[csaa-forum] Vale Christopher Newell

[Gerard Goggin]

Dear CSAA-listers,

Some of you may have already heard the very sad news of Christopher Newell's
untimely passing.

Christopher was a vibrant, rigorous, creative, provocative, and sensitive
contributor to many areas of intellectual enquiry, social life, spirituality
and politics in Australia (and actually in New Zealand also).

Christopher made an especially important contribution to media and
communication studies, introducing disability as a rich and important area
of inquiry. 

He also made a notable contribution to cultural studies, by showing how
disability is an very important place where culture is made, where
identities are forged, bodies given meaning, and crucial struggles played
out. Christopher was one of a number of scholars who saw cultural studies
and cultural research as having vital and very promising intersections with
work in the new field of critical disability studies.

Christopher's new book is being launched at the 'Activating Human Rights and
Peace' conference at Byron Bay, next week. Edited by Christopher and Baden
Offord, it is entitled 'Activating Human Rights in Education: Exploration,
Innovation and Transformation' (Australian College of Educators, 2008).

So his legacy certainly lives on - Vale Christopher.


Gerard Goggin

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Gerard Goggin
Professor of Digital Communication
& Deputy Director
Journalism and Media Research Centre
University of New South Wales
Sydney 2052 NSW Australia
http://jmrc.arts.unsw.edu.au/
e: g.goggin at unsw.edu.au
w: +61 2 9385 8532 
m: +61 428 66 88 24