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--></style><title>Re: [csaa-forum] against national cult
stud</title></head><body>
<div>Hello Aren and anyone else whose following this thread,</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Aren Aizura wrote</div>
<div><br></div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Hi all,<br>
<br>
I've been reading this discussion with interest, and find myself
wondering why<br>
the question has been framed in terms of 'Australian cultural studies'
in the<br>
first place, as if it were necessary for cult stud to be iconised here
as a</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>national pastime with its own
truly-Australian folk heroes.</blockquote>
<div><br></div>
<div>It may interest you to know that the move to catagorise different
forms of cultural studies practices according to geography are not
unique, and can be found, to cite one example, Toby Miller's<i> A
Companion to Cultural Studies</i> where you'll find a number of other
writers, including Graeme Turner, writing about this in a section
called "Part II: Places". This is not, in any way, to
suggest that I necessarily agree with all that such writers argue. In
this instant I have just adopted such discourses, as indeed, it framed
this whole discussion. In fact the division between Australian
cultural studies and other regions was set up by the quote from Simon
During which was included in Melissa Greg's original post. You may
wish to recall that is was that post which started this discussion of.
I'll quote During once again as it appears you havent read it.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>"Nowadays Australian cultural studies is increasingly
normalised, concentrating on cultural policy studies and, often
uncritically, on popular culture and the media. Indeed it is in
Australia that the celebration of popular culture as a liberating
forceŠ first took off through Fiske and Hartley's contributions.
The young populists of the seventies now hold senior posts and what
was pathbreaking is becoming a norm. The readiness of a succession of
Australian governments to encourage enterprise universities has
empowered the old tertiary technical training departments in such
areas as communications, allowing them to have an impact on more
abstract and theorised cultural studies in ways that appear to have
deprived the latter of critical force. Furthermore, the structure of
research funding, which asks even young academics to apply for grants,
has had a conformist effect. Perhaps Australian cultural studies
offers us a glimpse of what the discipline would be like were it to
become relatively hegemonic in the humanities."<br>
</div>
<div>-Simon During, Cultural Studies: A Critical Introduction (2005)
p.26</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>What is the 'Western academic world'?
Does such a thing exist except in the<br>
minds of quote unquote antipodean academics who still feel the
cultural cringe?<br>
In this framework, cultural studies itself is a product of a
'Western<br>
academic world'. (Untrue, to a point.) And in this world, Australia is
still the<br>
little brother of the giants, trying hard to make itself relevant and
carve out</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>a niche of Australian-ness so it can
distinguish itself, market itself?</blockquote>
<div><br></div>
<div>No, not really, I am only speaking from the experiences that I
myself have had, and I use the Western world as a way of indicating a
set of geographies, that is all. This was clearly indicated in my post
and the assumptions you are making about me or anyone else feeling a
cultural cringe are purely that, your assumptions, which stand
rejected. Again for your information, I wrote having spent some time
living and working in Holland, which is not Australia, and it seems
that distinguishing the places is one way of characterising different
forms of practice which are or can be tied to the nature of culture
within those places.</div>
<div><br>
<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite> But this whole discussion has a
really wrong note of</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite> Anglocentric nationalism, which<br>
seems to be unaware that much of the most exciting<br>
work happening on this continent might not even consider a 'Western
academic<br>
world' as the space in which it circulates. The work I'm thinking of
has little<br>
respect for<br>
those invisible geographical lines attaching Australia to the UK, the
US, or</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Europe. It works from a different
map.</blockquote>
<div><br>
<br>
</div>
<div>I do not speak of how cultural studies is practiced in India,
Taiwan, Hong Kong, Spain or Portugal, or South Africa, because I have
no experience of working in those places. If you wish to articulate
your experiences of the places where you have worked, then do so. I
promise I will not regard it as diminishing of the places you speak
about.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>cheers</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>John Grech</div>
<x-sigsep><pre>--
</pre></x-sigsep>
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<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>
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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>
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