Review by Publishers Weekly

Darker than Blue: On the Moral Economies of Black Atlantic Culture Paul Gilroy. Harvard Univ., $22.95 (192p) ISBN 978-0-674-03570-6

Gilroy (Against Race) offers a shrewd and invigorating discussion—originally delivered as the W.E.B. Du Bois lectures at Harvard University—poised on the fraught intersections of race, class, and status present in the overlapping histories of African-American popular culture, the automobile as American capitalism's “ur-commodity,” and the race-coded global reach of American style. Paying special attention to musical vernacular—from Robert Johnson to 50 Cent—Gilroy's stimulating reappraisal of the seductions of car culture underscores how status improvement for minorities has shifted from acquiring rights to acquiring objects. At the same time, he argues for the anticonsumerist notes struck by such “responsible troubadours” as Marvin Gaye and Bob Marley. Gilroy demonstrates how understanding black experience is crucial in any serious study of modernity itself, at a time when global capitalism trades evermore in American-inflected styles of “blackness,” while simultaneously maintaining and reinforcing lines of racial and class subjugation. While assuming familiarity with Du Bois and latter-day Marxist cultural analysis, this is a reasonably accessible and highly rewarding read for anyone interested in the social and political significance of mass culture or the historically laden language of human rights in a postcolonial age. (Jan.)

Apology to Forgotten Generation

I've just come across an intersting article concerning yet another apology delivered by the Australian Prime Minister. This issue was all over the place in the Austrian news (though just for one day but at least in the headlines); the comparison made between the two apologies are interesting. It seems to have become a very fashionable political strategy to say 'sorry'. It's similar here in Austria and Germany, though the national apologies here seem to be a bit in the past now. Interestingly, a Berlin-based newspaper captioned the apology to the Stolen Generation as 'a cheap apology'...

"This week in New Matilda, Jeff Sparrow asked a simple but very good question: why was there no protest over the Apology to the Forgotten Generation, as there was over last year’s Apology to the Stolen Generation?

Where were the right-wingers to challenge the Apology? Where was the scepticism over the numbers of children involved, the stout defence of the good intentions of those running institutions, the claim, for all the abuse, that many children had benefited from their experience? Where was the concern about “opening the floodgates” to compensation?

Instead, this week’s Apology passed, rightly, with strong support from all sides. Malcolm Turnbull, who gave an excellent, heartfelt speech, was praised for it in his partyroom, even praised for being willing to talk about "love". There were no walkouts by angry conservatives.

It would be shameful if race was the determining issue, if apologising to indigenous people was somehow more objectionable to some than apologising to white Australians. It is, however, hard to think of any other explanation.

Possibly ideological obstinacy played a part in the Stolen Generations debate, a refusal on the part of right-wingers to admit that their opponents might ever be right about anything. In contrast, the Forgotten Generations issue has been a resolutely non-ideological matter. And let us not forget that even diehard conservatives like Nick Minchin and Eric Abetz gave graceful, even moving speeches of support last year as part of the Stolen Generations Apology.

Yet the horrible suspicion remains: for some politicians and commentators, abused black kids aren’t as deserving as abused white kids."

Darker than Blue: On the Moral Economies of Black Atlantic Culture (The W. E. B. Du Bois Lectures) (Hardcover)

Darker than Blue
On the Moral Economies of Black Atlantic Culture
Paul Gilroy -Coming out January 2010-

Paul Gilroy seeks to awaken a new understanding of W. E. B. Du Bois’ intellectual and political legacy. At a time of economic crisis, environmental degradation, ongoing warfare, and heated debate over human rights, how should we reassess the changing place of black culture?

Gilroy considers the ways that consumerism has diverted African Americans’ political and social aspirations. Luxury goods and branded items, especially the automobile—rich in symbolic value and the promise of individual freedom—have restratified society, weakened citizenship, and diminished the collective spirit. Jazz, blues, soul, reggae, and hip hop are now seen as generically American, yet artists like Jimi Hendrix, Chuck Berry, and Bob Marley, who questioned the allure of mobility and speed, are not understood by people who have drained their music of its moral power.

Gilroy explores the way in which objects and technologies can become dynamic social forces, ensuring black culture’s global reach while undermining the drive for equality and justice. Drawing on the work of a number of thinkers, including Michel Foucault, Hannah Arendt, Primo Levi, and Frantz Fanon, he examines the ethical dimensions of living in a society that celebrates the object. What are the implications for our notions of freedom?

With his brilliant, provocative analysis and astonishing range of reference, Gilroy revitalizes the study of African American culture. He traces the shifting character of black intellectual and social movements, and shows how we can construct an account of moral progress that reflects today’s complex realities.

Paul Gilroy holds the Anthony Giddens Professorship in Social Theory at the London School of Economics.
FROM the publisher'site:http://www.hup.harvard.edu

Howard and the contemplation of the banality of closure

I followed with bemusement and incredulity the interview with John Howard in the BBC program, Hardtalk, conducted recently by Stephen Sackur on 30th October 2009.
The usual stubborn narrow argumentation, the old heroes firmly installed in their high thrones-Tatcher and Bush that is- all details about the Tampa we ever got were all wrong, ( he knew all the truths we did not know), the international and possibly UN committees... unreliable as ever and never to be trusted, apologies to those who must not be named... why one should apologize for something someone has never done...

It was amazing for a woman as naive as I am, to see this aged man, not a gentleman , that it not the word he inspires in me, more arrogant than ever, of a new arrogance in fact, one that constricts within a total closure of feelings and understanding. Like the dry hardness of cold stones that no moss nor colour of any kind will ever soffuse in light. Total dimness, obtuseness of immobility that obstructs your step, breaks your run.

It was a contemplation of oldness, of immutability, of near incommunicability.
It came back to me what Hannah Arendt means by political thought, in the words of Margaret Canovan:

Her work is political thought in the sense of representing the free play of an individual mind around politics, making sense of political events and placing them within an unfolding understanding of all that comes within that minds range.

M.Canovan The Political Thought of Hannah Arendt ( N.Y. and London: Harcourt Bruce Jovanovich, 1974) 2-3

In this sense I understood completely and clearly now, that John Howard was never a politician, but just a conservative.

AHRC report now published

Australian Human Rights Commission 2008-09 Annual Report tabled

The Australian Human Rights Commission’s 2008-09 Annual Report has been tabled in federal Parliament and is now available on the website at: http://www.humanrights.gov.au/about/publications/annual_reports/2008_2009/

The report outlines the diverse range of activities undertaken by the Commission in pursuit of its statutory responsibilities and its vision of an Australian society where human rights are enjoyed by everyone, everywhere, everyday.

One of the Commission’s roles is the investigation and conciliation of complaints of alleged discrimination in the areas of sex, race, age and disability, as well as breaches of human rights. In summary, during 2008-09 the Commission received:

• 20 188 enquiries, an 8 per cent increase in comparison with the number of enquiries received in the last reporting period. There has been a 103 per cent increase in number of enquiries received over the past five years.
• 2 253 complaints – an 8 per cent increase in complaints received in 2007-08. There has been an 81 per cent increase in complaints received over the past five years.
• 48 per cent of finalised complaints were resolved through conciliation. Case studies that illustrate the types of matters resolved through conciliation are detailed in the Annual Report and cover issues that are often raised in complaints, such as alleged pregnancy discrimination, discrimination against students with disabilities, race discrimination in accommodation, racial hatred in the workplace and discrimination against older workers.

MENZIES CENTRE FOR AUSTRALIAN STUDIES, KING’S COLLEGE LONDON

Menzies Lecture :

Narrating the Nation in Australia

by Professor Graeme Davison, Monash University

18.00 Tuesday 20 October 2009

The Old Anatomy Theatre, Strand Building, King’s College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS

RSVP to Kirsten McIntyre Menzies Centre, The Australia Centre Strand, WC2B 4LG

Tel 020-7240 0220 Email: menzies.centre@kcl.ac.uk

The Menzies Lecture is one of two major public lectures organised each year by the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies. It is designed to provide an opportunity for a distinguished person, of any nationality, to reflect on a subject of contemporary interest affecting Britain and Australia.

