Dear All,
Please find below the Political Science Department's Postgraduate Bulletin for 25 August 2004, listing news of interest to postgrads in the Department, and upcoming seminars.
Regards, Ben.
1. Call for Papers: CERC Postgraduate Workshop 2004
2. Postgrad Global Political Theory Reading Group (GPTRG) - Thursday 2 September
3. Feminist Forum 25 August: Researching the unbearable: pornography and hate crimes
4. English Seminar 27 August: The Ethics of Man Under Aestheticism
5. Staff/postgraduate 6-a-side soccer: Match report
Issues of this bulletin are archived on the web at:
http://www.politics.unimelb.edu.au/courses/postgraduate/bulletin.html
Department news and upcoming seminar info is posted at:
http://www.politics.unimelb.edu.au/new/
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1.
Call for Papers: CERC Postgraduate Workshop 2004
An Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Workshop
EUROPE IN FLUX: The Changing Face of Contemporary Europe
Wednesday 1 December 2004
Contemporary Europe Research Centre
The University of Melbourne
Level 2, 234 Queensberry St., Carlton, VIC 3053
The Contemporary Europe Research Centre (CERC) invites postgraduate students from across Australia with a research interest in contemporary Europe to participate in an exciting Interdisciplinary Workshop, Europe in Flux: The Changing Face of Contemporary Europe. The Workshop is being held on Wednesday 1 December 2004 in connection with the CERC conference, The Clash of Civilisations Revisited, 2-3 December 2004, which students are also warmly invited to attend (see the CERC website for details: http://www.cerc.unimelb.edu.au/2004_events/index.htm).
The aim of the workshop is to offer Australian postgraduate students in the area of Arts and Social Sciences an opportunity to present and discuss part of their ongoing research to an interested audience in a supportive environment. It also aims to connect students from different research backgrounds, departments, and universities with a shared interest in Europe and to foster a supportive academic and social network.
Papers should consider current issues facing the Europe of today or the changing face of European politics, society, history or culture. Papers with a focus on the European Union are preferred however the workshop is not limited to this area of study. Presentations should not exceed 20 minutes and will be followed by approximately 10 minutes of discussion time.
Students interested in presenting at the workshop should submit a 150 word abstract of the proposed paper together with a brief personal biography outlining research interests and background. The closing date for submissions is Monday 25 October 2004. Students interested in participating but not necessarily delivering a paper should also contact the organisers with an expression of interest by this date for logistical purposes.
This event is free to postgraduate students light refreshments will be provided by CERC. The workshop will conclude with a reception hosted by the Europe Social Club (the CERC Postgraduate Group).
Please submit your abstract via email or post and direct all inquiries to the organisers:
Katrina Stats kstats@unimelb.edu.au Tel: 8344 9496
Fiona Machin fmachin@unimelb.edu.au Tel: 8344 9505
Contemporary Europe Research Centre
2nd Floor, 234 Queensberry Street
Carlton, VIC 3052
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2.
Postgrad Global Political Theory Reading Group (GPTRG) - Thursday 2 September
The GPTRG is a fortnightly gathering of political science postgrads with an interest in global politics, contemporary international relations and political economy, and political theory in general.
Each meeting a reading is recommended to the group by a member, who briefly outlines the paper (possibly connecting it to previous readings or their current research) before it is discussed in an informal and encouraging peer environment.
Our next meeting is Thursday 2 September, at 5:30pm in the Postgrad Room [4th floor, John Medley East Tower], and we'll be discussing:
Deirdre McCloskey and Santhi Hejeebu, "The Reproving of Karl Polyani"
Critical Review Summer 1999 13 3/4
http://proquest.umi.com.mate.lib.unimelb.edu.au/pqdlink?index=9&did=000000069876396&SrchMode=3&sid=1&Fmt=6&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1093223373&clientId=14623
For more info on the GPTRG, or to join the email list, go to:
http://www.politics.unimelb.edu.au/gptrg/
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3.
Feminist Forum 25 August: Researching the unbearable: pornography and hate crimes
All staff and postgraduate students interested in feminist ideas are welcome to this seminar series.
Venue: Room 519, John Medley Building, University of Melbourne. Gate 10 Grattan St.
Time: 5.30-7.00pm.
August 25: Associate Professor Sheila Jeffreys and Nicole Asquith (Political Science, University of Melbourne).
'Researching the unbearable: pornography and hate crimes.'
More forums will be held during the semester:
September 15: Jennifer Oriel (Political Science, University of Melbourne).
Sexual Pleasure As A Human Right: Helping or Harming Women In the Context of HIV/AIDS?'
October 27: Dr Millsom Henry-Waring - (Sociology, University of Melbourne).
'Cold Sunshine - The Racialised, Gendered and Diasporic Experiences of African Caribbean Women in Britain'
November 24: Dr Lorene Gottschalk (Management & Human Resource Management, University of Ballarat).
'Coming out in the bush: lesbians, gay men and gender difference in regional and rural Victoria.'
For more information contact: Associate Professor Sheila Jeffreys, School of Political Science, Criminology & Sociology sheila@unimelb.edu.au
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4.
English Seminar 27 August: The Ethics of Man Under Aestheticism
This week the seminar's gaze turns to Oscar Wilde and aestheticism, courtesy of English and Social Theory student Benjamin Smith:
'The Ethics of Man Under Aestheticism.'
Date: Friday 27 August
Time: 4.15pm
Venue: English Postgraduate Common Room, John Medley Building, East Tower, 631
Presenter: Benjamin Smith, PhD Student, English and Social Theory
ABSTRACT:
Many of Oscar Wilde's epigrams - such as "No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style" - suggest a divorce between ethics and aesthetics. Such professions of an a-moral aestheticism have leant Wilde to be mistakenly invoked as an example of Max Weber's theory that Modernity is characterised by the differentiation and autonomisation of Life's major value-spheres. Yet, as Agnes Heller commented in her 1999 book, A Theory of Modernity, ethics cannot form an independent sphere of values; rather each value-sphere - science, politics, art, religion, law, economy - contains its own norms and values, the content of which determine the range of ethical orientations appropriate to it. By drawing on the writings of Addison, Baumgarten, Kant, Schiller and Habermas, I will explore the implications of Heller's intervention, and suggest how we might interpret the paradoxical relationship between Wilde's apparently a-moral aestheticism and (a) his great personal generosity, (b) his socialism, and (c) the morally conventional structures that characterise much of his fiction. I will also conjecture on how Wilde's taste for a Byzantine aesthetic ideal may be employed to critique Jean-Francois Lyotard's post-modern denigration of the Beautiful in favour of the Sublime.
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16.
Staff/postgraduate 6-a-side soccer: Match report
A full report on last Tuesday's second soccer match, such as it was, is on the Department website at:
http://www.politics.unimelb.edu.au/new/match_report.html
The team, Political Animals, is looking for anyone who is interested in having a game, regardless of ability or lack thereof. Please contact Adrian Little (little@unimelb.edu.au or 83446209).
Ben.Harper
Research and Graduate Studies Administrator
School of Political Science, Criminology & Sociology
The University of Melbourne
VIC 3010
AUSTRALIA
61 3 8344 6571
http://www.politics.unimelb.edu.au/courses/postgraduate/