Social Memory and Historical Justice: How Democratic Societies Remember and Forget the Victimisation of Minorities in the Past. We will analyse how the victimisation of minorities is publicly and collectively remembered in a range of countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Spain, the Ukraine, Austria, Germany, Peru, Chile and the USA. We will identify key factors that enable democratic societies to work towards historical justice. By exploring how memories are contested and how communities ....Social Memory and Historical Justice: How Democratic Societies Remember and Forget the Victimisation of Minorities in the Past. We will analyse how the victimisation of minorities is publicly and collectively remembered in a range of countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Spain, the Ukraine, Austria, Germany, Peru, Chile and the USA. We will identify key factors that enable democratic societies to work towards historical justice. By exploring how memories are contested and how communities actively negotiate the legacies of the past, we will address issues of crucial contemporary concern. The project will provide research training and international experience for a postdoctoral fellow and three doctoral students in an area at the cutting edge of the humanities and social sciences.Read moreRead less
Consumer Culture: the influence of economics on modern theories and practices of sexual psychology. The project has implications for a wide range of public debates in Australia today, including debates about the ethics and psychology of the pornography industry and the pervasive use of the ‘sex sells’ principle in marketing and entertainment. It will produce new knowledge and understanding of how psychological theory has been used to rationalise the commercialisation of sex in consumer culture a ....Consumer Culture: the influence of economics on modern theories and practices of sexual psychology. The project has implications for a wide range of public debates in Australia today, including debates about the ethics and psychology of the pornography industry and the pervasive use of the ‘sex sells’ principle in marketing and entertainment. It will produce new knowledge and understanding of how psychological theory has been used to rationalise the commercialisation of sex in consumer culture and how modern rhetoric of sexual liberation have been shaped by the very economic concerns they purport to repudiate. Finally, the project will advance the knowledge-base of key disciplines in the new humanities and enhance Australia's reputation for groundbreaking research in cultural history and analysis.Read moreRead less
Oceanic Encounters: colonial and contemporary transformations of gender and sexuality in the Pacific. This project innovatively combines an analysis of past and contemporary configurations of gender and sexuality across the Pacific, using historical and ethnographic methods to address interconnected questions about women, men and transgendered persons. It situates dynamic transformations of gender and sexuality in cross-cultural encounters wherein indigenous and exogenous patterns creatively com ....Oceanic Encounters: colonial and contemporary transformations of gender and sexuality in the Pacific. This project innovatively combines an analysis of past and contemporary configurations of gender and sexuality across the Pacific, using historical and ethnographic methods to address interconnected questions about women, men and transgendered persons. It situates dynamic transformations of gender and sexuality in cross-cultural encounters wherein indigenous and exogenous patterns creatively combined. It focuses successively on four epochs and processes: the Cook voyages in the late eighteenth century; Christian conversion from the nineteenth century and the changing fabric of femininities; parallel transformations of masculinities with Christian conversion and male migrant labour and contemporary reconfigurations of gender liminality in relation to homosexuality.Read moreRead less
The Humanities beyond Humanism: Race, Nature and the Human in Australia from Enlightenment to Federation. This Project injects much needed specificity into the emotive and circular logic of racism that characterises accounts of settler/indigenous history in Australia. In so far as Australia's Aboriginal people defied enlightenment/colonial ideas about humans as separate from nature, they shook the very foundations of western humanism. In crediting Aboriginal people with this impact on European k ....The Humanities beyond Humanism: Race, Nature and the Human in Australia from Enlightenment to Federation. This Project injects much needed specificity into the emotive and circular logic of racism that characterises accounts of settler/indigenous history in Australia. In so far as Australia's Aboriginal people defied enlightenment/colonial ideas about humans as separate from nature, they shook the very foundations of western humanism. In crediting Aboriginal people with this impact on European knowledge and self-regard, the Project carries forward the critique of Australia's settlement from a fresh perspective. It challenges the persistent tendency of Australians to write Aborigines into nature, and forces a novel revision in thought about what it means to be 'properly human'.Read moreRead less
Policing noise: the sounds of civility in British discourse, from 1700 to 1850. This project will explore how the British discourse on civility, at home and abroad, was decisively shaped by perceptions of and judgments about the noises of both civil and uncivil activity from 1700 to 1850. This project aims to recover and convey the rarely heard sonic register of civility.
