[csaa-forum] Re: csaa-forum Digest, Vol 16, Issue 34

Wed Aug 31 18:02:44 CST 2005

Hello Ian, Jordan, Melissa, and others

Thanks Ian for your inside account of what 
happened at Bermingham. I heard about the centre 
closing down a couple of years ago, and it was a 
bit of a shock, I must say, but not a surprise. 
Your post indicates that what I suspected was 
indeed to a large extent true to what happened. 
It also confirms the perception that cultural 
studies is indeed harder to do these days than it 
was a decade or so ago.

In response to Melissa's post a couple of days 
ago regarding the importance of discussing what 
cultural studies is - for late career researchers 
as much as for early career researchers - I would 
say that the tale of Bermingham's demise gives 
good ground for people interested in working with 
culturall studies to become more aware of the 
distinctive features, attitudes, and disciplinary 
approaches we have in cultural studies, for all 
of us to become more aware and conversant about 
what cultural studies is, and what makes cultural 
studies different and more vital and viable than 
other related disciplines, even if there is much 
contestation about how these work in 
practice.That means that looking back at the past 
is important. It tells us more about where we - 
that is, a generic "we" who are engaged in 
discussion on the Australian Cultural Studies 
Association's electronic mailing list - might 
have come from, why and how we are doing things 
the way we do, and, from that, we might glean a 
sense of where we might want to go in future, if 
we still want to stay within the general field of 
practice we presently call cultural studies.

Sadly, I think the open nature of cultural 
studies, its interdisciplinarity and its appeal 
to people coming from a wide range of fields such 
as the Fine Arts, History, Anthropology, as well 
as Film and Media, to name but some, makes what 
we call the practice of cultural studies 
vulnerable to being diluted, in some ways. While 
dilution in this sense can mean the modification 
and mutation of cultural studies methods and 
approaches to creatively incorporate other 
disciplinary modes of practice, it also makes the 
area of cultural studies as a whole is vulnerable 
to attack from conventional academic disciplines 
that have a much more rigid structure around them 
about how one "SHOULD" do things. This is where 
Ian Goodwin's post is most instructive, I 
believe, and I also think those wishing to 
continue doing cultural studies would be foolish 
to ignore what happened to Bermingham. Of course 
I'm paranoid when I say that other Faculties in 
the academic world would dearly love to wipe out 
cultural studies from the University register. 
Who the hell wants more competition on their 
block, especially when funding is as tight as it 
is today. Ian is absolutely right, this is about 
the brute excercise of institutional power, and 
there's nothing pretty, ethical, or politely 
academic or theoretical about it. The 
consequences are very pragmatic and immediate. It 
comes down to cultural studies practitioners like 
ourselves to be able to mount a case for why 
cultural studies work should be seen in different 
terms. To do this, there is a need for good 
strong arguments, proof of evidence, and a 
history of how this works in practice. Cultural 
studies has all this, and despite the fears some 
might have that accumulating such an edifice of 
knowledge - might we call it a "Discipline" I ask 
provocatively - about "What cultural studies is" 
will totalise and limit the field and its 
practice, I think in the hard nosed reality of 
today's money spinning research andeducational 
environment mean that only those who have the 
wherewithall to argue successfully for 
maintaining investment in their areas that are 
less easy to slot in to the economic paradigm 
will be the ones that survive. As an artist and a 
cultural studies researcher, I know this from two 
sides. And this is what makes the Creative 
Industries push interesting although there 
remains the danger that it will go the same way 
that other attempts - like the idea of Creative 
Nation - went; An excuse to slash and burn at the 
heart of what makes cultural studies, creative 
work, and even art itself, so vital and essential 
a human activity. While remaining aware of the 
danger that Creative Industries may mean nothing 
more than another rationale to eradicate from the 
Universities what remains of creative work there, 
I also think, if people are smart enough, they 
can use this as an opportunity to bolster the 
creative endeavour of those working in areas like 
the arts and cultural studies. But to do that, 
people need to get a lot smarter about how to 
fight the battle, what strategieswork, and what 
dont. To that extent, Jon Marshall's rally to the 
cause is indeed appropriate. Ian Goodwin's post 
indicates, however, what can easily happen if the 
threat is not taken seriously enough, or the 
arguments not made strongly and successfully.

Finally, I would like to thank Jordan William's 
sensitive post, and also for indicating how early 
career researchers and academics can and are 
making a contribution to the world, no matter who 
they are, how old, their sexual preferences, 
political stances, gender, race, appearance, and 
identity, and so on. It may appear to some that 
the struggle for those who dont conform to what 
could be called the contemporary corporate model 
of who is the right person for the job has been 
eradicated in the world of academic research and 
the University, but for those "non-comformists" 
amongst us who have to deal with their difference 
to the dominant norm on a day to day basis, the 
picture does not seem as rosy.  It would be good 
to hear more about how people like Jordan and his 
inspiring model in her 60s fare in the world as 
they pursue their endeavours.

