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Lectures</title></head><body>
<div>Dear Friends,</div>
<div>The Global Cities Institute and the School of Applied</div>
<div>Communication at RMIT are pleased to present back-to-back
lectures by Brenda<br>
Weber (Makeover Nation: Constructing the Neo-liberal Citizen) and<br>
Professor Gregory A Waller (Japan-in-America: The Turn of the
Twentieth<br>
Century). Full details are enclosed below.</div>
<div>This event is coming up very soon (May 7). Please pass this email
onto students and colleagues.<br>
Cheers</div>
<div>Deb<br>
</div>
<div><b><br></b></div>
<div><b>Two Public Lectures on Globalization and Culture
(free)</b></div>
<div><br></div>
<div><b>Venue</b>: Village Roadshow Theatrette, State Library of
Victoria (Entry 3, La Trobe Street)</div>
<div><b>Date</b>: Monday May 7</div>
<div><b>Time</b>:<br>
Makeover Nation: 5.15pm<br>
Japan-in-America: 6.15pm<br>
</div>
<div><b><br></b></div>
<div><b>1. Makeover Nation: Constructing the Neo-Liberal 'American'
Citizen</b></div>
<div><br>
Across the makeover genre, there is a language of exclusion and<br>
inclusion that works to reinforce the gendered and sexed logics of<br>
citizenship. 'Belonging' is the most ardent goal of makeover
subjects,<br>
and good looks are the primary means by which one enters into, and
has<br>
power within, the democratic fold. To have self-esteem,
happiness, and<br>
confidence, what these shows take as a form of necessary precursors
to<br>
personhood, also functions as the gateway to democratic citizenry.
At<br>
the crux of this analysis are the gendered and sexed connotations
of<br>
citizenship, including a pervading logic of neo-liberalism that
situates<br>
care of the self as an entrepreneurial investment.<br>
</div>
<div><b>Brenda R. Weber</b> is an assistant professor of gender
studies at Indiana<br>
University. She has published recent articles in Feminist
Studies,<br>
Genders, Configurations, and The International Journal of Men's
Health.<br>
Her current book projects are: Figuring Fame: Women,
Gender, and the<br>
Body in the Transatlantic Production of Literary Celebrity; and Into
the<br>
Makeover Maze: Before and After Bodies and the (Ill)Logics of
Makeover</div>
<div>TV.<br>
</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div><b>2. Japan-in-America: The Turn of the Twentieth
Century</b></div>
<div><br>
Except for the World War II years, at no time has the United
States'<br>
interest in Japan been greater than between 1890-1914, a period
that<br>
included the Sino-Japanese War (1894-5), the Russo-Japanese War<br>
(1904-5), and the Japanese annexation of Korea, as well as the
active<br>
expansion of American imperialism, California-led campaigns
directed<br>
against Japanese immigrants, and a wave of war scares that saw the<br>
Pacific as the site for an inevitable East-West confrontation. The<br>
racialized and gendered versions of Japan available in the United
States<br>
extended well beyond Madame Butterfly (as book, play, opera, film)
and<br>
bushido-inspired samurai. Japan was singled out as the most
progressive<br>
and westernized of Asian nations because of its battlefield
prowess,<br>
rapid modernization, patriotic nationalism, and geopolitical<br>
aspirations, yet it was also represented as exotic and archaic,
natural<br>
and rural, empty of all traces of modernity. Japan-in-America:
The Turn<br>
of the Twentieth Century gathers, organizes, and examines the vast
and<br>
sometimes contradictory array of images, stories, performances,
and<br>
accounts of Japan that publicly circulated in the United States
between<br>
1890-1914 across a host of media and cultural channels. What
interests<br>
me in this project are not snapshots, private memoirs, high
modernist<br>
literature, or Japonisme in the fine arts, but instead ephemeral<br>
products designed for the commercial marketplace: postcards, sheet<br>
music, magazine, stereoviews, moving pictures, lantern slides,
editorial<br>
cartoons, children's books, photojournalism, travel narratives,
and<br>
