What’s up - School of MCC updates

For Immediate ReleaseCall for Entries: 2 February 2009 6pm AEST - 6pm on 30 April 2009 AEST

Where: www.portablefilmfestival.com  
 
Wanna play cinematic tour guide?

We want you to show us around a place that means something to you – whether it be the place of your birth, or where to get the best greasy late night hamburger in town; somewhere far away and exotic, or something down home and personal, there’s a story everywhere you go. And we wanna hear you tell yours!

Portable Film Festival and Lonely Planet TV are proud to present Worldwide Encounters, a film event designed to take the world to the worldwide web, as we scour the atlas for the best in globetrotting filmmaking…

Create a destination video, and tell us creatively about the story of a place; it could be anything - the people there, your travels through it, what you love about it, what you remember about it. You can film yourself dancing through the streets or getting into fights with locals, but you’ve gotta capture the character of the place, and what makes it great…

What we don’t want is the lazy kind of lounge travelogue videos that your relatives might use to inflict the summer cruises of their twilight years onto your family at large. What we do want are films that are creative; that are personal, and that observe things with their own unique sensibility…

There are major cash prizes up for grabs, including $1000 for the grand prize winner, $750 for the audience favourite, and a host of smaller cash prizes and Lonely Planet travel guides for the runners up!

You’ve got until April 29th, 2009 to get us your film. We’ll announce the finalists and present them on Portable Film Festival in the month of June, where our judges will make their decision, and our audiences will make theirs…

So, hit the road and make us a movie about what you find!

Visit http://portablefilmfestival.com/projects.php for more information or drop us an email at lim.jonathon@gmail.com.

The Humanities Sessional Staff Club is a group that meets regularly throughout semester to help support sessional staff in their teaching and professional development. Our meetings provide a point of regular contact for sessional staff that enables them to meet with other sessionals and full-time academics. Also, from time to time we organise seminars that are designed to help you not just survive sessional teaching but encourage your research and teaching to thrive. We have run, for example, seminars on publishing and developing an academic profile.

The first meeting for 2009 will be held at the

Murdoch Tavern

3pm

Friday 20th February

Please join us for a drink to toast the beginning of a new semester.

Other things you might like to know:

1.   There are lockers provided for sessional staff to leave their belongings on the third floor of the Education and Humanities Building (southern wing, adjacent to EH3.078). Please help yourself to these lockers. You will need to bring a lock to secure your belongings.

2.   The Teaching and Learning Centre (TLC) in the Library offer a range of workshops and resources for sessional teachers. Upcoming workshops include:

Teaching Skills Development Program for Tutors/Sessional

This one-day workshop includes tips/strategies and principles for facilitating discussion, marking assignments and dealing with plagiarism.

Date: Tuesday 17th February 2009 Time: 9.30am - 4.00pm

To enrol online, please access: http://wwwtlc2.murdoch.edu.au/events/academic/general/events/?id=1073

Learning Technologies Training for Tutors

In this session, tutors will have a hands-on introduction to an online unit on the Learning Management System (LMS) and some of the tools available in a unit – Lectopia, Turnitin, assignment submissions and Live Classroom.

Date: Friday 20th February 2009 Time: 9.00am - 12.00pm

To enrol online, please access: http://wwwtlc2.murdoch.edu.au/events/academic/general/events/?id=1076

You can find out more about the TLC by visiting http://www.tlc.murdoch.edu.au/

3.   If you have any suggestions about how to improve the sessional teaching experience, please feel free to contact one of the Humanities Sessional Staff Club Coordinators using the following contact details:

Liz Schwaiger                                        Amanda Third

e.schwaiger@murdoch.edu.au                   a.third@murdoch.edu.au

Hope to see you on the 20th!

Curtin University, Perth, Australia, 13-14 November 2009

The Asian Australian Studies Research Network, in collaboration with the Centre for Advanced Studies in Australia, Asia and the Pacific (CASAAP), Curtin University, invites submissions for the Regionalising Asian Australian Identities conference, to be held at Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia, from 13-14 November 2009.

Building on the momentum of previous successful Asian Australian Identities conferences, AAI3 considers the importance of understanding Asian Australian identities and communities within both regional and transnational contexts. In holding the 2009 conference in Western Australia, we are particularly mindful of the rhetoric of the rise of ‘Asia’ which has sustained much of the State’s (and nation’s) boom years. From distanciation to fascination and engagement, Australia’s relationship to Asia continues to inform the culture and politics of the nation. At the same time, the conference theme also reminds us to look into our own backyards and to consider the often neglected histories of the nation’s own regional encounters with Asians, in particular Asian-Indigenous interactions in the north of Australia. How does the articulation of ‘Asian Australian identities’ fit within these shifting terrains? And how might we reconsider Australia’s relationship to Asia and to its own local regions in new and productive ways, particularly as it affects identity formation?