happy hunting

john grech

>Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 12:02:59 +1200
>From: Ian Goodwin <ian.goodwin at aut.ac.nz>
>Subject: [csaa-forum] Cultural Studies in the UK - a few thoughts on
>	'disciplines' re Cultural studies
>Sender: csaa-forum-bounces at lists.cdu.edu.au
>To: csaa-forum at lists.cdu.edu.au
>
>Hello all,
>
>I'm a long time lurker/first time poster - prompted to do so by the
>very interesting series of discussions on the list recently about the
>nature of Cultural Studies as a 'Discipline'. I recently returned to
>New Zealand with a PhD in Cultural Studies from the Cultural Studies
>Dept of the University of Birmingham - the place where (arguably) the
>'discipline' of cultural studies first emerged.
>
>I write this not to try and attach some sort of spurious legitimacy
>to my contribution, but as an important introduction to my (and I'll
>try and make it brief) tale of how the management of the University of
>Birmingham successfully shut our department (discipline??) down -
>despite the fact that it had an international reputation, produced
>some great research, had a great post-grad culture and ran some great
>undergraduate degrees.
>
>The primary rationale given for doing so was that our dept had only
>gained a '3' in the Research Assessment Exercise (an ill-thought
>through method of measuring and assessing the research output of the
>staff, and utilising this as a basis for funding). This was a poor
>showing compared to the rest of the University. Yet a very big part of
>the problem here was that Cultural Studies - as many of the
>contributions here have pointed out - is resolutely
>trans-disciplinary, even where it is institutionalised in its 'own'
>dept. In fact, Cultural Studies in the UK always actively resisted
>'disciplinarity' by definition (but this is another long story). Thus,
>choosing a 'panel' to have for the dept to submit to for the RAE was
>difficult - it didn't really 'fit in' (there was no category called
>'Cultural Studies' in the government's eyes). Arguably, this made it
>far more difficult for the staff to have their research assessed
>fairly or valued properly. Moreover, getting CS research done in the
>first place was always more difficult. For example, getting research
>funding for Cultural Studies work was always more difficult as no
>funding body had the category of 'Cultural Studies' either (for
>example, I had to apply to the ESRC under 'sociology' for PhD
>funding).
>
>To cut to the point - the management of Uni of Brum, who had a long
>history of trying to get rid of the dept anyway, took the chance of
>the low RAE score to get rid of the dept. The upshot - all the staff
>were got rid of, a new lot were hired, and a new sociology dept formed
>(which aimed to 'no longer privilege the cultural turn in analysis of
>society'). The moral of this story (if there is one), is that it IS
>harder to 'do' cultural studies (whatever one deems it to be) in
>todays academic environment - in Australia or elsewhere. We are
>increasingly categorised, monitored, measured, and - thereby -
>manipulated to a greater degree than was the case  in the past. In
>such an environment, the CS approach to 'disciplinarity' is
>problematic. To name something a discipline, or to establish a
>discipline, is not just semantics, it is an exercise in power - it
>legitimates. Its precisely the sort of exercise in power, which tends
>to close avenues of debate and research down as much as it opens them
>up, which CS in the UK actively set out to resist. It did so in Brum
>with success for some time. Unfortunately, in the environment of
>tertiary education today it also made CS an easy target for the
>auditors.
>
>Ian Goodwin
>
>Lecturer
>MA Communication Studies
>School of Communication Studies
>Faculty of Arts
>Auckland University of Technology
>Private Bag 92006
>Auckland 1020
>Aotearoa/ New Zealand
>
>Telephone 64-9-917 9999 x 7734

>
>Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 08:59:04 +1000
>From: Jordan Williams <jordan at cartocorpus.com>
>Subject: [csaa-forum] Re: Early Career Researchers
>To: <csaa-forum at lists.cdu.edu.au>
>Message-ID: <BF3B21D8.A35%jordan at cartocorpus.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>Hi
>Really interesting discussion and I don¼t consider myself well enough
>steeped in the history of Australian Cultural Studies to add to that
>particular point. Rather I¼m learning from the debates.
>
>But what I do know about is being an older early career researcher. Can I
>just say how marginalising I find the use of the phrase åyounger researcher¼
>in place of åearly¼ - being in your late 40s (or in the case of one of my
>really inspiring colleagues ‚ her late 60s), age is a pretty irrelevant
>factor when it comes to the hope that we might contribute to cultural
>studies research within the academy. So the implicit assumption that all
>people starting a research career are young, whatever that might mean, is
>the kind of battle that one faces every day in the academy when trying to
>kick start an academic/research career beyond the point at which some people
>think one should have had a real job. Being young/old/male/female/gay ‚
>whatever ‚ brings problems within what is really a very bureaucratic and
>traditional environment. Which, I suppose, speaks to the contribution that a
>cultural studies presence can make not only in looking out from academic
>institutions, but also looking inward.
>
>Jordan Williams
>Lecturer
>School of Creative Communication
>Communication and Education Division
>University of Canberra  ACT 2601
>
>Phone:  +61 (0)2 6201 5194
>Email:  Jordan.Williams at canberra.edu.au
>

-- 

*****************
John Grech
Artist & Writer
*****************

On-line Projects:
Interempty Space : The Global City <http://www.jgrech.dds.nl>

Sharkfeed
<http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/25402/20020806/www.abc.net.au/sharkfeed/index.htm>

On-line Writing:
"Beyond the Binary: New Media and the Extended Body"
Mediatopia on-line exhibition and symposium
http://www.mediatopia.net/grech.html

"Empty Space and the City: The Reoccupation of Berlin"
Radical History Review
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/radical_history_review/v083/83.1grech.html
********************