Associate Professor Nikos Papastergiadis

Lecturer in Australian Studies (on leave until mid 2005)

Rm 201, 137 Barry St.
T: 83444901
E: n.papastergiadis@unimelb.edu.au

Associate Professor Nikos Papastergiadis, was educated at the University of Melbourne and the University of Cambridge. Formerly Head of the Centre for Ideas at the Victorian College of Arts, lecturer in Sociology, the recipient of the prestigious Simon Fellowship at the University of Manchester and visiting lecturer at the Glasgow School of Art. Papastergiadis has developed a theoretical perspective that combines extensive knowledge of current practices in contemporary art with social theory. His long involvement with the ground breaking international journal Third Text, as both co-editor and author, was a formative experience in the development of an interdisciplinary and cross cultural research model.

Throughout his career, Papastergiadis has provided strategic consultancies for government agencies on issues relating to cultural identity and has worked in collaborative projects with artists and theorists of international repute such as John Berger, Jimmie Durham and Sonya Boyce. At the Australian Centre he teaches on a range of subjects in relation contemporary Australian culture as well as specializing on the role artists have played in transforming urban spaces. He supervises doctoral students who are investigating issues relating to cultural identity, whiteness, Aboriginal politics and contemporary art practices. His major publications include, Modernity as Exile (1992), Dialogues in the Diaspora (1998), The Turbulence of Migration (2000), Complex Entanglements (2003), Metaphor and Tension (2004). In 2004 he was awarded a Discovery Grant from the ARC and is Chief Investigator on two other ARC grants with the iCinema Centre at UNSW.

His current research focuses on the investigation of the historical transformation of contemporary art and cultural institutions by digital technology. This has led to the convening of major international conference Empires, Ruins and Networks: Art in Real Time Culture hosted at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image 2-4 April 2004.