As Asian Australian studies comes of age, what new pathways will the field take? Do we (continue to) learn from the direction Asian American studies has taken? Does Asian Australian studies have a role to play in the growth of Inter-Asia cultural studies? What kinds of conversations might scholars in Asian Australian studies have with their counterparts in North America, Europe and Asia, as well as with ‘locals’ from regional parts of Australia?

We invite papers from all disciplines that explore the regionalising of Asian Australian identities, cultures and politics.

Areas of interest include:

*     Australia’s relationship to Asia and the Pacific

*     The effect of the ‘rise of Asia’ on Asian Australian identities

*     Regional interactions between Asians and indigenous Australians

*     Rethinking questions of migration, belonging and settlement

*     Transnational connections, political alliances

*     The development of new forms of cultural production, participation and imagination

*     New creative practices for Asian Australian youths; gaming and online communities

*     Constructions of ‘local’ Asian Australian identities and practices in the context of the globalisation of diaspora

*     Asian Australian identities and religion                

*     Articulating Asian Australian heritage and history

We also value the participation of creative practitioners across the various fields of Asian Australian cultural production.

Confirmed speakers include:

Koichi Iwabuchi

Krishna Sen

Jon Stratton

All presentations should be of 20 minutes duration. Abstracts (200 words max) and a short bio (max 200 words) should be sent by 30 JUNE 2009 to: AAI3@curtin.edu.au.

Notifications will be sent by 31 July. Please contact Olivia Khoo, o.khoo@curtin.edu.au for more information.

Colleagues, Murdoch is playing a part in the international effort to help Rwanda recover from the 1994 genocide and aftermath.

A team of Murdoch researchers (from MCC, Psychology) has just come back from Rwanda where they had high-level talks to develop a range of research, communication, clinical and production projects.

Come and hear what they have to say.

Rwanda Research Information Session

Speakers: Prof Craig McGarty, A/Prof Mick Broderick, Dr Amanda Third, Dr Ingrid Richardson, Angela Ebert  

12.30-1.30pm Wednesday Feb 11,

Education Common Room EH2.021

Bring your lunch. Tea/coffee provided

Continuum – Journal of Media and Cultural Studies

Continuum expanded to 6 issues in 2008, allowing the journal to reduce lead-times to publication. In most cases, successful summer submissions will result in 2009 publication.As the affiliated journal of the Cultural Studies Association of Australasia, the journal is circulated in hard copy to all members. With extensive electronic distribution as a Taylor & Francis title, the journal also has excellent international exposure, being circulated to some 23,000 libraries world wide.

To submit an article please go to:

http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ccon

Or send a manuscript with author details to Mark.Gibson@arts.monash.edu.au or Mark Gibson, National Centre for Australian Studies, Monash University, Caulfield East, Victoria 3145.Continuum will also shortly be reviewing special issue proposals for 2009-2010. Running a seminar? An innovative conference panel? Want to push forward a new theme or idea in media and cultural studies? If so, then please also discuss your ideas with the editorial team.

Mark Gibson         Mark.Gibson@arts.monash.edu.au
Panizza Allmark    P.Allmark@ecu.edu.au
Greg Noble           G.Noble@uws.edu.au

Editors.

Letting you know that Murdoch is hosting (and some of us are participating in) a truly unique creative event called a “Game Jam”.  We work all weekend, day and night, building a game from scratch, just for the fun of it.  I’ve been to a couple of these before and they are really fun.

This event brings together the entire Perth gaming community, including other universities (ECU, most notably) and developers (Interzone has a strong showing).  This is an awesome opportunity for students interested in games to work with local pro game developers…but the main point is just to have fun building games

So far it’s just a MCC thing but I’d welcome participation from IT and everyone else at Murdoch (and outside too).  Email me if you want to…

* participate,

* watch the crazy people (bring us caffeine!),

* spread the word - especially among IT students

Students are encouraged to participate. It’s not just programmers- artists of all types, sound people - anyone who wants to make a game should come.  Ideally anyone interested should me or Simon (see below), but teams are organised in the first hour, so you can just show up!

-Josh

j.whitkin@murdoch.edu.au

_____________________________________________________________

Basic Info (from http://global.gamejam.org)

What is a Game Jam?

