Harold White Fellowships close 30 April

National Library of Australia Harold White Fellowships 2009

Applications for 2010 Harold White Fellowships at the National Library of Australia are now open, and close on 30 April 2009.

Each year several Harold White Fellowships are awarded to enable established scholars and writers to undertake research at the National Library for periods of between three and six months. The Fellowships provide a return economy fare to Canberra, a living allowance, a fully equipped office and special access to Library collections and services.

Honorary Fellowships are also awarded to scholars and writers who do not require financial assistance but would benefit from other privileges associated with the Fellowship.

Research projects supported by Harold White Fellowships can be in any discipline or area in which the Library has strong collections. Past Harold White Fellows have undertaken research in fields including Asian studies, history of science, biography, media history, Australian history, musicology, religious history, anthropology, children’s literature, art history, politics, Indigenous history, Australian literature, Pacific studies, eighteenth century studies, geography, international relations and folklore. Past Fellows have included leading Australian creative writers including Frank Moorhouse, Sara Dowse and David Foster. Fellowships have been awarded to researchers working across Australia, in the USA, Canada, the UK, New Zealand, Hong Kong, China, Germany and South Africa.

More information, a link to the online application form, and contact details are available at www.nla.gov.au/grants/haroldwhite

Margy Burn, National Library of Australia

mburn@nla.gov.au

Urban Crowds in History (and Beyond)

An international and interdisciplinary conference to be held October 15-17, 2009, University of Tours, France. Crowds, and more specifically urban crowds, have long been a favorite topic for human and social sciences, before fading out from recent research. Is this due to the fact that we have been moving on from an ‘age of the masses’ to an ‘age of the individual’? Indeed, if there is a wealth of studies of crowds at various turning points in history, we lack studies trying to bypass the canonical chronological boundaries and to develop a fruitful interdisciplinary dialogue among the social sciences. Crowds are understood here as encompassing political, cultural and religious gatherings, either in a paroxistical form (riots, collective celebration) or in a more subdued, ordinary, form (social networks), as well as collective practices shared by a score of individuals. These collective practices bring crowds to invest the city as its major theatre; crowd action is an addition of individual gestures, postures, behaviors, slogans, cries, screams…, the modalities and temporalities of which deserve a study in their own right. This conference is aiming at an approach which combines history, sociology, anthropology, social psychology, or literary studies of urban crowds. Possible themes include, but are not limited to: – theoretical approaches of ‘the crowd’ from the angle of various social sciences –anthropology, social psychology, political science… – or literary representations; – when does a crowd become a ‘crowd’, i.e., when does a gathering of people come to be seen – and whom by ? – as a ‘crowd’? Does it change in space and/or time ? – crowds in urban environments, their means of acting, positioning in, and negociating urban space; – the various types of crowds : sports crowd, festive crowd, protesting crowd, consumerist crowd (Christmas shopping, the sales…), etc.; their behaviour, with particular attention to chants, speeches, slogans; – crowd leaders, their means, methods and results; – the influence of ‘populism’ on the masses; – crowd movements relate to social and political passions; – the means of checking and controlling crowds ; – the influence of power institutions on gathering crowds and, in return, the influence of gathered crowds on the powers that created them.

The conference committee will be pleased to welcome 300-word abstracts no later than May 30, 2009. Please include a CV or resume. Selected applicants will be notified by June 30, 2009. Please send abstracts to Dr. Christine Bousquet : christinebousquet@gmail.com, Prof. Philippe Chassaigne : philchassaigne@gmail.com, Prof. Stéphane Corbin : stephmagcorbin@wanadoo.fr.

A selection of papers presented during the Conference will be published in a special issue of Mana. Revue de sociologie et d’anthropologie (University of Caen, France).

Prof. Philippe Chassaigne
Dept. of History
University of Tours
3 rue des Tanneurs
37000 Tours
France
Email: philchassaigne@gmail.com

Storytelling in World Cinemas: Narrative Forms & Contexts

Call for Papers

Chapters are solicited for the edited collection “Storytelling in World
Cinemas”, edited by Lina Khatib (Senior Lecturer, Department of Media
Arts, Royal Holloway, University of London).

The collection will be published by Wallflower Press.

Please send a 250-word abstract and a short biography to
lina.khatib@rhul.ac.uk by April 22, 2009.