Graeme Davison is a Sir John Monash Distinguished Professor at Monash University. He is a graduate of the universities of Melbourne and Oxford and of the Australian National University, and has held visiting positions at Harvard, Edinburgh, the Australian National University, and King’s College London. He has written extensively on Australian history, especially on urban history, technology, national identity and public history. His book The Rise and Fall of Marvellous Melbourne (1978 and new edition 2004) won the Ernest Scott Prize and his most recent, Car Wars: How the Car Won Our Hearts and Conquered Our Cities (2004) won the Nettie Palmer Prize in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. His long involvement in heritage, museums and other aspects of public history is reflected in The Use and Abuse of Australian History (2000, and his co-editorship of the Oxford Companion to Australian History (1998 and later editions). He is currently working on a book on Australian nationalism and beginning a history of Monash University.


Phone: +44 (0) 207 557 7162

Fax: +44 (0) 207 240 8292

frank.bongiorno@kcl.ac.uk / www.kcl.ac.uk

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/humanities/depts/menzies/who/bongiorno.html

16 October 1943 - Anniversary : Herman Kappler accomplishment: Roman Jews Deported

More than 1000 Roman Jews were taken from their houses on October 16th 1943 during the Nazi occupation of Rome: they were deported in Auschwitz concentration camp. Only 16 of them, and only one woman, came back to their homes.

In Robert Katz' site ( http://www.theboot.it/sedici_ottobre.html)
introducing

Black Sabbath

his book recalling the holocaust

Torn from their homes on a Sabbath day of October, then sent on a journey to oblivion, a thousand victims form a single history that by the power of remembrance lives on in the hearts of millions. Less remembered, however, is their second Sabbath, one week later, the day of their oblivion.
One reason may be that only 15 men and one woman lived to tell of their ordeal. "I made a promise to God," the woman admitted late in her life. "I didn't know whether to curse God or pray to Him, but I said, 'Lord, save me; save me so that I can return and recount.” Her name was Settimia Spizzichino, and from 1945 – when she was found by the Allies in a pile of death-camp corpses – until she died more than a half-century later, she never stopped recounting.
Her recollections along with other survivors were a major source for the reconstruction rendered in Robert Katz's Black Sabbath: a Journey Through a Crime Against Humanity.

A new journal- Proposal

Proposal for New Scholar:

Emerging Research in Humanities and Social Sciences

Expressions of interest are invited for a new, online, peer-reviewed journal to be launched in late 2010. New Scholar will showcase an exciting range of emerging interdisciplinary scholarship from the humanities and social sciences, with a particular focus on new Australian researchers and new work. The journal will be semi-annual. Submissions from early career researchers will be encouraged, but not to the point of exclusivity.
New Scholar is an initiative of early career and established researchers from the Faculty of Arts and Education at Deakin University. Although the journal will be based in Australia, we intend to include a substantial amount of international scholarship.
The functions of this proposal are a) to formally introduce New Scholar and b) to garner expressions of interest from colleagues and associates regarding their potential level of contribution. There are three specific levels to choose from: Editorial Board (6-10 people): Highest level commitment, involving strategic meetings, planning, discussion and production. Advisory Committee (20-30 people): A pool of reviewers, networkers and promoters for the journal on a less constant basis. Interested Parties (unlimited): Those who wish to remain in contact with New Scholar and informed by email announcements of upcoming issues and events.
Movement between levels is of course inevitable given teaching, research and family commitments.
Please contact Dr Bridie McCarthy (bridie@deakin.edu.au) at your convenience to provide us with your response and any feedback or queries you may have, which would be most welcome. Our thanks for your attention and your time.

Australian Cultural Diversity e-Forum

16 October 2009

Come together online, discuss our multicultural society

From today, Australians will have the opportunity to contribute to the growing conversation about our multicultural society by logging onto the Human Rights and Cultural Diversity e-Forum, which will be launched at Customs House at Circular Quay in Sydney at 4pm.

Through an online community and a variety of portals, the Human Rights and Cultural Diversity e-Forum will enable registered users to choose how they wish to engage with cultural diversity issues – from blogs and closed or open forums, to formal consultation processes.

“For a great many people in this country, cultural diversity, and the human rights issues associated with it, are a part of their day to day experience, yet discussion of these issues is often absent from political debate in Australia,” said Race Discrimination Commissioner, Graeme Innes. “The Human Rights and Cultural Diversity e-Forum aims to fill this gap by enabling all people to participate in sustained and informed debate about cultural and religious diversity, racism, the promotion of human rights, human development, freedom, harmony and social inclusion.”

Located on the Institute for Cultural Diversity’s newly established website at www.culturaldiversity.net.au, the Human Rights and Cultural Diversity e-Forum establishes an electronic forum and clearing house for communication across the community, government, service provision, non-government/advocacy, academic and other relevant sectors.

“As the e-Forum grows, we anticipate that community members, professionals, researchers, artists, students and people from all walks of life, will add ideas, events, resources, comments and web links,” said Commissioner Innes. “The e-Forum will thus enable the construction of a national network of research and researchers who commission, publish and review articles that will support cultural diversity in our country.”

The Human Rights and Cultural Diversity e-Forum, an initiative of the Australian Human Rights Commission in partnership with the Institute for Cultural Diversity, is financially supported by the Australian Government.

When: 16 October 2009 from 4pm – 6pm
Where: Barnet Long Room, Customs House, 31 Alfred Street, Circular Quay
Speakers:
The Hon Bruce Baird, Chair, Institute for Cultural Diversity
The Hon Laurie Ferguson MP, Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services
Mr Graeme Innes AM, Race Discrimination Commissioner, Australian Human Rights Commission
Ms Lisa Harvey, Community representative on the Government Web 2.0 Taskforce and
Ms Samah Hadid, Young Muslim Australian.

Spheres 2009

At the Galleria Continua / Le Moulin
Opening during the FIAC, on Saturday, the 24th of October 2009. Preview from midday to 2.30 pm, brunch on the river bank

> Next edition of Sphères 2009:
For the second edition, the Spheres project re-involves the participation of several contemporary art galleries of international dimensions prompted by one desire: to join their diverse forces and energies to develop a shared exhibition - a new kind of exhibition experience - with no submission to any restricting theme. The Galleries will present artists from the five continents, whose works will be installed in and will relate to various parts of the exceptional complex. In doing so, they will engage with the rich history of the site.

- Air de Paris (Paris) - Galleria Continua (San Gimignano / Beijing / Le Moulin) - Goodman Gallery (Johannesburg / Cape Town) - Galerie Krinzinger (Vienne) - Kamel Mennour (Paris) - Almine Rech Gallery (Bruxelles / Paris) - Esther Schipper (Berlin)

Joel Andrianomearisoa - Kader Attia - Willem Boshoff - Chris Burden - Angela de la Cruz - Carlos Garaicoa - Claire Gavronsky - Kendell Geers - Liam Gillick - Frances Goodman - Mark Handforth - Camille Henrot - Carsten Höller - Ann Veronica Janssens - Christoph Keller - Joseph Kosuth - Ange Leccia - Claude Lévêque - Pierre Malphettes - Thomas Mulcaire - Hans Op de Beeck - Nathaniel Rackowe - Anselm Reyle - Ugo Rondinone - Bruno Serralongue - Rose Shakinovsky - Sudarshan Shetty - Nedko Solakov - Katja Strunz - Mikhael Subotzky - Sun Yuan & Peng Yu - Gavin Turk - Minnette Vari
Free transport by bus from Paris: departure at 11 am from Petit Palais (75008), alongside the Seine, Cours de la Reine (Metro: Champs-Elysées Clemenceau, lines 1, 13) and back to Paris around 4 pm. Seats are limited, please book at: lemoulin@galleriacontinua.com

Exhibition from October 24th 2009 to May 30th 2010.

--------------------------------------
Galleria Continua / Le Moulin
46 rue de la Ferté Gaucher 77169 Boissy-le-Châtel (France)
T +33 (0)1 64 20 39 50
Open from Friday to Sunday, from midday to 6 pm
www.galleriacontinua.com

The open mind and its enemies: Anthropology and the passion of the political

The Australian Anthropological Society
Inaugural Distinguished Lecture in Anthropology
A public lecture to be delivered by Ghassan Hage
Future Generation Professor in Anthropology and Social Theory at the University of Melbourne.

