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<div>Hello Anna, Melissa, Jean et al,</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Thanks for your post Anna, it sort of got the conversation back
to where it started for me, sending me back to Melissa's original post
in an effort to try to make sense of this and related threads. While I
find the contributions by Graeme Turner Stephen Muecke, Eslpeth
Probyn, Stephanie Donald, and Simon During really interesting, I do
not feel able to enter into that debate any further than to say that,
in my view, it reflects some of transnational divides that I see in
the Western academic world, particularly those that exist between the
US, to some extent Europe (although I note that no cultural studies
people living/working in the UK have entered this discussion), and
Australia. I must say that, with all respect to Simon During, I agree
with Stephen's comment that there is a certain disconnected
ambivalence towards 'down under' by others living in the Northern
hemisphere, an ambivalance that shows itself in a lack of knowledge
and direct experience of the state of affairs in Australian cultural
studies. From what I see, there is still a distinctive but subtle
cultural arrogance in the Northern Hemisphere towards the antipodes
but that's another story ...</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>However it is really Anna's recent post that has prompted me to
write this email, and try to make my own contribution to this debate.
I will commence to do so by addressing some of the things that Anna
raises.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>In contrast to you, Anna, I have completed an MA and now a Ph D
in a faculty (Humanities and Social Sciences, UTS) that at least
constantly refers to and even has helped to shape and define cultural
studies in Australia over the decades that the discipline has existed
there. However, my undergraduate studies and my first post graduate
work (a Grad. Dip) were in the Visual Arts (Sydney College of the
Arts, Sydney University). One of the reasons I opted to go to UTS to
do my MA was precisely because, although the institution that I had
first grown my academic wings had a reputation for a highly
theoretical and philosophical orientation in the course of studies. I
personally found this to be superficial and generally lacking in
thoroughness and sophistication. So I decided to go to UTS where I
found people actually knew what they were talking about.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>All that is to say that, after two degrees, I finally feel I have
reached a point that I identify most strongly with cultural studies,
and feel that I am an early career cultural studies person, even
though I have been in the game for quite a long time. Also, unlike
Anna, I have over a decade of casual teaching experience at just about
every University within the broader Sydney region. Ironically,
however, I came to the point of identification with cultural studies
after spending four years living in Holland, and working towards my
PhD as an international associate at the University of Amsterdam's
School for Cultural Analysis. Here I should add that, with all respect
for Mieke Bal and others at ASCA, Cultural Analysis is *NOT* the same
as cultural studies, and, in reference to an earlier post this year by
Geert Lovink, the sorts of cultureel wetenschap that takes place in
Holland and in Germany, which does indeed have a history of nearly two
hundred years, is *NOT* cultural studies either.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Although I did an MA in a faculty which I believe has produced
some of the finest cultural studies work in Australia, and I had, as
if by infusion, begun practicing cultural studies while producing the
thesis (a non traditional thesis incorporating a gallery exhibition, a
performance piece that was presented at the CSAA conference in
Melbourne one year, and a text), I actually started to pinpoint the
disciplinary parameters of cultural studies from a wonderful
book by John Storey called<i> Cultural Studies and the Study of
Popular Culture: Theories and Methods</i>. From Storey I learned that,
as Simon During correctly states, Marx is indeed a very important
figure in cultural studies, as are people like Walter Benjamin,
Raymond Williams, Roland Barthes, Stuart Hall, as well as Ien Ang and
Meaghan Morris, and a great many others. However, like a lot of
people, I find Marxist analyses, particularly those produced or are
inheritors of ideas generated in the 60s and 70s not always
appropriate in describing the realities of the world today. Having
said that, please dont get me wrong, I think Marx produced what is
arguably the most insightfull analyses of capitalism ever, and to the
extent that capitalism, albeit in its modified manifestations, is
still a basic conditioning factor in the world in which we live, a
Marxist critique remains essential, although it also needs to remain
concurrent with the way capitalism works in the world now.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Well so much for the background, now on to the questions posed by
Melissa's email.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>- disciplinarity: what it means (practically, ethically,
conceptually) to do "media and cultural studies" within the CI
paradigm</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>I cant really talk about the "Creative Industries paradigm"
because I have not lived in Australia since 2000 and am not familiar
with it but, from what I gather, it is a catch-phrase, a slogan if you
like, that tries to indicate and identify something in terms of the
political rhetoricof the last decade. Such a phrase, I suspect, seeks
to position creative work that has long been in existence in the
discursive landscape created by Howard and his cronies, and Pauline
Hanson (Pauline who ...?). Now given the political agenda of the last
10 or 15 years in particular, and the name "Creative
Industries", I would say that the term refers to the latest
attempt at industrialisation, and hence commodification, of the
creative endeavour. As such, it would appear (and I am only guessing
here) that it tries to identify and indicate something that is going
on and that has been going on for a long time, and which has an
important role to play in the on-going affairs of human society today,
even in the age of global capital. I have nothing against such
rhetorical manouvers, really, in fact I see it as a necessity given
that not to do so, and to remain located in political discourses that
are seeped in a by-gone era is, in today's rapidly moving world of
free-floating signifiers, to become irrelavent. I might be wrong about