advertisements. What can we make of this archive as a historically<br>
specific example of cross-cultural representation?<br>
</div>
<div><b>Gregory A. Waller</b> is Professor and Chair of the Department
of<br>
Communication and Culture at Indiana University (Bloomington,
Indiana,<br>
USA). He has written on New Zealand cinema and popular American
film</div>
<div>genres, and his publications on American film history include
Moviegoing</div>
<div>in America and Main Street Amusements: Movies and Commercial<br>
Entertainment in a Southern City, 1896-1900, which won the
Katherine</div>
<div>Singer Kovacs Award from the Society for Cinema Studies and the
Theatre<br>
Library Association award. In addition to Japan-in-America: The Turn
of<br>
the Twentieth Century (http://www.indiana.edu/~jia1915/), he is<br>
currently working on traveling film exhibition, non-theatrical
cinema,</div>
<div>and the role of 16mm in the 1930s and 1940s.</div>
<div><tt>-- </tt></div>
<div><tt><font size="-2" color="#000000"><br>
Deb Verhoeven<br>
Associate Professor of Screen Studies<br>
_______________________________________________</font></tt><br>
</div>
<div><tt><font size="-2" color="#000000">t: School Research
Coordinator &<br>
Manager, AFI Research Collection<br>
School of Applied Communication<x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><br>
RMIT University<x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><br>
p: + 613 9925 2908<x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><br>
e: deb.verhoeven@rmit.edu.au</font></tt><br>
</div>
<div><tt><font size="-2" color="#000000"><b>Film
Critic</b></font></tt></div>
<div><tt><font size="-2" color="#000000">The Deep End, Radio
National</font></tt><br>
</div>
<div><tt><font size="-2" color="#000000"><b>AFI Research
Collection</b><br>
www.afiresearch.rmit.edu.au</font></tt><br>
</div>
<div><tt><font size="-2" color="#000000"><b>Archive Forum</b><br>
www.afiresearch.rmit.edu.au/archiveforum</font></tt><br>
</div>
<div><tt><font size="-2" color="#000000"><b>Sheep and the Australian
Cinema (MUP, 2006)</b></font></tt></div>
<div><tt><font size="-2"
color="#000000">www.mup.unimelb.edu.au/ebooks/0-522-85240-8/index.html<br
>
<br>
_______________________________________________</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="-2" color="#000000"></font></tt></div>
<div><br></div>
<x-sigsep><pre>--
</pre></x-sigsep>
<div><tt><font size="-2" color="#000000"><br>
Deb Verhoeven<br>
Associate Professor of Screen Studies<br>
_______________________________________________</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="-2" color="#000000"></font></tt></div>
<div><tt><font size="-2" color="#000000">t: School Research
Coordinator &<br>
Manager, AFI Research Collection<br>
School of Applied Communication<x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><br>
RMIT University<x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><br>
p: + 613 9925 2908<x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><br>
e: deb.verhoeven@rmit.edu.au</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="-2" color="#000000"></font></tt></div>
<div><tt><font size="-2" color="#000000"><b>Film
Critic</b></font></tt></div>
<div><tt><font size="-2" color="#000000">The Deep End, Radio
National</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="-2" color="#000000"></font></tt></div>
<div><tt><font size="-2" color="#000000"><b>AFI Research
Collection</b><br>
www.afiresearch.rmit.edu.au</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="-2" color="#000000"></font></tt></div>
<div><tt><font size="-2" color="#000000"><b>Archive Forum</b><br>
www.afiresearch.rmit.edu.au/archiveforum</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="-2" color="#000000"></font></tt></div>
<div><tt><font size="-2" color="#000000"><b>Sheep and the Australian
Cinema (MUP, 2006)</b></font></tt></div>
<div><tt><font size="-2"
color="#000000">www.mup.unimelb.edu.au/ebooks/0-522-85240-8/index.html<br
>
<br>
_______________________________________________<br>
</font></tt></div>
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