Chapters should be framed within the following parameters:
In how many ways can cinema tell a story? Where does this storytelling
come from? And what purpose does this storytelling serve? This collection
aims at locating cinema within a wider cultural framework through focusing
on the theme of storytelling in cinema. In particular, the collection will
focus on how different cinemas tell stories, i.e., with the issue of
narration in cinema. The collection will deal with non-classical
narratives in different cinemas that are influenced by, among others,
aural/oral, literary and religious storytelling traditions. For example,
Ousmane Sembene's films are highly influenced by the griot, or the village
oral storyteller, but are also often adaptations of his literary novels.
Iranian cinema (especially Kiarostami’s work) often tells stories that are
communicated as moments or feelings, not as plots, and is influenced by
Iran’s poetic tradition. And films from the Arab world have been inspired
by the episodic narrative tradition of 1001 Nights. In addition, the
collection will include chapters about the influence of social and
political context on the way stories are told in films (such as the impact
of revolution or dictatorship). This collection is an examination of the
different ways stories are told in cinemas, and the cultural/political
context in which this storytelling exists. It begins with an investigation
into the necessity of cinema narrative, and ends with an exploration of
how cinema can go “beyond” the narrative. In between, it goes on a journey
linking cinema with issues such as (but not limited to) religion,
literature, theatre, music, poetry and oral epics, as well social and
political contexts. So far, there is work done on those different
narratives, but those studies tend to either look at such cinemas in
isolation, or in comparison to the classical Hollywood narrative. This
collection will bring together experts on those different cinemas in order
to highlight how they converge and diverge and to arrive at a well-rounded
examination of the cultural context in which storytelling in cinema exists
and which it is shaped by.

Completed chapters are expected to be 5000 words long and are expected to
be delivered by the end of June 2009.

In particular, chapters on the following topics are solicited:
-          Non-narrative films (like Tropical Malady)
-          Film narratives in Arab cinemas
-          Film and revolution in Latin America

Pinoy Media Congress, Year 3, Luzon

Pinoy Media Congress 3 was a success. There was a sizable crowd of students and faculty, the presentations were good, hopefully the opinions expressed would find their way into the programs and plans of ABS-CBN. Although, in the end, I still felt like it was one huge “hybrid FGD.” But beggars (PACE) can’t be choosers. This was really conceptualized by ABS-CBN. Its their show and we’re only there as guests. Thank you for listening and inviting us.

Got my diploma, at last!

After 30 years, I finally got a copy of my diploma! I went to the university belt this morning to get it.

I was adventurous today (besides I didn’t want to drive to save on gas), I took the LRT 2 or Purple Line. For me, this is the best managed, maintained, and operated mass rail transit system here. The passengers are also better disciplined than the ones on lines 1 (Baclaran-Rizal-Monumento) and 3 (Baclaran-North Edsa). No need to segregate the boys from the girls, which is something I don’t like, really, as done on lines 1 and 3. Maybe its because the passengers of line 3 are mostly students? Maybe?

I alighted from the Legarda station and took a leisurely walk to FEU. I’ve noticed that there really is a proliferation of Internet cafes. When I was studying back in the mid-70s, there were lots of beauty parlors in every street and corner. But now, they’re almost all gone and replaced by the cyber cafes.

I hope the students who patronize them are also researching and not just playing computer games.

The campus is better looking now than when I was still studying. It is cleaner and much more presentable. As for the service rendered by the employees, I didn’t want to spoil my day, so I kept an open mind. The system in the registrar’s office still s—s when it comes to serving the student-clients. I guess those who gave us a hard time in the past are still there, after 30 years?

Well I’m glad I got my credentials today. Hopefully, I won’t see the people in the registrar’s office any longer. And I’ll just go to FEU to reminisce the good, old days, 30 years ago today. O.whattalife!

CFP: Eastern Travellers to the West

We invite submissions for a collection of original research on the subject of Eastern travelers’ encounters with the West. We are interested in travelers whose responses have been inflected by their positions as residents of Eastern metropoles, empires, and/or nations; by Eastern notions of gender, sexuality, race, or ethnicity; and by Eastern religious or secular worldviews. Authors should feel free to study any of a wide variety of genres, including expedition reports, letters, travel web sites, film, news or entertainment programming, auto/biographies of travelers, travel illustrations and related visual genres, young adult and children’s literature, encyclopedias, textbooks, and religious texts. We will also consider translations of and commentaries on significant travel works. We are happy to consider contemporary or historical cases, as well as virtual, or imagined, travel.

Please contact Anne R. Richards: a aricha31@kennesaw.edu or Iraj Omidvar iomidvar@spsu.edu with questions. 200-word abstracts are due by December 1, 2007. Decisions will be mailed on January 1, 2008, and final articles of between 4,000 and 8,000 words are due by June 1, 2008.

Anne R. Richards
EB 170
Deaprtment of English
Kennesaw State University
Kennesaw, Georgia 30144
Email: annerypstat@hotmail.com

Miriam’s new graduate program

The Communication Arts and Advertising Department of Miriam College in Quezon City, Philippines will offer starting second semester an MA in Integrated Marketing Communication (thesis program) and a Master in Integrated Marketing Communication (equivalency program).

Thesis defense

I was a panelist and/or adviser today for a couple of thesis (actually proposal) defense of graduating students from Miriam College. Its gratifying to note that we have very good topics this school year, ranging from environment (my favorite of course) bio-fuels, the Laiban dam project; breastfeeding, Cinemalaya, queer cinema, to name only a few. And this is only the first day. There will be 3-4 more days for the other groups to present.

This annual, rite of passage for senior, graduating college students is repeated a thousand times in colleges and universities all over the Philippines, and maybe the world. Maybe a sort of database could be organized to store and analyze the kinds of topics our students are interested in doing research. The best of luck to our dear students in their various pursuits.