this assessment, and those who know more about Creative Industries
might like to correct me on that.</div>
<div>As regards disciplinarity, I believe that, generally, throughout
the world, there appears to have been a closing of ranks in the
intellectual disciplines over the last decade, and to the extent that
cultural studies, the cultural studies that I know about and identify
with, is genuinely inter- and multi- disciplinary, cultural studies is
struggling today to maintain its place amongst the old world
disciplines like Sociology, Psychology, Philosophy, Literature,
History, Art History, Anthropology, and so on. I guess people who
identify with those areas will take objection to this, but I think
there is a case to be made that cultural studies, and inter- and
multi-disciplinarity generally, has come under increasing pressure
from the longer established Faculties and disciplines of academe for
quite some time now. This is happening in the US, the UK, and greater
Europe, as well as in Australia.</div>
<div>What this means practically is that it is more difficult to do
cultural studies at the moment. Ethically, it means that one is faced
with either declariing what you are doing and face the prospect of
being rejected or at least heavily scrutinised for that job or
research funding application, or you try to disguise your work as
something else. Depending on whether you decide to call your self
cultural studies or not can however have a dramatic impact on the way
you concieve your work. For this reason that I still call my work
cultural studies.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>- opportunities for and the politics of academic labour for RHD
students and Early Career Researchers in the context of the shift from
individualistic "humanities" research to project/team-based
approaches</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>I am not sure what is meant by RHD, but Early Career Researchers,
well, unless things have changed an awful lot since I was in
Australia, then an early career researcher is still someone within 5
years of finishing their Ph D. However, as a result of a conversation
with a friend recently, I have some doubts about whether this
continues to be the case because, as I am now in my 40s, she
recommended that I lie about my age in applying for jobs. So early
career researcher may in theory refer to anyone who has recently
finished a PhD, irrespective of age, but in practice, it may be that
one needs ideally to be somewhere in the late 20s to mid 30s. Well
hopefully I am wrong about this because I am facing a life of
unemployment otherwise.</div>
<div>Turning to the main point however, I think the move to working in
groups is a good one because it means that one can work much more
easily in a context. In the Physical Sciences, this practice has been
going on for a long time, and there are already well documented issues
about this way of working. The most significant, for early
researchers, is that their position in the research team needs to be
credited and regarded equally with those of the project leaders. In
Science, often what happens though is that the Project Leaders,
usually big name scientists who put their name to the grant
application, also put their names to research produced by lowly
researchers whose names appear somewhere at the end of the Credits
line. There are serious problems with this model, therefore, that
should be addressed before researchers in the Humanities adopt this
approach (or is it too late already?). Furthermore, I think there must
also remain space for individual research, no matter what field or
discipline one works in, although this kind of research is also the
most lonely and can also be the most frustratiing, in terms of
communicating your findings to anyone else, no matter how important
your work is or could be to the rest of humanity.</div>
<div>As far as project work is concerned, I personally have always
worked in this way, whether as a visual artist, a cultural producer,
or a cultural studies researcher. A project is a nice way of putting
an envelope around a field of study, and should not mean that once it
is finished, each project does not have on-going repercussions on the
work of a researcher or artist. Its just that the name of the project
changes, and with the the specific focus can shift somewhat onto new
ground. But knowledge gained in earlier projects accumulates, in my
experience, and each project I have ever executed has grown and
developed according to the histories of the earlier works.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br>
- the changing research culture of Australian universities, especially
the perceived incommensurability between "pragmatic" and
"critical" approaches as evidenced in the following
quotation:</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>This conflict between 'pragmatic' and 'ciritical' approaches is
not new. It has been around as long as I can remember. Within an
Australian context, it often was used to make us work within the
limits and boundaries of the establishment, in contradistinction with
critically engaging those limits and boundaries and trying to do a
'paradigm shift' on them. Australians have a myth about themselves as
being a 'pragmatic' people. This comes partly from Anglo-American
philosophical discourses where utilitarianism is seen as inherently
more useful and real than so-called idealistic and critical discourses
of Continental Philosophy are. I think it would be more useful to
forget about this catagory and remember that, in a genuine cultural
studies context, a critical approach is in every sense of the word a
'pragmatic' intervention, even if its just a way of articulating
something. Some of the most effective critical interventions in
cultural studies can takes place through a pragmatic intervention in
the language people use to think about something. The Dutch are
another people who think of themselves as being pragmatic, but, unlike
many Australians, they can often make use of different schools of
thought and approaches to everyday problems. Again, I think Australian
cultural studies researchers generally benefit from looking further
afield, and by that I am not at all suggesting Holland should be seen
as exemplary - far from it - but there are benefits from looking at
and trying to adopt and adapt approaches and methods found in other
places and disciplines. This is, after all, one of the features of
cultural studies, and, as I can recall from the cultural studies
environments I have been associated with in Australia, many cultural
studies practitioners there do this quite well. Still there is always