The Global Game Jam (GGJ) is the first of its kind: a game Jam that takes place in the same 48 hours all over the world! The global Game Jam will start at 5:00PM Friday, January 30, 2009 through 5:00PM Sunday, February 1, 2009, (all times local). All participants in the Global Game Jam will be constrained by the same rules and limitations, with each time zone having one distinct constraint.

In a Game Jam, participants come together to make video games. Each participant works in a small team on a complete game project over the course of a limited time period, usually over a weekend. With such a small time frame, the games tend to be innovative and experimental.

To see other international Jams, visit the main site at http://globalgamejam.org.

What is Happening in Perth?

We currently have enough artists and developers to build approximately 4 teams, ready to compete against the rest of the planet. We’ve modified the official GGJ guidelines a little, to help the jammers to get the most out of the event, and to allow more flexibility for the jammers. The modifications can be found on the Local Rules for Perth page.

Registration

If you’re interested in particpating, please contact Simon Wittber simonwittber@gmail.com with your name and contact number.

Local Rules for Perth

1. GGJ-P starts on Friday 30th January, 2009 at 3 pm.
2. GGJ-P finishes on Sunday 1st February, 2009 at 3 pm.
3. Jammers are not required to stay at the venue for the 24 hour period.
4. Jammers should be ready to supply their own equipment.
5. Jammers need to show the local sponsor logos on splash / credit screens.

L I M I N A

A JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL STUDIES

http://www.limina.arts.uwa.edu.au

4th Annual Conference 2009 Friday 5th June

To celebrate the launch of Volume 15 of Limina the collective is proud to announce the 4th Annual Limina Conference.

The Conference will be held on Friday 5th June 2009 at the University of Western Australia, Perth.

Limina is a refereed online journal of historical and cultural studies, based in the Department of History at the University of Western Australia in Perth. It is run entirely by a collective of postgraduate students and committed to publishing the work of postgraduate students and Early Career Researchers from around the world.

The Annual Conference 2009 will provide a lively scholarly environment in which diverse work can be discussed. Conference submissions should explore resistance to traditional disciplinary boundaries and apply a rigorous approach to issues of research, context and theoretical debates.

Possible areas for discussion include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

Borders; geographical, social, political Resistance Censorship Contested histories Centre/ Periphery Displacement Editing Silencing Inclusion/Exclusion Representations Inscription The subliminal Liminality Unofficial versions Mainstream/Alternative Witness Marginalia; notes, commentaries, evaluations Alternative knowledge Minorities Ethnicity Regions and regionalism Alternative methodologies Space and Boundaries Secondary sources Translation Cartographies

Conference papers are 20 minutes in length. To submit a proposal for the conference, please forward a 200 word abstract and brief bibliographical note as an email attachment to the submissions editor

at: limina@cyllene.uwa.edu.au

Deadline for submissions: Friday 20th March 2009.

Successful applicants will work with a single group of students over a full semester. The weekly program encompasses 3 days of lectures, tutorials and workshops. The program will run Monday to Wednesday on Murdoch campus and Wednesday to Friday on Rockingham and Peel campuses. Tutors will be employed on a fractional (0.6) fixed term contract for the duration of each program.

OnTrack enables university entry to undergraduate study for individuals with a disadvantaged or disrupted education.

As a tutor in the OnTrack program you would be required to demonstrate a wide range of tertiary-level academic skills and the capacity to work with students to develop their skills.

Your Expression of Interest (EOI) should include a CV and a statement (max: 1 A4 page) outlining your ability to develop students’ tertiary academic skills and capacity to work with people from diverse and disadvantaged backgrounds.

Expressions of Interest should be submitted as soon as possible for early consideration.

Contact: Jim Meckelburg; 9360 2394; j.meckelburg@murdoch.edu.au

It’s time! The 56th Sydney Film Festival is now open for submissions. If you have made a feature film, documentary or short film since January 2008 that has not been screened in NSW, then Sydney Film Festival is the place to submit your film.  

Take the opportunity to become part of a world class festival. Expose your film to a broad and diverse audience, reaching the public, the media and the global film industry.

Enter your film now at www.sff.org.au/submissions.
Final deadline: 16 February 2009
56th Sydney Film Festival – 3-21 June 2009

For full details on eligibility and to fill in the online form visit: www.sff.org.au/submissions

Hi there

Are you checking out this blog on a regular basis?

Do you have any comments or feedback about the blog?

Is it useful for your needs and interests as a student or graduate or postgraduate with the School of MCC?

All this and more … we would love to get some feedback from you. 

Let us know your views and suggestions - email Silvia at s.rosenstreich@murdoch.edu.au before Christmas.