Ghassan Hage is an internationally acclaimed thinker, both as an academic and an arresting public intellectual. He is the author of many works on nationalism, racism, multiculturalism and migration from a comparative perspective. The
most well-known is White Nation (2000)examining White experiences of Australian
Multiculturalism, and his latest is Waiting(2009). Prof. Hage taught Anthropology at
the University of Sydney for fifteen years until 2007. He has held many prestigious
visiting professorships including at Harvard University, L’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en
Sciences Sociales in Paris, the University of Copenhagen and the American University
of Beirut. His provocative, insightful and sometimes moving press and radio
discussions have been a valuable part of public life in Australia during the last decade.
Tuesday 8th December 2009 State Library of NSW Macquarie Street, Sydney Metcalfe Auditorium - Free Admission
Program:
6pm Refreshments will be served
6.30 – 7.15 Lecture
7.15 – 7.45 Questions from audience
8pm Finish
Please Visit www.aas.asn.au

Conference Report on the AILAE Research Forum

Conference Report on the AILAE Research Forum
Submitted by gespak on Fri, 25/09/2009 - 09:59. Report on the ‘Second Imagined Australia International Research Forum’, Bari, Italy, 2009

By Oliver Haag

(http://www.australianstudies.hu/node/150 )
Excerpt of the article:

Some Australian Studies and Literatures conferences held within Australia suffer from a glaring dilemma: they fail—for several different reasons—to attract a significant number of Indigenous intellectuals. This is true despite the fact that most conference organisers do seek to actively include Indigenous themes. The ‘Association for the Study of Australian Literature’, for example, holds excellent annual conferences, but in the last two years’ conference programmes one can find the names of only a few Indigenous presenters, and not a single as keynote speaker among them. ‘This is because there are not many Indigenous academics, and those few have made their degrees outside the humanities’, as one (white) delegate said to me in Canberra this July. Is this really a sufficient explanation? Not if one leaves the Australian shores: in June 2009, the second ‘Imagined Australia Research Forum’ was held in Bari, Southern Italy. The forum was organised by AILAE (Académie Itinérante des Échanges Arts et Langues Européennes) (...)
The theme of the research forum (..) revolved around ‘borders, theory, art and power in the reciprocal construction of identity between Australia and Europe’.
Although the conference theme had no explicit emphasis on ‘race’ and ‘Indigeneity’, the bulk of papers reflected cross-cultural subjects such as the constructions of whiteness, aspects of the relations between Jewish and Indigenous Australians, and a revisiting of Russel Ward’s The Australian Legend in a post-colonial and post-imperial context. Not all, but certainly more than half, of the thirty or so talks involved Indigenous themes; also, there were comparatively many Indigenous presenters, including a keynote.
The keynote lecture, delivered by Aileen Moreton-Robinson, analysed the notions of white possession of Indigenous lands, using the example of white (and, in the end, male and heterosexual) Australian beach culture. Jonathan Kimberley and puralia meenamatta (Jim Everett) shared their perspectives on artistic collaboration between Aboriginal Country and Western landscape.

At the risk of over-generalising:
Why, then, does a research forum—that takes place on the other side of the world—attract comparatively more Indigenous intellectuals, and non-Indigenous presenters working on Indigenous topics than conferences at home, at more prestigious universities, and, above all, at far lesser travel expenses?I cannot fully answer this question. Much depends on the organisational skills, connections, and merits of individual persons working tirelessly on the inter-cultural connections between both regions—(..)
Much may also be attributed to coincidence; much, however, is also because of the ethical debates on speaking positions, which are far more evident in Australia than in Europe: Who speaks about (or even for) whom, from what perspective, with what intention?
These questions have been frequently addressed in the context of the representation of Indigenous heritage and cultural property within Australia. In the European academy, these issues, though far from completely new, are nevertheless less dominant. This makes it thus much easier for white Europeans than for white Australians to work on Indigenous issues. This alone is already problematic. What is more, in some of the presentations delivered by Europeans, one could detect a tendency to ‘fetishise’ Indigenous cultures to the extent that they had been considered as the ‘true-blue’ epitome of Australia.

In the end, what does it mean to praise this research forum as having attracted so many Indigenous themes and presenters? Does it make me a ‘fetishist’? Does it mean falling into the ‘authenticity’-trap? All I can say is that, as seen from the view of (intrinsically white) power-relations within the academy, Indigenous perspectives and presenters are sorely needed. Not because of being Indigenous per se, but because the plurality of perspectives and worldviews enhances our understanding of the complexity of human interactions. It is from this angle that I wish to bestow my accolade on the conference organisers to have attracted so many Indigenous themes and a respectful number of Indigenous intellectuals to come over to Europe.

The First Annual Popular Culture Association of Australia and New Zealand

Call for Papers
The First Annual Popular Culture Association of Australia and New Zealand (PopCAANZ) will be held June 30, July 1, 2 in Sydney.

This interdisciplinary and transnational conference is accepting proposals on ALL aspects of popular culture including but not limited to:
• Graphic Novels, Comics and Visual Cultures (Dr Paul Mountfort paul.mountfort@aut.ac.nz)
• Popular Design (Dr Derham Groves, derham@unimelb.edu.au)
• Popular Romance Studies (Dr Glen Thomas, gjthomas@qut.edu.au)
• Popular Fiction (Dr Toni Johnson-Woods, t.johnsonwoods@uq.edu.au)
• Film and TV (Dr Rebecca Beirne, Rebecca.Beirne@newcastle.edu.au )
• Fashion (Dr Vicky Karminas, Vicki.Karaminas@uts.edu.au)
• Popular Science (Dr William Lott, b.lott@qut.edu.au)
• Linguistics (Alan Libert, Alan.Libert@newcastle.edu.au)
• Queer Studies (Dr Samar Habib, S.Habib@uws.edu.au)
• Journalism and Popular Culture (Dr John Cokely, j.cokley@uq.edu.au)
• Popular History (Dr Hsu-Ming Teo, Macquarie University)
• Food Studies (Toni Risson, t.risson@uq.edu.au)
• Philosophy and Popular Culture
• International Popular Cultures
• IT, Gaming, New Media, Internet and Popular Culture
• Popular Performance/Entertainment;
• Popular Music
• Indigenous Cultures
• Green Issues and Popular Culture
• Writing (Creative/Non Fiction)
• Libraries, Archives, Museums and Popular Research
• Sports and Popular Culture
Proposals for panels are encouraged.

Planned events include a poster session (especially aimed at postgrads and undergrads but open to all) and a Wine and Sign cocktail hour. Please mark abstracts Poster Session and send to t.johnsonwoods@uq.edu.au. The Wine and Sign cocktail hour will include editors from academic and non-academic publishers.

The deadline for submissions is 30th November, 2009. Abstracts (max 200 word) should be sent as e-mail attachments to the area chairs, if no area chair is designated please forward to Dr Toni Johnson-Woods, t.johnsonwoods@uq.edu.au. Include your name, affiliation, mailing and e-mail address, and the title of your presentation. E-mails should be entitled: PopCanz Conference. If you do not receive an acknowledgment within one week, please resend your submission. Accepted presenters will be notified via e-mail by January 2010.

A selection of papers from the conference will be solicited for publication in the association’s (new) journal. Additional information will be available on the PopCanz blogsite: http://popcanz.blogspot.com/. A website is forthcoming.

WOMEN'S TRAVEL AWARDS - BERLIN SCHOOL OF MIND AND BRAIN

WOMEN'S TRAVEL AWARDS - BERLIN SCHOOL OF MIND AND BRAIN

Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin
Berlin School of Mind and BrainWeb: www.mind-and-brain.de
Email: admissions@mind-and-brain.de

The Berlin School of Mind and Brain is an international research school,
which was founded in 2006 as part of Germany's Excellence Initiative. The
School offers a unique three-year interdisciplinary doctoral program in
English in the mind and brain sciences.As part of the Berlin School of Mind and Brain's commitment to supporting
women in science and the humanities, the School is delighted to announce a
limited number of travel awards for female students who are interested in
exploring the possibility of doctoral studies at the School.

