Cultural Studies

18th Century, Cultural Studies, Historical Studies, Humanities, Literary Studies, Postcolonial Studies
Fictions of Encounter
25.09.08 | Permalink | Comments Off on Fictions of Encounter

The “imaginary voyage” was an early form of the modern realist novel popular in Britain and France from the seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries, set predominantly in the region of Australasia and the Pacific. As a branch of travel literature, it was linked intimately to the expansion of empire. Through repeated stories of successful colonizing schemes and heroic accounts of cross-cultural encounters between European travelers and the people of the antipodes, these texts allowed European readers to enjoy farfetched fantasies of colonization well before, and during, the period of actual colonial expansion. As in the case of the many better-known examples of literary fiction produced in the later period of European imperial dominance, imaginary voyage fiction helped embed social acceptance of colonial expansion by modeling cultural domination as natural, beneficial, and welcome.
18th Century, Cultural Studies, Historical Studies, Postcolonial Studies
Teaching and Learning Guide: Antipodean Myths Transformed
08.08.08 | Permalink | Comments Off on Teaching and Learning Guide: Antipodean Myths Transformed
Sample Syllabus:

Week 1: Introduction and Overview—Exploration and Colonisation of the Great South Land
- – The myth of the antipodes—the allure of the great south land
- – Gaps in maps—spaces for the imagination
Weeks 2–4: Fantasies of the Antipodes
- – The role of imaginary voyage texts—blending reality with fantasy, pre-programming colonisation
- – Myths of extreme difference
- – Myths of Indigenous populations’ welcoming attitude to colonial intrusion
- – Theories of otherness
Weeks 3–5: Entering the Antipodes
- – Early explorers’ contradictory responses to Terra Australis Incognita
- – Utopias and dystopias
- – First contact with Indigenous people—the concept of ‘terra nullius’ framed by myths
Weeks 6–8: Images of Contemporary Australia: Enduring Myths
- – The myth of terra nullius and the impact on Indigenous Australia
- – The ‘dead heart’ of Australia as the last unfathomed antipodean space
Communication and Media Studies, Cultural Studies, e-Research, Life Writing
Pixelated Memory
25.05.08 | Permalink | Comments Off on Pixelated Memory

War memorials are the most familiar and visible means of acknowledging and respecting the trauma of large scale, violent conflict. In practically every town in Australia, however small, monuments to war are found. These are haunting, poignant reminders of the brutality of war and the fragility of life. And yet, their reassuring solidity and prominence shields us from the reality of lost lives and suffering by casting war in terms of abstract and stylised notions of heroism, loyalty, sacrifice and glory. While it is usual for the names of the dead to be listed on these monuments, their individual suffering is blended, ritualised and distanced in a symbolic and generalised tribute. It is not surprising then that there has always been an awkward fit between the public statements made by these monuments and the personal stories told by individuals who returned.
Cultural Studies, Digital Scholarship, Historical Studies, Humanities, Museum Studies
Exhibiting History: The Digital Future
25.04.08 | Permalink | Comments Off on Exhibiting History: The Digital Future

This paper surveys the digital history field, highlighting trends across historical, cultural and literary studies, heritage, archaeology and geography, as well as library information, screen and media studies, multimedia production and interaction design. This broad field is increasingly relevant to museum practice as museums experiment with digital modes of presentation and communication, including virtual exhibitions and other online extensions of the physical visitor experience.
Communication and Media Studies, Cultural Studies, e-Research, Humanities, Life Writing
Digital Lives
25.01.08 | Permalink | Comments Off on Digital Lives

The aim of the Interactive Histories research program is to seek ways of using interactive media for experimental content delivery in projects with a broadly historical focus. The focus to date has been on oral history projects (including virtual tours of heritage sites, museum installations and multimedia documentaries) and on theoretical research investigating emerging frameworks for historical representation enabled by interactive technologies. Planned projects include digital storytelling in local communities and the development of Indigenous and cross-cultural digital resources. Central to the two projects being presented here is the production of multimedia works designed to maximize public access to oral history material.
Cultural Studies, Literary Studies, Postcolonial Studies
Antipodean Myths Transformed
25.08.07 | Permalink | Comments Off on Antipodean Myths Transformed

Australia and the South Pacific held a special status in the eighteenth century: this was the farthest region from Europe and the last part of the earth remaining for Europeans to explore and chart. In the context of European nations’ own histories of discovering and exploring the world beyond Europe’s borders, this region is unique in the sense that no other part of the earth had such a substantial and well-documented body of European thought devoted to it over such a long period of time prior to its physical discovery. The ‘antipodes’ existed in the European imagination for approximately two thousand years before Europeans set foot on antipodean lands. Myths inspired explorers to go searching for the genuine antipodes, and voyages were often undertaken with the specific aim of finding the uncharted places that punctuated otherwise formless maps.
Communication and Media Studies, Cultural Studies, Digital Scholarship, Historical Studies
Hypermedia History: Changing Technologies of Representation
25.11.06 | Permalink | Comments Off on Hypermedia History: Changing Technologies of Representation

Technologies of representation are not just instruments of recording and reporting. Their basic attributes determine what it is actually possible to conceptualise, capture and articulate. Photography, to take a classic example, transformed people’s outlook on the world because it could provide an unrivalled visual framing of actuality. It had no equivalent in the prior traditions of visual communication. Technological invention spurs social change. By focussing on ‘technologies of representation’ I am not only concerned with the technological means that underpin specific forms of representation, although these fundamentally define the range of options available, but also with the ways of seeing and understanding that they open up. Tomas describes these beautifully as “a new type of amniotic environment for vision”.
Communication and Media Studies, Cultural Studies, e-Research, Humanities
Multimedia and the Narrative Frame
25.07.06 | Permalink | Comments Off on Multimedia and the Narrative Frame

Janet Murray’s Hamlet on the Holodeck (1997), a landmark text written nearly a decade ago, set out to investigate the potential for interactive story forms at a time when digital interactivity was, for the first time, in the hands of the mainstream. Her book, which analyses a range of non-linear narrative models, continues to inspire those who wish to imagine the future of digital narrative textuality. The study of interactive narrative is now a vast field in its own right. Today there is extensive, vibrant debate on the evolution of digital narrative story forms, with theoretical commentary coming from perspectives as diverse as new media theory, literary studies, cinema studies, media arts and humanities computing.

about

Paul Arthur is Vice-Chancellor’s Professorial Research Fellow, and Professor of Digital Humanities and Social Sciences, at Edith Cowan University, Western Australia. He speaks and publishes widely on major challenges and changes facing 21st-century society, from the global impacts of technology on communication, culture and identity to migration and human rights. Paul Arthur has over 100 publications including 13 books, and has received A$10M in grant funding, individually and in collaboration. His latest book is Open Scholarship in the Humanities (Bloomsbury 2024, with Lydia Hearn). A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, he has held visiting positions in Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America, and given more than 50 keynote and plenary talks in 20 countries. Click here for full Profile

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Category

Cultural Studies

18th Century, Cultural Studies, Historical Studies, Humanities, Literary Studies, Postcolonial Studies

Fictions of Encounter

18th Century, Cultural Studies, Historical Studies, Postcolonial Studies

Teaching and Learning Guide: Antipodean Myths Transformed

Communication and Media Studies, Cultural Studies, e-Research, Life Writing

Pixelated Memory