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Conferences and Seminars
Australian Centre Seminar Program
Semester One, 2008
1 to 2 pm, First floor Seminar Room, 149 Barry Street
| Date |
Paper |
| 19th March |
Layers of Meaning: Towards a World Heritage Listing of the Central Victorian Gold Fields
Dr Keir Reeves, School of Historical Studies, University of Melbourne
As the title suggests, this presentation will focus on the central Victorian gold fields and the move towards a formal world heritage inscription of the key historical sites. This paper will discuss the process of identifying the world heritage values of the region and explaining the international historical significance of the gold rushes. More broadly speaking it aims to reflect upon the role of cultural landscape analysis in heritage studies and Australian history and suggests that it is only by considering remnant and relic mining landscapes of the present day in conjunction with intangible heritage and regional history that the cultural landscape of central Victoria can be fully understood.
1 to 2 pm, First floor Seminar Room, 149 Barry Street |
| 2nd April |
Keys to the South - Thinking Beyond the Southern Hemisphere
Dr Kevin Murray, Research Fellow, University of Melbourne
The 'southern hemisphere' seems a self-evident framework for understanding Australia's place in the world. In the gradual process of opening Australia up to its neighbours, its position in the Asia-Pacific rim has been much emphasised. What about its relation to those along the latitude, particularly the new democracies in Africa and Latin America. This paper considers the way that 'southern hemisphere' has been used to locate Australia's position in relation to its southern neighbours. It argues that this is an essentially conservative framework by comparison with other groupings, such as global south and colonised south.
1 to 2 pm, First floor Seminar Room, 149 Barry Street |
| 16th April |
A parallel universe? Supporters and opponents of refugees and internees in Australia during Word War II
Dr June Factor, University of Melbourne
During the Second World War, Australia interned about 7,300 people, mostly men: prisoners of war, some 'enemy aliens', and a small number of local fascist sympathisers. Many other enemy aliens - non-naturalised immigrants and refugees from the Axis countries - were regarded with suspicion, required to report regularly to police, and faced other restrictions on movement, employment, property, and military service. As both interned and non-interned enemy aliens included many who were anti-fascists (of whom Jews made up a significant number), the injustice of this treatment led to a public debate and the emergence of pro and anti lobbies - not unlike the responses to refugees and immigrants in the last decade.
1 to 2 pm, First floor Seminar Room, 149 Barry Street |
| 30th April |
Sheilas, wogs and metrosexuals: masculinity, ethnicity and Australian soccer in the postmodern marketplace
Dr Jessica Carniel, The Australian Centre, School of Historical Studies
This paper utilises metrosexuality and soccer as two important and interconnected texts to illuminate how new forms of consumption have altered understandings of ethnicity and masculinity. It argues that soccer’s recent rise in popularity in Australia and the rise of the metrosexual are both related to new forms of postmodern consumerism that are significantly influenced by the shift from multiculturalism to cosmopolitanism. This argument is applied to the Australian context in order to explore the complex processes of the de-ethnicisation of soccer in the 1990s and its lingering effects as Australia moves to become recognised as a major player on the world scene, both on and off the pitch.
1 to 2 pm, First floor Seminar Room, 149 Barry Street |
| 14th May |
Heavers Cleavers and Achievers: 150 years of rowing at the university: The story of the Melbourne University Boat Club and its members
Dr Judith Buckrich, Fellow, School of Historical Studies, University of Melbourne
The MUBC is Australia's oldest amateur rowing club and until the 1950s its culture was the quintessence of the values the university wanted to promulgate. Many of its members became high achievers in their field. More recently it has provided many Olympic and world champions. The traditions have remained yet the club is utterly different to what it was 50 years ago. The history provides insight into Melbourne's upper class and the university's changing character and its place in the world.
1 to 2 pm, First floor Seminar Room, 149 Barry Street |
| 28th May |
Branding and Belonging: Globalised Goods and National Identity
Professor John Sinclair, Professorial Fellow, The Australian Centre, School of Historical Studies, University of Melbourne
Branding is intrinsically and at once an economic and cultural process. Branding endows goods and services with value, value which corporations protect as their intellectual property, enabling brands to support share prices and be traded as assets in takeovers and mergers, at the same time as they serve to differentiate products competitively in the marketplace. Yet this ‘brand value’ depends on cultural perceptions of the meaning and worth of a brand. More than the unique image or positioning of a brand being maintained relative to others of its kind, such perceptions may involve the expressive and emotional attachment of consumers, and this may be very widely shared. This paper argues that, with certain brands, such shared attachment can occur on a national basis, so that they become symbols of national belonging. Whereas consumers attribute a putative foreign national origin to some global brands - for example, Harley-Davidson is unequivocally ‘American’ - they relate to other brands as expressive of their own national origin. This identification often persists even when national brands are taken over by global corporations, since the brand’s association with the nation is a major dimension of its value, or the ‘brand equity’ which the new global owner has paid for, and intends to capitalize upon. The paper examines instances in which this has happened in Australia, such as the traditional brand Rosella when acquired by Unilever, and also cases where the Australian origin of a brand has been exploited in establishing its global identity, notably Foster’s Lager.
1 to 2 pm, First floor Seminar Room, 149 Barry Street |
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