home cooked theory

Course outline

Thanks very much for all the tips as this was coming together. Since I was moving house yesterday, the day the reader was due, I’ve written something based on what I already know rather than what I hope to get across before giving the lectures. I’ve got a bag of books about romance packed for [...]

Suggested reading: online friends and intimacies

Just in time for my course outline, a fantastic manifesto addressing the limits of online social networking on Geert Lovink’s blog. A taste:
Social networks register a ‘refusal of work’. But our net-time, after all, is another kind of labour. Herein lies the perversity of social networks: however radical they may be, they will always [...]

The Work of Media Consumption

We are half way through the Advanced Cultural Studies course I’ve been teaching this semester with my colleagues Graeme Turner and Mark Andrejevic. I thought I’d share the course outline to give a sense of what we’ve been up to.

Advanced cultural studies: The work of media consumption

July 23
New media utopias and dystopias
Group discussion

Readings
• Axel Bruns, [...]

Cultural studies after Melbourne

Last week on top of the excitement of meeting Lauren Berlant and Ian Horswill and the despair of seeing the Swans lose at ANZ stadium I had some interesting discussions about teaching and cultural studies with some of Melbourne University’s finest employees. It was exciting to hear that some of the material I’ve discussed here [...]

Teaching or research?

My unfortunate lack of blogging lately is partly due to travel and the impact this has on other deadlines: I have three articles/chapters due this month and more presentations in Melbourne and Brisbane, as well as a graduate course to convene and an engagement party to organise! This workload was partly designed to fill in [...]

Looking ahead

Without wanting to read too much into this, it is becoming clear that if I can’t find some assistance soon, I’m going to have to think about moving elsewhere to continue my research. One of the downsides of being a ‘research intensive’ staff member is that access to a pool of students looking for work [...]

Blog readers research

Yesterday I met with an Honours student who wants to write her thesis on non-commenting blog readers. Specifically, she’s trying to explore and understand whether long-term blog readers develop a ‘para-social’ relationship to their favoured blogger, even when they may not participate on the blog itself - how readers form attachments to particular writers and [...]

London calling, #2

Update: Judith Halberstam’s title has changed, see below….
In just over a week, I’m heading over to the UK again for the Cultural Studies Now conference at the University of East London. Before the event, Angela McRobbie has kindly offered to host a seminar for those of us coming such a long way where we can [...]

Tutors for Semester 2

Anyone looking for tutoring work in Cultural Studies at UQ next semester?

Mobile Sex Ed

Get your attention with that header? Next week I’m going to Sydney for a planning workshop about transmitting safer sex messages through mobile and online media:
The objectives of this workshop are to brainstorm ideas, plans and a project focused on how to better communicate to young people the necessity of safer sex in the context [...]

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