[csaa-forum] Visiting Scholars Programs at the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research

[Amanda Wise]

Visiting Scholars Programs 2004

Details below for ALL FOUR Visiting Scholars Programs being offered by
the 
Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, The Australian National University
in 2004.

For more information see the CCR website:
http://www.anu.edu.au/culture/n_activities/vsp_info.htm

****************************************************************
Centre for Cross Cultural ResearchLand ~ Culture ~ Community
The Australian National UniversityAboriginal art and cultural heritage
in 
the Top End
5-16 July 2004

Darwin, Northern TerritoryConvenors: Sylvia Kleinert, Howard Morphy,
Ursula 
Frederick and Margie West

This will be the first VSP to be held in the Northern Territory and is a

unique collaboration between the CCR, Charles Darwin University (CDU)
and 
the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT). This VSP
will 
explore the variety of ways in which land, culture and community is 
articulated through Aboriginal art and cultural heritage in the Top End
of 
the Northern Territory. It will take as its focus the diversity of 
expression and the productive crossovers between form and technique
(rock 
art, bark painting, works on paper, fibre, painting and installation), 
between cultural heritage and the marketing of Aboriginal arts and
regional 
expressions in cultural tourism. The program will provide a unique 
opportunity to participate in seminars and workshops under the direction
of 
Aboriginal artists, rangers and curators and leading scholars in the
field. 
Other events will include visits to places of heritage significance
which 
are sites of art and cultural production and focal points for cultural 
tourism.This VSP is open to postgraduate students, trainees and 
professionals in art history, arts administration, government agencies 
involved in heritage, tourism and the arts sector, curators, collectors
and 
other individuals with a strong interest in Aboriginal art and cultural 
heritage.

******************************************************************
Challenges to Perform
6-17 September
Old Canberra House, Australian National UniversityConvenors: Greg Dening

and Mandy Thomas


We believe that some people are frightened by their own creativity.
There 
are too many rules to obey to be creative, they say. Wrong! We promise
you 
that you will discover how wonderfully creative your peers and you are
and 
still be able to do everything correctly. Don't waste these years of 
research and writing. Change the world with them in some way. At least a

little bit!Nearly two hundred scholars from all disciplines and
professions 
- literature, medicine, geography, anthropology, history, engineering, 
music, art, dancing, archaeology - have taken our Challenges to Perform 
over the past eight years. They have told us that it is "a life-changing

experience".The program is available for postgraduate scholars of any 
faculty or discipline engaged in cross-cultural research, so long as
they 
have the support of their supervisor. Students who are beyond the first 
steps of research and who are beginning to reflect on the presentation
of 
their work are expected to benefit most from the workshop. While the 
program is skill and experience oriented, it is hoped that the following

issues will receive attention: the theatricality of observing and being 
observed, freedoms in the presentation of research, the art of
persuasion, 
authorial presence, multi-media presentations, writing as a performing
art, 
the researcher's conscience.

*******************************************************************
Reframing Social Knowledge: The Camera in the Human Sciences
19 September-3 October 2004


Old Canberra House, Australian National University Convenor: David
MacDougall
During this 2-week program we plan to approach the topic of framing from
a 
variety of perspectives, both conceptual and literal. Our aim will be to

explore the conventions of framing, the choices made in framing, and how

framing transforms what it frames. We shall also be very much concerned 
with what framing leaves out. Other issues to be explored: Where does
the 
idea of framing come from? What has been the influence on photography of

framing in painting? Are there "open" and "closed" frames? How does 
three-dimensional framing differ from two-dimensional framing? How (if
at 
all) do people in different societies frame their experiences and their 
art? How do "we" (in our art, popular culture, and human sciences) frame

the people of other cultures? How have ethnographers used photography in

the field? Can we develop a theory of framing?We plan to look at framing
in 
both still photography and film/video (the moving frame and the framing
of 
moving subjects). Several distinguished guests will help us in this 
enquiry. The discussions will not only be theoretical; we shall be 
conducting some practical experiments in framing as well. Participants
will 
be asked to bring their own cameras.

*********************************************************************
Pigments of the Imagination
15 - 26 November 2004

Old Canberra House, Australian National University Convenors: Debjani 
Ganguly, Penny Edwards, Jacqueline Lo


This ten day, multi-disciplinary workshop aims to stimulate thinking
about 
mixed race across geographic, spatial and temporal borders. In
particular, 
we aim to go beyond European and colonial paradigms of mixed race, to 
consider the diversity of representations, histories and cultural 
interpretations of métissage in diverse cultures and diaspora in Asia
and 
elsewhere. Sessions by literary critics, anthropologists, art historians

and others will highlight the interaction and intersection of state 
categories and elite prescriptions of racial and national identity 
formations with the lives and life choices of individuals, and explore
the 
various sites and strategies for the narration, performance, claiming, 
reclamation or repudiation of mixed race identity. Sessions will
include: 
Theorizing "the hybrid" across empires and cultures; Embodying &
performing 
mixed race; Mobilizing metissage; Mixed media; Gender and and 
métissage.Successful candidates for this VSP will already be working on
a 
masters or doctoral dissertation, postdoctoral research or on
museological 
or other cultural projects of direct relevance. The programme aims to 
stimulate thinking about métissage across geographic, temporal and 
political borders, and will provide participants with a comparative and 
conceptual framework which will enable them to resituate their work
within 
global, theoretical and historical contexts.