part in the activities of the Centre, and present a research paper at an appropriate time at one of our departmental seminars. The position is open to scholars currently serving at an Australian University in one or more disciplines of relevance to Australian Studies, including but not limited to Literature, History, Politics, International Relations, Film and Media Studies.

Applicants are invited to submit the following documentation, collated into one pdf document, in the following order:

 An informal letter of introduction

 A table of contents for the application

 The formal application, addressing the selection criteria

 A curriculum vitae, including list of publications

 A brief description of at least one postgraduate level course in Australian Studies that they propose to offer at Copenhagen University (approx. 1 A4 page)

 The names of at least two referees who might be contacted in support of the application.

Applications will be assessed in early December by a committee consisting of representatives of the University of Copenhagen and the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. The Chair will be appointed according to the following selection criteria:

 Research and teaching excellence in one or more disciplines of relevance to Australian Studies

 Suitability of the proposed course of postgraduate study for Copenhagen University students

 Experience in teaching Australian Studies to non-Australian students

 A capacity to forge enduring scholarly links between Australia and Europe

Please note that this is a non-salaried post, and that it is the applicant’s own responsibility to obtain the necessary leave to take up the position. The deadline for applications is Friday 16th November 2012 at 5pm (GMT + 2). Applications and enquiries should be e-mailed to:

Australian Studies Centre Convener: Elena Paños Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies University of Copenhagen e-mail: australianstudies@hum.ku.dk

For more information about the Centre and its activities see www.australianstudies.ku.dk 

The University of Copenhagen acknowledges the financial and other support it has received from the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations

Shaping Canberra: The Lived Experience of Place, Home & Capital

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Call for Papers

Shaping Canberra: The Lived Experience of Place, Home & Capital

Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University 17-20 September 2013
Convenors: Dr Mary Hutchison, Dr Sarah Scott

Conference Aims and Themes

Shaping Canberra will generate new national scholarly discussion about the lived experience of Canberra as a place, home and capital. It starts from the position that the local and national dimensions of Canberra are not opposing or even separate aspects, but deeply entwined. On this basis it asks participants to consider how the local, national (and international) play out in instances and reflections of Canberra’s life and development in the context of four themes: histories and memories, collections and archives, spaces and places; expressions and interpretations. International and national as well as local speakers will be part of the program which aims to create a lively community of discussion across disciplines and practices, and establish a basis for further research and discussion.

Shaping Canberra takes place in the year of the centenary of Canberra and within the context of the HRC’s 2013 research theme, Cities, Imaginaries, Publics. In keeping with the intention to generate fresh insights into the Canberra experience and encourage discussion across disciplines, conference events and activities include an exhibition at the ANU School of Art Gallery, and master classes, workshops, tours and public lectures. The exhibition will present work by established Canberra artists inspired by material in a variety of Canberra archives and collections.

The themes of the conference provide a broad frame for papers which might consider a wide range of particular subjects such as government, individual lives, the arts, architecture, cultural landscapes, community, Indigenous history and culture, public collections, and heritage. Papers offering a critical discussion of practice (for example collections management, heritage interpretation, community history, creative practice) are welcome. Short papers concerning research projects that meet the conference interests are invited for panel presentation.

Examples of areas for discussion:

Cultural memory and the public collection of records of Canberra’s local/national history and experience. The representation of life in Canberra – by artists and writers, in heritage interpretations, public art, museum exhibitions.

Local sustainability and national heritage.
The meaning of place/s – geographies and architectures.
The local community’s role in shaping the ‘planned city’– neighbourhood, housing, social activities, community organisations, political action.
Indigenous Canberra.
The impact of national developments and events on local Canberra and community responses to them.
The interface between urban and rural Canberra.
The development of local senses of identity and place.
The Canberra experience of national policies, events etc.

Submission Guidelines
  • Abstracts of 300 words
  • Biography of author – 50 words
  • Indicate which theme you see as having primary relevance to your paper
  • Deadline: 15 December 2012
  • Notification of acceptance: 15 March 2013 Send submissions to:

    Dr Mary Hutchison: mary.hutchison@anu.edu.au Website: http://hrc.anu.edu.au/100yearsinthemaking

    Invited Speakers Include:

    Professor Jeannette Bastian, Associate Dean, Professor and Director, Archives Program, Simmons College, Boston, USA: Cultural memory and the archives of place.

    Associate Professor Nicholas Brown, School of History, ANU and Centre for Historical Research, National Museum of Australia: Community, Government, Environment: The lived experience of Canberra.

    Professor Kate Darian-Smith, Professor of Australian Studies and History, University of Melbourne: Growing Up in Canberra: Childhood, Community, and Place.

    Dr Julie Gough, artist, freelance curator, Honorary Associate, School of Art, University of Tasmania; Senior Adjunct Research Fellow, School of Creative Arts, James Cook University: creative practice, archives and histories.

    Mr Jakob Parby, Curator, Museum of Copenhagen: Capturing the diversity of a city in museum interpretation.

    Dr Susan Parham, Head of Urbanism University of Hertfordshire, UK: Garden City heritage and sustainability.

    Emeritus Professor Ken Taylor, Research School of Humanities and the Arts ANU: Canberra’s cultural landscape.

    Dr Ron Van Oers, Senior Researcher, Tongji University, Shanghai and Vice Director of the World Heritage Institute of Training and Research Asia Pacific: Canberra as an historic urban landscape.

    Emeritus Professor David Williams, Research School of Humanities and the Arts, ANU ANU: Canberra’s public art collection.

Contact for conference inquiries: Sharon.komidar@anu.edu.au

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