Successful applicants will receive reimbursement for accommodation, travel
costs, plus a per diem to cover living expenses during their visit.
Candidates will be invited to visit the School during the week of the 7-12
December 2009, and will have ample opportunities to meet with faculty and
students relevant to their research interests, as well as have a chance to
view the School's facilities, and to get a better sense of city itself. In
addition, they will be encouraged to participate in Berlin Brain Days (9-11
December 2009), an annual event that brings together more than 200 doctoral
students from across the neurosciences to discuss and present their work
with senior international faculty.

In order to be eligible for this award you need to meet the basic
eligibility criteria for applying to the School's doctoral program in 2010
or 2011 (in particular you need to have completed or be in the process of
completing a Master's or equivalent degree in an area of study relevant to
the School). Further details about eligibility criteria for study at the
School can be found at: http://www.mind-and-brain.de/63.0.html. Applications
(and questions) should be made to admissions@hu-berlin.de; please include a
short 1-2 page letter of application (detailing your reasons for applying
for the travel award, your background and research interests), your academic
CV, as well as a letter of recommendation.

The deadline for applications is 1 November 2009.

Further details about the School and its program can be found below. We look
forward to hearing from you soon!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Research within the School focuses on the interface between the humanities
and the neurosciences. Of particular interest are research areas that fall
on the borders between the mind sciences (e.g., philosophy, linguistics,
behavioral and cognitive science, economics), and the brain sciences (e.g.,
neurophysiology, computational neuroscience, neurology, and neurobiology).
Major topics of research within the program include: 'conscious and
unconscious perception', 'decision-making', 'language', 'brain plasticity
and lifespan ontogeny', 'mental disorders and brain dysfunction', and the
'philosophy of mind'. However, research is not limited to these areas, and
students are strongly encouraged to develop and work at their own initiative
on any projects that are relevant to interdisciplinary questions relating to
mind and brain.

The School accepts eight-to-twelve doctoral candidates into its program each
year. Here are some excellent reasons why students might wish to be
considered for one of these highly sought after positions at the Berlin
School of Mind and Brain:

* The School has a faculty comprised of 60 distinguished researchers,
including four Max Planck directors, which cover the gamut of research
within the mind and brain sciences.

* Research within the School is strongly embedded in the basic and clinical
research conducted within the region allowing for strong synergistic
research initiatives and opportunities. Hosted by the Humboldt University,
the School's research program includes scientists from the Free University,
the Technical University, the Bernstein Center for Computational
Neuroscience, the Max Planck Institute for Human Development (Berlin), the
Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (Leipzig), and
the nearby universities of Potsdam and Magdeburg.

* Students acquire a strong foundation for interdisciplinary work by
attending eight one-week classes during the first half of their doctoral
program, which cover all fields relevant for mind/brain-related research,
and allow students to explore research methods and topics that they have not
been previously exposed to. Each doctoral candidate is assigned two
professorial advisors - one from the brain sciences, one from the mind
sciences - in order to maximize the interdisciplinary impact of their work.

* Students meet with leading international researchers via the School's
Distinguished Lecture Series, interactions with its senior visiting faculty,
as well as by attending international workshops and meetings. As part of the
School's commitment to maximizing students' research opportunities, the
School also encourages and provides assistance for students to spend time
studying and conducting research abroad during the course of their doctoral
candidacy.

* Extensive practical services to international doctoral candidates are
available, including assistance with visa applications, matriculation,
health insurance, local authorities, scientific soft skill courses, and
language classes.

Finally, there are good financial reasons for studying at the Berlin School
of Mind and Brain:

* There are no tuition fees associated with the program.

* Administrative fees are very low. Administrative fees for attending the
Humboldt University come to only approximately 250 Euros per semester.

* The School offers generous scholarships to the best applicants. Students
who were not successful in winning one of the school's own scholarships will
receive support in obtaining alternative sources of funding (e.g. a research
post within a university department or with one of the School's research
groups, or help in finding alternative funding sources for a scholarship).

Recent progress in the neurosciences has opened up new and exciting avenues
for research that raise challenging conceptual and ethical questions calling
for an interdisciplinary approach. The Berlin School of Mind and Brain
offers a unique research and training environment for doctoral candidates to
work at this exciting interface between the sciences and the humanities.

--
Patrick Wilken, PhD

Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin
Berlin School of Mind and Brain
Luisenstra?e 56
D-10099 Berlin

www.mind-and-brain.de

Cultural Studies Review

Cultural Studies Review
Edited by John Frow and Katrina Schlunke

Cultural Studies Review 15.2 (September 2009)
Critical Indigenous Theory, co-edited with Aileen Moreton-Robinson,
is now available for $29.95.

This is the final print edition of Cultural Studies Review. From March 2010, the journal will be available as an open access e-journal, published by the UTSePress. The editors would like to thank contributors and subscribers for their support of CSR and look forward to their continued support in this new phase of the journal’s existence.
Please visit the Cultural Studies Review website
or email the managing editor at
for more details or to place an order.


Current issue

Cultural Studies Review vol. 15 no. 2 September 2009
Critical Indigenous Theory
—co-edited with Aileen Moreton Robinson
Critical Indigenous Theory

Jodi A. Byrd, ‘“In the City of Blinding Lights”: Indigeneity, Cultural Studies and the Errants of Colonial Nostalgia’

Bronwyn Fredericks, ‘“There is Nothing that Identifies Me to that Place”: Indigenous Women’s Perceptions of Health Spaces and Places’

Irene Watson, ‘In the Northern Territory Intervention What is Saved or Rescued and at What Cost?’

Aileen Moreton-Robinson, ‘Imagining the Good Indigenous Citizen: Race War and the
Pathology of Patriarchal White Sovereignty’

Chris Andersen, ‘Critical Indigenous Studies: From Difference to Density’

Brendan Hokowhitu, ‘Indigenous Existentialism and the Body’

Robert Warrior, ‘Native American Scholarship and the Transnational Turn’
Essays

Nikos Papastergiadis, ‘Wog Zombie: The De- and Re-Humanisation of Migrants, from Mad Dogs to Cyborgs’

Maria Angel, ‘Seeing Things: Image and Affect’

Reviews

Joan Kirkby on Jacques Derrida, Learning to Live Finally: The Last Interview and Linnell Secomb,

Philosophy and Love: From Plato to Popular Culture

Jason Tuckwell on Anna Hickey-Moody and Peta Malins (eds), Deleuzian Encounters: Studies in Contemporary Social Issues

Julie Marcus on Jon Altman and Melinda Hinkson (eds), Coercive Reconciliation: Stabilise,Normalise, Exit Aboriginal Australia

Vicki Grieves on Martin Nakata, Disciplining the Savages, Savaging the Disciplines

Anna Hickey-Moody on Ato Quayson, Aesthetic Nervousness: Disability and the Crisis of
Representation

Holly Randell-Moon on William E. Connolly, Capitalism and Christianity, American Style

Forthcoming
Cultural Studies Review 16.1, March 2010
Rural Cultural Studies: Research, Practice, Ethics
co-edited with Emily Potter, Clifton Evers and Andrew Gorman-Murray,.
Submissions

Cultural Studies Review (formerly The UTS Review) is a refereed journal
published twice a year in March and September. The editors welcome
submissions of essays and innovative writing within the general realm of
cultural studies of between 6000 and 9000 words in length (including all
references). Submissions should be emailed to csreview@unimelb.edu.au

Berlusconism , Ivory Towers and political engagement as an aristocratic pursuit.

The article I paste at the end of this post is from India News of all press and dates back to 2008 when the current Italian Prime Minister gained back its lost grounds. However how interesting all this still sounds.

It refers to Alexander Stille "Citizen Berlusconi" book,( Stille is a former Italy correspondent and currently a professor of international journalism at
New York's Columbia University, he published his book in 2006 when Berlusconi was already one of the world's most talked-about politicians).

