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.