In praise of strategic complacency

What follows is the basic text from my talk to “Early Career Researchers” at UQ earlier this month. As you’ll see, they are rough notes, intended for a small and currently employed audience. This is only one experience of “ECR”. I welcome comments for how to expand and edit as I might try to publish [...]

At Sydney Uni this week

Starting with an assembly in Eastern Avenue – one of the many campus locations to have been “enhanced” in recent years at major expense – Wednesday’s No Job Cuts rally moved to the iconic sandstone quadrangle, to the office of the absent Vice Chancellor, Michael Spence. A section of the protest group then stormed the [...]

Dream large

Dream large of narcotising the practice of thought, of putting to sleep the old cultures of criticism, inquiry and analysis, in favour of a consumer opportunity. Culture becomes brand. Dream large of how to educate and polish up your young people, so that they think efficiently but within certain limits, and so that they never [...]

MACS in 2012

Cross-post from Sydney MACS Following last year’s launch and initial MACS meetings I’m keen to hear thoughts on what events/ activities you would like to see continue in 2012. For instance, the Melbourne model has decentralised the organisation of MACS events to different individuals and campuses. To adopt this approach, it might be worth setting [...]

Hired Hands: Casualised Technology and Labour in the Teaching of Cultural Studies

Cross-post from Sydney MACS Preparing for a talk later this week, I have just been reading this article by Kieryn McKay and Kylie Brass published in the September 2011 issue of Cultural Studies Review. The authors, both graduates from PhD programs in Sydney, draw ‘a parallel between the appropriation of podcasting technology into the university [...]

What’s become of cultural studies?

From Graeme Turner’s new book: Cultural studies is among the humanities disciplines where academics’ everyday practice has become increasingly professionalized, strategic and institutionally oriented – this is particularly so for younger people, entering a workplace in which these attributes have become ever more important to one’s continuing employment. That has its drawbacks: new academics are [...]

From teleology to topography: Kerryn Drysdale on auto-ethnographic encounters and the archive

I want to introduce this by recounting an experience I had at the beginning of my auto-ethnography. I was going regularly to Queer Central at the Sly Fox Hotel – one of my ethnographic sites – where drag king shows have been running for nine years. I would take along my notepad and try to [...]

The long walk: Kate O’Halloran on researching queer scenes, spaces and practices

In light of the panel topic, I thought it was appropriate to reflect on my own relationship to this kind of research. While I have been heavily involved in various queer scenes over my formative years this relationship has never been an easy or uncomplicated one. My very first encounter with ‘queer’ was walking into [...]

Postscript: Researching intimacy, sexuality and space

I have posted some pics from Friday’s workshop on Facebook and Flickr for those who couldn’t make it. This was a fantastic prelude to Saturday’s Queer Thinking… and Sara Ahmed’s amazing talk, “Wilful Queers: A Queer History of Will”. I am still a bit overwhelmed by the quality of presentations and the quantity of people [...]

GCS hosts CSAA 2012 – Call for papers

‘Materialities: Economies, Empiricism, & Things’ Cultural Studies Association of Australasia annual conference 2012 Hosted by the Department of Gender & Cultural Studies, University of Sydney Dec 4th-6th (pre-fix pre-conference Dec 3rd) Organising committee: Fiona Allon, Prudence Black, Catherine Driscoll, Elspeth Probyn, Kane Race & Guy Redden. Call for Papers Cultural studies has a long history [...]

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