scope for exploration.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>In finishing off, I would like to add that, as someone who
believes I am doing cultural studies, stronger and better than ever
these days, and speaking as someone who is, still, I believe, an early
career researcher in cultural studies, I dont think the work I am
doing is either conformist or lacking in critical force. In fact, I
strongly believe what I am doing now is more critical and
non-conformist than ever before. What I would suggest is that we do
live in a period in which there is a strong conservative re-emergence,
both politically and in the academic world generally. That makes it
more difficult to produce genuinely critical, challenging work that
has both the power and force to make people think again about the way
things are done. I like to think that the fact that I have always
struggled to find permanent employment or solidify a place in the
fields of my endeavour testifies to the critical force and lack of
conformism that work has. I have chosen to work in the way that I do
because not to do so threatens the conceptual viability of my
projects. Nevertheless, such decisions are made inspite of being aware
of the potential costs to one's 'career' prospects. In other words, as
your questions seek to find out, this can also be regarded to amount
to an ethical stance. So please, before claiming that all cultural
studies lacks critical force or is basically conformist, keep in mind
those suffering individuals who haven't been fortunate to end up in a
post doc somewhere, or even a junior lecturing position, but
have to endure singular, impoverished, isolation in realising their
work. And please, lets have some respect for the endeavours of those
whose non-conformism has not made it possible for them to find a
stable platform in the world from which to promote and circulate their
ideas.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Well now if anyone's managed to take to time to read this entire
post, there's a good chance you might be under-/unemployed, cos anyone
who is working these days seems to really struggle to find the time to
properly engage with others for a longer bout of writing. This, it
seems to me, is one area where Australian and UK cultural studies
academics in particular have suffered greatly from attacks from
conservatives, particularly in relation to their counterparts in
mainland Europe, although its slowly changing there also. Still there
is a lot to be said for making quick, short, interventions in the
world - a kind of hiku cultural studies. If anyone has any suggestions
or wishes to share their ideas about how to do that without losing the
depth of one's critical engagement in what they want to say, then
please, lets start another conversation about how to do this. I could
really learn something from that.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>cheers</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>john grech</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><tt>--</tt></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande" color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande" color="#000000">*****************<br>
John Grech<br>
Artist & Writer<br>
*****************</font><br>
</div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande" color="#000000">On-line
Projects:</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande" color="#000000">Interempty Space : The
Global City <http://www.jgrech.dds.nl></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande" color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande" color="#000000">Sharkfeed</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"
color="#000000"
><http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/25402/20020806/www.abc.net.au/shar<span
></span>kfeed/index.htm><br>
<br>
On-line Writing:<br>
"Beyond the Binary: New Media and the Extended Body"<br>
Mediatopia on-line exhibition and symposium<br>
http://www.mediatopia.net/grech.html<br>
<br>
"Empty Space and the City: The Reoccupation of Berlin"<br>
Radical History Review<br>
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/radical_history_review/v083/83.1grech.ht<span
></span>ml</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"
color="#000000">********************</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande" color="#000000">On-line
Projects:</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande" color="#000000">Interempty Space : The
Global City <http://www.jgrech.dds.nl></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande" color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande" color="#000000">Sharkfeed</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"
color="#000000"
><http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/25402/20020806/www.abc.net.au/shar<span
></span>kfeed/index.htm><br>
<br>
On-line Writing:<br>
"Beyond the Binary: New Media and the Extended Body"<br>
Mediatopia on-line exhibition and symposium<br>
http://www.mediatopia.net/grech.html<br>
<br>
"Empty Space and the City: The Reoccupation of Berlin"<br>
Radical History Review<br>
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/radical_history_review/v083/83.1grech.ht<span
></span>ml</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"
color="#000000">********************</font></div>
<div><br></div>
<x-sigsep><pre>--
</pre></x-sigsep>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande" color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande" color="#000000">*****************<br>
John Grech<br>
Artist & Writer<br>
*****************</font><br>
<font color="#000000"></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande" color="#000000">On-line
Projects:</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande" color="#000000">Interempty Space : The
Global City <http://www.jgrech.dds.nl></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande" color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande" color="#000000">Sharkfeed</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"
color="#000000"
><http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/25402/20020806/www.abc.net.au/shar<span
></span>kfeed/index.htm><br>
<br>
On-line Writing:<br>
"Beyond the Binary: New Media and the Extended Body"<br>
Mediatopia on-line exhibition and symposium<br>
http://www.mediatopia.net/grech.html<br>
<br>
"Empty Space and the City: The Reoccupation of Berlin"<br>
Radical History Review<br>
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/radical_history_review/v083/83.1grech.ht<span
></span>ml</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"
color="#000000">********************</font></div>
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