Frontiers of Australian science popularisation. This project details Australia's role in science popularisation in the 1960s and 1970s, when the boundary between science fiction and science fact was often blurred. The project will explore how popular science of that era framed today's crucial issues of climate change, overpopulation and space exploration.
Authenticity: Globalisation and Indigenous Culture. Who speaks for the Fourth World? Why is there an obsession with 'authenticity' whenever Indigenous people are being discussed? This study explores those questions by examining a combination of sources, ranging from international museum collections to the advertising campaigns of multinational companies; from literature to the cultural festivals of the Olympic Games. The research is original, comparative, empirical. It explores the intersectio ....Authenticity: Globalisation and Indigenous Culture. Who speaks for the Fourth World? Why is there an obsession with 'authenticity' whenever Indigenous people are being discussed? This study explores those questions by examining a combination of sources, ranging from international museum collections to the advertising campaigns of multinational companies; from literature to the cultural festivals of the Olympic Games. The research is original, comparative, empirical. It explores the intersections between postcolonial and cultural studies to speak -- not for Indigenous peoples -- but to the non-Indigenous representation of First Nations. Why? Because this provides key insights into the future of race relations in western democracies.Read moreRead less
Mobile Indonesians: social differentiation and digital literacies in the twenty first century. This is the first dedicated study of the social implications of mobile telephony's recent and rapid popularisation throughout the country. This project will study metropolitan, urban and rural users to understand how mobile phones create the new and unexpected social networks which will shape tomorrow's Indonesians.
Affective Communities: Anti-Imperial Thought and the Politics of Friendship. This project is a study of five friendships between anti-imperial Europeans and South Asians at the turn of the nineteenth-century. Its aim is to offer a reading of anti-colonial politics as the product of numerous transnational collaborations, friendships and conversations between western and non-western dissidents. It will extend the theoretical paradigms of postcolonial studies by challenging orthodox understandings ....Affective Communities: Anti-Imperial Thought and the Politics of Friendship. This project is a study of five friendships between anti-imperial Europeans and South Asians at the turn of the nineteenth-century. Its aim is to offer a reading of anti-colonial politics as the product of numerous transnational collaborations, friendships and conversations between western and non-western dissidents. It will extend the theoretical paradigms of postcolonial studies by challenging orthodox understandings of the colonial encounter as a violent and antagonistic clash between western power and non-western dissidence. New information will also be brought to bear on the history of the Indo-European colonial encounter.Read moreRead less
Autobiography of a People: Aboriginal Writing in Queensland, 1890s-1930s. As the recent "history wars" confirm, Australians today care deeply about the colonial past, because its legacies are "all around us and within" (as Oodgeroo noted). This project advances knowledge and conceptual understanding in the key areas of colonial race relations, Indigenous self-representation, and Indigenous literacy. Aboriginal autobiography is an especially effective tool for stimulating the empathetic imaginati ....Autobiography of a People: Aboriginal Writing in Queensland, 1890s-1930s. As the recent "history wars" confirm, Australians today care deeply about the colonial past, because its legacies are "all around us and within" (as Oodgeroo noted). This project advances knowledge and conceptual understanding in the key areas of colonial race relations, Indigenous self-representation, and Indigenous literacy. Aboriginal autobiography is an especially effective tool for stimulating the empathetic imagination, and bridging social, temporal and geographical distances between people. This research will strengthen the nation's social fabric by promoting inter-racial understanding, and by adding historical depth to present thinking about contemporary Aboriginal attitudes to literacy.Read moreRead less