By the way whilst the book was widely available and encountered interest, the documentary with the same title, "Citizen Berlusconi", has been banned in Italy.
( please find here the link to watch it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhOJc1JBpKI)

This is only one of the many stories that characterise the current situation in Italy: serious and poses dramatic challenges to every Italian but particularly to public intellectuals and artists. Lately some Italians at least, are finally responding in a visible and audible way.

In France it was possible to write a book like "The Meaning of Sarkozy", the first English translation of Badiou's angry meditations after Sarkozy's election, and it was possible for Badiou to be interviewed widely on national television, it was possible to be written about. The "Rat Man", as he calls Sarkozy in the book, did not necessarily lashed out at Badiou, nor did his party.

It has not been so in Italy.
Recently one of the most outspoken and intelligent Italian journalists, Santoro has risked to have his successful current affairs analysis program, Anno Zero, not just questioned but shut down by the Italian RAI and more menacingly one of his main collaborators , Ruotolo, has received credible death threats on the 6/10/2009( three groups have already formed on Facebook to support him with a total of over 15.000 people in only 4 days).

I guess the time has come for Italian and not only Italian, intellectuals to begin systematically addressing the void that indeed calls for theorizing and therefore for a presence that is just not occurring now.

Lucy Wandham -again of all references- writes in another conservative journal, New Statesman,that Badiou's book reveals his " rather aristocratic tastes, combined with his passion for equality",and that this leads Badiou " to an inevitably quixotic conclusion: forget elections, forget direct action, just hold on to the Platonic idea of revolution, "the communist hypothesis".

I have been accused to have locked myself in a contraddiction by founding the type of non profit organization I have founded and to be pursuing a rather aristicratic exercise with it.

The reality is that if engaging in society has become an aristocratic exercise, than the sinister alternative is to stay still and aloof,( ironically the old fashioned stereotype for aristocracy)and possibly alone, but-attention- well kneeding within the doughy mass, hypnotised by media and mass culture and as immobile as possible.
This surely is the fluidity citizens Sarkozy and differently Berlusconi want to see running. Well what about launching a rare stance?

ARTICLE

'Berlusconism' fast becoming a universal phenomenon
Rome, April 3 (DPA) Most analysts expect Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to meet defeat in Italy's
April 9-10 general election. Even so, 'Berlusconism' is alive and well and no country should feel
entirely immune from it, an American journalist and author warns in his latest book, tracing the life of
the media mogul-turned-premier.
Alexander Stille, a former Italy correspondent and currently a professor of international journalism at
New York's Columbia University, has published a new book on one of the world's most talked-about
politicians titled 'Citizen Berlusconi'.
The book retraces the life and achievements of Berlusconi, from the uncertain origins of his $12
billion fortune to his controversial performance as prime minister over the past five years.
While foreigners often tend to brush off the Berlusconi phenomenon as 'folkloristic' - by focusing on
his recent promise to give up sex or his tendency to compare himself to the likes of Jesus Christ or
Napoleon - Stille argues that it would be wrong to dismiss Italy's premier as an isolated clown on the
world's political scene.
'At first glance, Berlusconi may appear a bizarre, incomprehensible and strictly Italian phenomenon,'
Stille writes in his book, 'but if looked at more closely, he appears as an avant-garde figure, who
embodies many of the main trends present in modern-day politics.'
These include money, control of the media, celebrity status and an uncanny ability to be liked. In
fact, Stille believes there are signs of Berlusconism creeping in several other countries around the
world, including Venezuela, Russia and the US.
'Take (US Vice President) Dick Cheney, in spite of the fact that he represents the exact same
policies of George W. Bush, he could never have been elected president. Why? Because Cheney is
unpleasant while Bush is seen as a nice guy,' remarks Stille.
Research into recent US elections has shown that the nice candidate, the one who comes across
better on television, wins virtually every time.'
In fact, the roots of Berlusconism can be traced back to the US of the 1980s, when former
Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan stormed to power thanks to his charm and fame.
The other essential ingredient of Berlusconism, control over the media, can be found in the
modern-day Russia of Vladimr Putin.
'What is the first thing that Putin does after winning the elections? He uses the power of the state to
intimidate the oligarchs, he kicks out independent journalists, takes over the television stations and
then holds an election with almost no critical voices heard,' says Stille.
Another follower of Berlusconism is Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who Stille says has 'changed
Venezuelan laws and the constitution to gain more power, intimidates the opposition media and has
his own television programme, Alo' Presidente! (Hello, President!), in which he is a combination of
TV host and prime minister.'
Page 1/2
© Copyright 2009 IndiaeNews.com. All Rights Reserved.
Berlusconi's 'post-modern' style of politics relies on another key factor: an ability to communicate
easily and directly to all, regardless of their culture or education.
'Berlusconi communicates in a human, appealing way. While others use a vague, abstract language
that is difficult to follow, Berlusconi utters short, easy to understand concepts like 'meno
tasse per tutti' ('less taxes for all'),' Stille notes.
So what are the signs that a country may be at risk of Berlusconism?
'The most obvious one is lack of pluralism in media ownership. The other is the absence of checks
and balances and conflict of interest rules that prevent, say, a media owner from running for office.'
( © IANS / India eNews)

The Menzies Centre Events in London

The Menzies Centre's program of events continues this Wednesday when we are delighted to present a Monash-Menzies Public Policy Seminar:

Australia: Cultural work and dis/enchantment in the public realm

EMILY POTTER (University of Melbourne) ‘Making Water Public’

LISA SLATER (RMIT University Melbourne) ‘Beyond Celebration’

(Further details below)

Time: 5.15pm

Date: Wednesday 25 March 2009

Venue: Menzies Centre, Australia Centre, Corner Strand and Melbourne Place, London WC2B 4LG

Cost: Free
Please rsvp to menzies.centre@kcl.ac.uk

Further details:

These papers will explore the emergence of public life in local situations of cultural – or perhaps naturecultural – work in Australia, with attendant ethics, responsibilities and engagements. In the post-industrial West, instrumentalist approaches to public life dominate, with cultural work commonly positioned as supplementary to the frameworks – both material and value-based – that give rise to the public realm. These papers will attempt to reorient this understanding. It will propose that, rather than following on from material reality and the ethical positions that inform this, cultural work has the capacity to produce public life. The two papers find their ground in what is excluded from the instrumentalism of Australian bureaucracy and quantitative approaches to knowledge – an instrumentalism of disenchanted reality. This is the terrain of cultural work: ephemera, bodily affects, sensations, emotions, and the entanglements of human and non-human lives. The local situations discussed mobilise a dialectic that instrumentalism alone cannot accommodate – one in which enchantment and disenchantment operate together to generate new ecologies of artful politics.

Emily Potter

‘Making Water Public’

Australia faces a dire water future: drought is chronic in many areas of the country, while climate change threatens to intensify the problem. In South-Eastern regions reliant on agriculture, especially, communities are faced with significant social, economic and psychic stress. In response, governments suggest water audits and buy-back schemes; techno-scientific discourse offers a continuation of disenchanted logic from the colonisation of Australia to today. Is this the only approach to Australian water futures? This paper suggests that the question of making water public is central to the remediation of drought effected environments and communities. It will discuss two case studies in which water is assembled in various arrangements of nature and culture – a creative research project titled Mallee, and the multiple lives of a water bottle – to argue that with the re-collection of water in the terrain of cultural work, water becomes productive of public life itself.
Bio:
Emily Potter is an Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Architecture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne. Her current research focuses on public poetics, sustainable place-making and more-than-human modes of inquiry. In 2007 she co-edited a collection of writings on water cultures and communities, Fresh Water: New Perspectives on Water in Australia (Melbourne University Publishing).


Lisa Slater:

‘Beyond Celebration’

In contemporary Australia public discourse about Indigeneity in general and remote Indigenous communities in particular has been circumscribed by a climate of crisis. This has awakened mainstream Australia to vast inequalities, but the discursive frame continues to disable, or severely limit, an engagement with Indigenous lived experience and values. This paper is a part of a larger research project that examines the immediate and longer-term impacts of selected Australian Indigenous cultural festivals on community wellbeing. The paper will argue that wellbeing, health or healthy body, is not a neutral concept, but as much as it is highly ethical project so it is political. It asks what role do these socio-cultural spaces play in supporting or enabling Indigenous wellbeing and what might festivals tell us about what makes for a 'good life'?

