http://hdl.handle.net/10453/19946 2013-05-20T04:51:27Z http://hdl.handle.net/10453/19953 Colour and Slavery Taussig, Michael. Brief Biography: Columbia University Professor, Michael Taussig is one of the most innovative, distinguished, and socially engaged voices in cultural anthropology. An interdisciplinary thinker and engaging writer, Taussig's work combines aspects of ethnography, story-telling, and social theory. His publications include two Spanish-language books on the history of slavery and its aftermath, and eight English-language books on issues of slavery, hunger, commercialization of agriculture, Marxist economic theory, popular culture, folk healing, colonialisms, theories of ritual, cultural productions of terror, the state and public secrecy, museums and memory, and poor communities in Colombia. In the title essay of his most recent book, the collection Walter Benjamin's Grave (University of Chicago Press, 2006), Taussig reflects upon his own visit to Benjamin's gravesite in Port Bou on the French-Spanish border, relays accounts of Benjamin's travels as he fled the Nazis, and describes the circumstances of Benjamin's 1940 suicide. Taussig has lectured at universities, conferences, and cultural institutions around the world and has received numerous honors, including a National Endowment for the Humanities Research Fellowship and the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. 2008-08-12T05:10:36Z http://hdl.handle.net/10453/19950 Electronic Journalism on the Path to Peace with Justice in Palestine Abunimah, Ali Ali Abunimah, Palestinian American journalist and Editor of the Middle East website Electronic Intifada, spoke at a public forum at UTS on 13 May. Electronic Intifada is a Palestinian portal for information on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its depiction in the media. Ali is also the author of 'One Country: A Bold Proposal to end the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse' (2006). Public Lecture 2008-05-20T01:28:46Z http://hdl.handle.net/10453/19947 TfC Annual Public Lecture: Madeover Nation: The United States of Reinvention? Miller, Toby Madeover Nation: The United States of Reinvention? The grand promise of the United States is that what its people were born as need not define them ever more. James Truslow Adams coined the term 'American Dream' in 1931 as the core to his wide-ranging overview of national history, The Epic of America.Adams argued that since the 17th century, voluntary immigrants had been driven not only by '[t]he economic motive,' but also 'the hope of a better and freer life, a life in which a man might think as he would and develop as he willed.' The 'American dream' was 'of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller... with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement.' Measured by something beyond commodities ('merely material plenty') it was 'a dream of being able to grow to fullest development as man and woman,' defying class barriers. That grand meritocratic promise still has the power to fascinate. It is expressed and achieved through the ultimate Yanqui desire: self-invention via commodities. Commodities appeal because they provide a way to dodge that old Hegelian dilemma: what to do about an absense of ethical substance. In the US, a sense of ethical incompleteness comes courtesy of origins in the under class of Europe and Asia, the enslaved of Africa, and the dispossessed of the Americas. It encourages an ongoing personal self-criticism that relies on faith and consumerism as means of surviving and thriving. One alternately loving and severe world of superstition (AKA religion) is matched by a second alternately loving and severe world of superstition (AKA consumption). In times of economic dynamism and uncertainty, they merge with old myths about meritocracy and religion to inform the way we think about the nation and manufacture citizens. DH Lawrence identified 'the true myth of America' as: 'She of the old skin, towards a new youth' (1953:64). The detritus of Europe needed remaking, and so have successive newcomers and newborns. Foundational myths of the 'American Dream' permeate this society. And dreams reference and distort reality. They attract and please even as they horrify and disappoint. So I look at the power of various forms of knowledge about people and their emotions applied to the US population. If we are to understand an absurdly wealthy and wasteful country, we must question the pleasures of reinvention as well as embracing them, teasing out as we do so the mystification of moral panics, and the reality of risk society. Professor Toby Miller presented the 3rd Annual Public Lecture for the Trans/forming Cultures Research Centre, on the 11th July 2007. 2007-07-20T05:12:15Z http://hdl.handle.net/10453/19952 Landscapes of Meaning symposium reflections Goodall, Heather; Lloyd, Justine; Rangarajan, Mahesh; Warneminde, Clea. Heather Goodall and Mahesh Rangarajan speak to Justine Lloyd and Clare Warneminde on key issues raised at the International symposium on South Asia-Australia connections regarding environment and people, hosted by the Trans/forming Cultures Research Centre. The Landscapes of Meaning symposium brought together researchers, activists and grass-roots community campaigners from South Asia and Australia to challenge assumptions and find common ground on themes of environmental justice and transnational migrancy. Mahesh Rangarajan was one of four Indian researchers who was able to be present at the symposium. 2006-10-01T00:00:00Z