Bio:
Lisa Slater joined the Globalism Research Centre, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, in 2007 where she is the primary researcher on an Australian Research Council Linkage project (with the Telstra Foundation), which examines the relationship between Indigenous Australian Festivals and the health and wellbeing of youth and community.

Recent research: Indigenous festivals; Indigenous-settler relations in Australia; postcolonial cultural production; theories and senses of belonging and home in contemporary Australia. She has been published in, Cultural Studies Review, Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, Meanjin, The Journal of Commonwealth Literature and Borderlands e-journal.

World Leaders Barometer

I found this now obsolete Barometre des World Leaders ( France 24 News site) and could not help thinking of Obama and of...Fanon. It is some time that I contemplate launching myself in a reflecton looking at the ( arguable) post-colonial making of Obama and of Fanon's ghost and the way I can understand both in light of the new " era".
It is a rather concised posting but would love to invite you all to write what you think.
As far as my scattered thoughts style of contribution I continue with just this consideration.
Last night in Italy a huge knot came to the surface again to do with race and migration: the Prato- Chinese attriction zone hit the national news and exposed in the current poverty stricken Europe the wave of anger and intolerance that is palpable.
I turn and turn but cannot quite see where the debate is , where one can truly 'attack' the core of the issues that torment Italians, and perhaps many other Europeans now.

The Chinese, Obama, Fanon, post war, post modern, post Prodi, Berlusconi-held Italy: I see a strong thread to get hold of.

Poem by Mireille Astore

I love this poem. What do we mean by 'loving a poem'? It makes sense of what I have seen this morning of what it is unexplicable otherwise.
But because I am a generous and fair person (!) I share here with you Mireille Astore's presence on the web ( see link below) and a brief outline of her work.
You see : I want to celebrate artists while they are here with us!

Mireille Astore is a multi disciplinary artist with a background in the visual and literary Arts, the Sciences, art administration as well as policy development. She has been publishing and exhibiting for over 14 years and her areas of expertise are Photomedia, Installation Art, Art theory, Art Administration and Information Literacy. She is currently undertaking a scholarship funded PhD candidature in Contemporary Arts at the University of Western Sydney.
contact - website: http://mireille.astore.id.au/


© Mireille Astore 2003-2009

My bones

On your soil
the earth swallows me
then spits out my bones
one by one.

A book that will make people discuss..finally machism in language

Reutner, Ursula / Schwarze, Sabine (éds)
Le style, c'est l'homme
Unité et pluralité du discours scientifique dans les langues romanes
Series: Sprache - Identität - Kultur Vol. 4
Year of Publication: 2008
Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Wien, 2008. XIV, 344 p., 24 dépliants
ISBN 978-3-631-57964-0 br.

A new dead immigrant-Naples, 11 March 2009

This morning a friend posted on her Facebook page that in Naples a Sri Lankan man had died because he had taken an incorrect dose of Aulin a medication he had hoped would bring his fever down. He died in hospital. I had read this poem this morning by an un-named asylum seeker and rap-poet in Melbourne. What are we to do?


I am an illegal alien
Don't know where to go
Or where to stay
Don't even own a bed!
No future ahead

Being homeless made me careless
Too much stress!
Can't even buy my girl a dress.
Don't feel like a man
And I am broke 24/7!

God! I hope there is something better
Waiting for me in Heaven.
Being an Asylum Seeker
And always waiting
For my papers to be accepted!

Even though back home
I am most wanted
Sometimes I feel like I'm grounded from being
safe and peace minded.

But thanks to Asylum Seeker Project!
Because of their help
They made me forget
About how people can be so cruel
And ignorant!

But it is O.K.
I am a strong Man
Doing the best I can.
Mama feel my pain.
One day, the rain will end
And a light of sunshine
Will shine on top of my head.

Bush Fires in Oz national day of mourning -Climate change

Black is all I see
Where green and gold once cloaked the land
Where eucalypt and pine did stand
Where man did live and lay his hand
Now black is all I see
Where horses grazed and cattle drank
Where grasses lined the river bank
Where stood a house and water tank
Now black is all I see
There was a town with store and hall
Which proudly stood ‘neath ridges tall
Now nothing moves or lives at all
And black is all I see
There stood a home and there another
Where lived a daughter, father , mother
A sister, cousin, niece or brother
Now black is all I see
Our nation grieves and holds them tight
Throughout the darkness of the night
Till daybreak brings an ashy light
And black is all I see
“Poor fella, my country”
N.D. 11 FEB 2009



Australian expert says bushfires caused by "climate change"
+ -
18:07, February 19, 2009

An Australian climate change expert said on Thursday the devastating bushfires in Victoria were the "fires of climate change."

Climate Institute chief executive John Connor said climate change was the cause of the bushfires.

"In our view what we have seen in Victoria, with such devastating ferocity, are the fires of climate change," Australian Associated Press quoted Connor as saying in Melbourne.

"The reality for firefighters and rural communities is that the rules that applied in the past to fighting and surviving bushfires have changed forever because of our warming planet," he added.

Victorian Premier John Brumby has already pointed to climate change as a factor in the fires, saying the climate is becoming more extreme.

But most experts and conservation groups have been more circumspect, saying climate change will cause more bushfires but it had not necessarily caused the Victorian blazes.

michelangelo pistoletto

MICHELANGELO PISTOLETTO “Buddha”, 2008
scultura dorata del Buddha, specchio | golden Buddha sculpture, mirror

Galleria Continua
è lieta di annunciare l’evento speciale

MICHELANGELO PISTOLETTO
INCONTRO CON L'ARTISTA

Mercoledì 11 febbraio 2009, ore 18

al CCCS - Centro di Cultura Contemporanea Strozzina - Firenze

L'artista presenterà al pubblico il proprio percorso artistico e i lavori più recenti creati in occasione della mostra che inaugurerá il prossimo sabato 14 febbraio presso la Galleria Continua di San Gimignano.
L'incontro fa parte di una nuovo formato ideato dal CCCS in collaborazione con le diverse realtà del contemporaneo presenti in Toscana. Il CCCS diventa piattaforma d'incontro e di dibattito con artisti di fama internazionale temporaneamente presenti sul territorio.
Michelangelo Pistoletto è uno dei protagonisti dell'arte italiana e internazionale degli ultimi cinquant'anni. L'importanza del suo lavoro è riconosciuta in tutto il mondo e le sue opere sono presenti nelle collezioni museali più prestigiose.
La discussione si svolgerà in lingua italiana.
L’accesso sarà consentito previa presentazione del biglietto multiplo CCCS.
Si ringrazia Galleria Continua di San Gimignano per la gentile collaborazione.

www.strozzina.org
www.palazzostrozzi.org

- - - - - - -

English version

Galleria Continua
is delighted to announce the special event

MICHELANGELO PISTOLETTO
ARTIST TALK

Wednesday 11 February 2009, h 6 pm

at CCCS - Centro di Cultura Contemporanea Strozzina - Firenze

The artist will be retracing his artistic development and presenting his most recent works, created for an exhibition that he will be opening at the Galleria Continua in San Gimignano on Saturday 14 February 2009.
The encounter is part of a new format devised by the CCCS, working in conjunction with the various contemporary artistic strains active in Tuscany.
The CCCS is fast turning into a forum for encounter and debate with the many international artists who temporarily reside in the region.
Michelangelo Pistoletto is one of Italy’s most well known artists, internationally acknowledged as one of the main representatives of the Italian Arte Povera. His work mainly deals with the subject matter of reflection and the unification of art and everyday life in terms of a Gesamtkunstwerk.
The debate will be held in English. A CCCS multiple ticket will be required to gain admission.
Many thanks to Galleria Continua in San Gimignano for their kind cooperation.

www.strozzina.org
www.palazzostrozzi.org

Poem by Tenzin Tsundue-Tibetan exilee in India http://www.friendsoftibet.org/

HORIZON

From home you have reached
the Horizon here.
From here to another
here you go.

From there to the next
next to the next
horizon to horizon
every step is a horizon.

Count the steps
and keep the number.

Pick the white pebbles
and the funny strange leaves.
Mark the curves
and cliffs around
for you may need
to come home again.

Senza appartenenze Transculturalismo, migrazione e turismo dell'intendere

Senza appartenenze
Transculturalismo, migrazione e turismo dell'intendere

seminario con Augusto Ponzio e Morteza Keyhan

aperto a tutti coloro, studenti e non, che siano interessati

Mercoledi 11 febbraio 2009, ore 15.30, aula A, Facoltà di Lingue,
via Garruba 6, Bari
Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature Straniere
--

New my sites: http://www.augustoponzio.com/
http://www.lingue.uniba.it/plat/generale_dipartimento.htm
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/epc/srb/cyber/cyber.html
http://www.semioticon.com/semiotix/semiotix5/newsletterindex5.htm
Dipartimento di Pratiche Linguistiche e Analisi di Testi
Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature Straniere
Sezione Filosofia e Scienze dei segni
Università degli Studi di Bari
Via Garruba, 6
70100 Bari, Italy
phone: 0039 080/5717503
fax: OO39 080/5717460
augustoponzio@libero.it

FESTA is announcing auditions for Shakespeare's Macbeth at the BARGELLO MUSEUM in Florence, Italy, July 2009

Attention, Actors and Actresses!
A message concerning auditions for Macbeth
forwarded at FESTA's request...

FESTA is announcing auditions for Shakespeare's Macbeth at the BARGELLO MUSEUM in Florence, Italy, July 2009. We are currently seeking actors from around the world for this international production. You will have the opportunity to work with collegues from the United States, Great Britain and other contries, as well as with local Italian artists, and to perform this classic in its native language. Workshops will be held in Florence as necessary to assist actors in English proficiency, pronunication and technical aspects of working with Shakespeare. Monetary compensation is dependent on experience and need. Some housing and financial assistance may be available for actors not living in Florence.

Rehearsals start at the beginning of June 2009, and the show runs July 8-12 (possible added performance on July 13), 2009. Macbeth will be performed entirely in the English language (with subtitles in Italian for the audience) so a solid knowledge of English is necessary. FESTA is seeking trained professional actors. Auditions will take place on Feb. 21 from 10:30 am - 3 pm at St. James Church (Via Bernardo Rucellai 9, Florence, between Via della Scala and Via il Prato), and auditions will consist of performing a 30 second to 1 minute selection from Macbeth. Actors should choose their own selection from the text. Please come prepared. The text, with modern 'translation' can be found at http://www.enotes.com/macbeth-text. For an audition time, please write to Suzanne at sidasilva@yahoo.com or call 347/9397010. For more information on the show, www.themacbethproject.org. For information on FESTA and its past shows, go to www.festatheatre.com.

volcanoes

From today's news:

Smoke billows from a crater of the snow-covered Mount Asama, central Japan, Monday, Feb. 2, 2009. The volcano erupted early Monday, belching out a plume that rose about a mile (1.6 kilometers) high, according to Japan's Meteorological Agency. The plume was still roiling over the volcano's crater late Monday.

(AP Photo/Kyodo News)

As I grew up and lived 20 years of my life in the Vesuvius's shadow -as they like to say- volcanoes and their temperament have always been part of a possbile future scenario, one that would touch you directly.
Today I read the news about Mount Asama's eruption ( Mount Asama is the picture on the right, covered in snow, the other is my volcano, that horizon part of my imagery).
In my suffering and confused world made of Gaza's struggles, Berlusconi thriving, Obama'icones building, art pervading thoughts and life and life in general being terribly interesting but equally mysterious, could not help looking into Plinius' death in the Vesuvius.

I was always fascinated by it as a younger person and still am: this amazingly curious scholar who has to see close by what rumbles in the womb of the divine mountain. I have called Mount Somma-my mountain, where I lived- as the 'mother' of the Vesuvius. In my mind Mount Somma was female and Vesuvius was male. Now with age I think she is female and has a rumbling womb... As a good Southern Italian I have always thought I will find death in knowledge. And I came across this fantastic account of his nephew, Plinius 'il Giovane'. And thought of most of you my friends-no death in site...

[Pliny the Younger, Letters 3.5.14-16;
tr. B. Radice]

The only time he took from his work was for his bath, and by bath I mean his actual immersion, for while he was being rubbed down and dried he had a book read to him or dictated notes. When traveling he felt free from other responsibilities to give every minute to work; he kept a secretary at his side with book and notebook; and in winter saw that his hands were protected by long sleeves, so that even bitter weather should not rob him of a working hour. For the same reason, too, he used to be carried about Rome in a chair. I can remember how he scolded me for walking; according to him I need not have wasted those hours, for he thought any time wasted which was not devoted to work. It was this application which enabled him to finish all those volumes [of the Natural history].

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN IN ITALY

Roma, Stadio Olimpico il 19 luglio
Torino, Olimpico il 21 luglio
Udine,Stadio Friuli il 23 luglio

Australia Day Yesterday, Holocaust Day today.

Australia Day yesterday, which for me was always a mournful time thinking of the impact European arrival had on Australian land and people, seemed a fit preambule to today Holocaust day. Words are few at the end of these hours of thinking. Noonuccal'poem will clear the skies.

Noonuccal, ‘Then and Now’, in My People, (Milton, 1981), p. 91

No more woomera, no more boomerang,
No more playabout, no more the old ways.
Children of nature we were then,
No clocks hurrying crowds to toil.
Now I am civilized and work in the white way,
Now I have dress, now I have shoes:
‘Isn’t she lucky to have a good job!’
Better when I had only a dillybag.
Better when I had nothing but happiness

SHOA AND GAZA

Shoa and Gaza.

Last night here in Italy David Grossman was interviewed in one of the rare enlightened television programs we have, 'Che tempo fa'. Grossman discussed amongst other things the fear that Holocaust survivors had to actually describe what had happened to them in detail as they feared that the extreme evil of it would spread ( lit.)so they avoided talking too much about it. I have read today what Israel deputy Defence minister said sometime ago and sociolinguistic background does not help to digest it. I think it is important although painful to read on.It was a year ago: the seeds of Gaza'shoa ? I hope not. I believe in peace.

Israel threatens holocaust against Gaza?!
29 Feb 2008 11:04:00 GMT
Written by: Andrew Stroehlein
Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone.

I am a journalist who’s just marked his 40th birthday, so I am officially a cynical old grump who thinks he’s seen and heard everything as far as human stupidity is concerned, particularly regarding public statements made by officials and politicians in conflict zones. But even I was shocked and surprised by this story.

In a radio interview today, Israel’s deputy defence minister threatened a “holocaust” (using the Hebrew word "shoah") against Gaza if Palestinian militants stepped-up their rocket fire against Israel. According to Reuters, Deputy Minister Matan Vilnai said:

“The more Qassam (rocket) fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they (the Palestinians) will bring upon themselves a bigger holocaust because we will use all our might to defend ourselves.”

For those few readers who might not understand how mind-blowingly shocking this is, the article helpfully adds:

“’Holocaust' is a term rarely used in Israel outside discussions of the Nazi genocide during World War Two. Many Israelis are loathe to countenance using the word to describe other contemporary events.”

If, as a spokesperson for the Israeli government, you had to make a list of words you should never use to define your country’s policy toward the Palestinians, certainly “holocaust” would be at the top. The ministry has since tried to defend Vilnai, saying he meant "shoah" in the sense of "disaster" rather than referring to genocide, but that doesn't explain why someone would use such a hugely loaded and incomparably symbolic word for the current situation.

A case of professional suicide by sound bite, surely.

Reuters AlertNet is not responsible for the content of external websites.

GUESTBOOK: Click on it and write!

The Banality of Evil

[Arendt] insisted that only good had any depth. Good can be radical; evil can never be radical, it can only be extreme, for it possesses neither depth nor any demonic dimension yet — and this is its horror! — it can spread like a fungus over the surface of the earth and lay waste the entire world. Evil comes from a failure to think. It defies thought for as soon as thought tries to engage itself with evil and examine the premises and principles from which it originates, it is frustrated because it finds nothing there. That is the banality of evil.
From Amos Elon, The Excommunication of Hannah Arendt, the introduction to Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil

And the distinction between violent and non-violent action is that the former is exclusively bent upon the destruction of the old and the latter chiefly concerned with the establishment of something new.

From: Volume 12, Number 4 · February 27, 1969
A Special Supplement: Reflections on Violence
By Hannah Arendt-Copyright applied for by the "Journal of International Affairs," School of International Affairs, Columbia University.

SHOAH- Il Giorno della Memoria

L'angelo della storia

“Un ritratto di Paul Klee si intitola Angelus Novus: raffigura un angelo con gli occhi spalancati, la bocca aperta, le ali distese. E' l'angelo della storia: nelle sue ali è impigliata una tempesta che lo spinge inesorabilmente verso il futuro, cui volge le spalle, mentre il cumulo delle rovine del passato sale dinnanzi a lui verso il cielo. Ciò che chiamiamo progresso è questa tempesta”

Walter Benjamin
A Klee drawing named “Angelus Novus” shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe that keeps piling ruin upon ruin and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.

— Walter Benjamin,

Ninth Thesis on the Philosophy of History

ALICE & CO. Purveyors of language Arts and Other Wonders 159 Brunswick St. Fitzroy, Vic., 3065

ALICE & CO.
Purveyors of language Arts and Other Wonders
159 Brunswick St. Fitzroy, Vic., 3065 Australia

visit Alice & Co Saturdays: 11:00 am - 6:00 pm 159 Brunswick st. Fitzroy
Tram 112 Preston line Stop 14 Or call (03) 54234271 / 0439990271

IT WOULD BE MY FAVOURITE HAUNT IN MELBOURNE!

You can find there from ACADEMIC TUITION to seminars, Language Studies, ARTISTS in the Gallery, le petit theatre and the contact for the fantastic Littlefox press!

Australian Women Artists

Australian women artists:
If amongst initiates, in the sense of savants, of connoisseurs, then some may know as Australian women artists people like fantacinematic ( if you allow me the term!) Tracey Moffat ( picture)- also because she is so active in Europe-, perhaps Margaret Olley, maybe Caroline Williams, if really lucky you may know of the giant Margaret Cilento has been.

Margaret Cilento has painted for over 50 years and has painted like I have seen paint very few painters. Her life, her art have been so convincing that it is almost incredible that no exhibitions have taken place since her recent death. In the last three years I have had so many opportunitites to think about her work but thinking an artists is not enough.
Her work has evolved over half a century from London to New York, from Marseille to Spain to Australia with an authencity and a tenacity that deserves study and close appreciation ( for her life see what her great writer and designer daughter says of her here:

http://www.ailae.org/pdf/MargaretCilento.pdf )

This short appeal here is to celebrate a gigantic artist and a woman that has left a profound sign in my thinking about art and in my life. Please get to know Margaret Cilento if you can ( self portrait a cote'). Also look at this if you can :

http://www.artmuseum.qut.edu.au/downloads/BNG-Education-kit.pdf

and discover these 1920's or so women. I don't give damn about modernism and the like at this point but I wish that such convincing art could be more known.

Long live:
Margaret Cilento, Pamela Macfarlane, Margaret Olley,Betty Quelhurst,Joy Loggenkamp, Kathleen Shillam

Welcome to Outside Barriers

This is yet an other open space perhaps necessary, beyond all other arenas , to discuss and exchange thoughts, events, images, poetry, writing, information about all that overcomes barriers in general. Borders, barriers, confinements, detention camps, walls: this is a space outside them all.
(Guestbook bottom page)

Appel à contribution :
Images et pouvoirs dans le Pacifique, Rochefort, 27-28 mai 2009
Dans le cadre de la 3e édition du Festival du cinéma des Pays du Pacifique Sud, (Rochefort, 29 mai-1er juin), le Réseau Imasie (CNRS-FMSH) organise les 27 et 28 mai deux journées d’étude consacrées au rôle des images dans les représentations du pouvoir, à leurs sens et leur signification sociale et culturelle dans le Pacifique, espace où peu d'études ont été conduites sur ce sujet.
L’image permet de comprendre une société, d’en offrir de nouvelles lectures en révélant des non-dits et elle permet de saisir ses tensions et les enjeux de domination.
Comment les images appréhendent-elles le pouvoir ?
Sont-elles éphémères ou créent-elles des conceptions durables, prolongeant le passé (héritage océanien) ou introduisant en profondeur des nouveautés (plus ou moins véhiculées par les métropoles) ? On s'intéressera donc à la circulation et à l'acclimatation des modèles occidentaux réappropriés et remaniés.
Comment les images font-elles croire ?
Quelles sont les représentations concrètes, imaginaires ou symboliques qui ont marqué les sociétés du Pacifique et quelles sont celles qui prévalent aujourd’hui ? Que représente le pouvoir pour les Océaniens ? À quels signes, quelles couleurs et quelles images, à quelle musique aussi est-il associé dans le monde contemporain ? Quel est le rôle de l'image dans la perception, la construction, et la représentation du pouvoir ? Comment les images contribuent-t-elles à nourrir les imaginaires collectifs dans le Pacifique ?
Quel rôle particulier jouent les grands médias d'images dans la construction des représentations ?
Il faut souligner que les termes « image » et « représentation » sont ici pris dans toutes leurs acceptions, et que les études esthétiques se limiteront aux effets qu’écrivains, publicistes ou artistes font subir aux images afin de mettre en valeur la notion de pouvoir (gouvernement, administration, ascendant, autorité, gouvernement, hégémonie, puissance, prestige, etc.). On souhaiterait aussi accorder de l'importance aux perceptions étrangères (voyageurs, administrateurs, scientifiques, etc.) qui sélectionnent, créent et diffusent un point de vue autre.
Les interventions seront de 20 minutes. Elles pourront bénéficier d'une publication ultérieure. Les propositions communications de 500 mots devraient être envoyées avec des mots-clés, une courte biographie, les coordonnées et fonctions précises de l'auteur. On pourra mentionner les sources et les champs chronologiques de l'étude.
Merci d’envoyer les propositions avant le 15 avril 2009 par e-mail : vfayaud@msh-paris.fr

International Conference -University Paris XIII, France -26 and 27 March 2009

Does discrimination shape identity? Politics and minorities in the English speaking area and in France: Rhetoric and reality -
Several discourses on colonial heritage and immigration have recently emerged in the West. The current context is marked by a discourse emphasizing the positive impact of a past many people consider to be traumatic, triumphant, or both at once, and laws have been passed, in France and elsewhere, to create an official version of history. These laws echo political discourses which are meant to reflect the nation’s ideals and the claims of public opinion. For other groups, these laws are oppressive and discriminatory, and they have a negative effect on minority identities. These two approaches may suggest that there is an official national identity on the one hand, while on the other, peripheral identities are in the process of being constructed, and therefore cannot officially and overtly take part in the elaboration of national ideals.The conference will inquire into the nature of identity itself. Is it innate, the result of a social construction, or both? Analyzing these notions may also imply a historical reflection on the role, place, and history of minority groups in France and in the English-speaking world. This analysis has to be addressed in a context marked by discrimination in order to understand if the latter can shape identities, and if so, how. This conference is about the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Australia and Canada. It welcomes multidisciplinary contributions from the fields of civilization, history, historiography, sociology, and anthropology.
Vanessa CASTEJON castejon.vanessa@wanadoo.Fr or
Rim LATRACHE rim.latrache@univ-paris13.fr or
Olivette OTELE olivette.otele@googlemail.com
Members of the scientific committee:
Dr Vanessa Castejon (University Paris 13)
Pr. Didier Fassin (University Paris 13)
Dr Rim Latrache (University Paris 13)
Pr. Françoise Lejeune (University Nantes, France)
Pr. Fethi Mansouri (Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia)
Dr Olivette Otele (University Paris 13)
Pr. Claire Parfait (University Paris 13)
Pr. François Poirier (University Paris 13)