'Nothing good ever came out of Japan': Race-mixing and the limits of diaspora

This paper argues that postcolonial notions of diaspora are premised on immigrant subjectivities and standpoints which do not fully apprehend the mixed-race / bi-racial experience and the local effect of cultural hybridity in Western settings. The paper was prompted by a recent conversation with Dee, the daughter of a Japanese warbride. As a child Dee recalled being told by her friend's mother that 'nothing good ever came out of Japan'. The significance of constant interpolations into 'Asianness' by statements such as these; by the 'where do you come from?' question and by more blatant discriminations are inadequately addressed by traditional and postcolonial notions of diaspora. 'Roots' and 'routes' imagery feature prominently in discussions of diaspora and hybridity which aim to decolonise culture and identity in deconstructive moves that highlight their flexible, multiple, contractedness. While it has been argued that even these conceptualisations are problematic because they privilege orders of explanation, theory and standpoint that are forced back into line with traditional notions of discrete 'races', cultures, ethnicities and identities, cultural studies and postcolonial theorists do not appear to find this contradiction overly troubling. Lodged in bodies that do not easily conflate to neat either/or cultures, politics and genetics, race-mixing also defies and yet return us to culture and biology. However, I argue that their refractions though the same tired old orders of racial, ethnic, cultural and national differentiation prevent us from disregarding the discursive effects of racism and racialisation.

Thomas Parmeter: Poetaster and Rhymist

The life of Dr. Thomas Parmeter MD was one of astonishing complexity. Convicted of bigamy in London, he arrived in Sydney on 16 January 1816 and almost immediately resumed his medical practice. In England he had engaged in several literary activities and these too he soon resumed in New South Wales, contributing to contemporary newspapers. A riding accident in 1820 and a stroke in 1825 restricted his ability to practise medicine and so he turned to writing and farming for an income. Neither activity was a financial success and he died in poverty. Herein are collected together his poems, epigrams, aphorisms and quotations from poets and other writers. His contribution to the cultural life of Sydney, though not fully documented, was very likely significant.

Kidosaki redux: Trans-cultural trans-location

This paper concerns a collaborative experiment in architectural design teaching and thinking developed during a workshop held at The University of Queensland in 2000. The programme explored the possibilities and the consequences of relocating location-specific architecture to a different context - a 'Trans-Cultural Trans-Location'. The project involved the careful study by Australia-based students of a house designed for a Japanese family in a dense part of Tokyo by the eminent Japanese architect Tadao Ando, and the subsequent translocation of the ideas that underlay the building to a suburban location in Brisbane, for a theoretical equivalent Australian family. This experimental project examined the universality of architectural concepts, their appreciation and the pedagogical setting. The project raised questions of: - How well do students from one culture comprehend architecture designed specifically for another – which are the areas of misunderstanding and understanding? - How can students transpose architectural ideas from one social and physical context to one that is almost entirely the opposite? - What are the limits of collaboration and exchange in design teaching and how do they reveal similarities, inconsistencies and the unexpected in the aims of the teacher and of the student? These questions suggest that in order to comprehend a design, we must understand the culture within which it originated, and that we must understand the cultures within which we work in order to design. This paper is written in two parts. The first part establishes a framework for discussing the contrast of the cultural settings studied. The second part considers the nature, conduct and results of the Studio Workshop itself.

Fundamental Skills in Physics: Embedded Learning

Student attitudes towards a subject affect their learning. For students in physics service courses, relevance is emphasised by vocational applications. A similar strategy is being used for students who aspire to continued study of physics, in an introduction to fundamental skills in experimental physics – the concepts, computational tools and practical skills involved in appropriately obtaining and interpreting measurement data. An educational module is being developed that aims to enhance the student experience by embedding learning of these skills in the practicing physicist’s activity of doing an experiment (gravity estimation using a rolling pendulum). The group concentrates on particular skills prompted by challenges such as: • How can we get an answer to our question? • How good is our answer? • How can it be improved? This explicitly provides students the opportunity to consider and construct their own ideas. It gives them time to discuss, digest and practise without undue stress, thereby assisting them to internalise core skills. Design of the learning activity is approached in an iterative manner, via theoretical and practical considerations, with input from a range of teaching staff, and subject to trials of prototypes.

Wolbachia neither induces nor suppresses transcripts encoding antimicrobial peptides

Wolbachia are intracellular maternally inherited microorganisms that are associated with reproductive abnormalities such as cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI), feminization and parthenogenesis in the various arthropod species they infect. Surveys indicate that these bacteria infect more than 16% of all insect species as well as isopods, mites and nematodes, making Wolbachia one of the most ubiquitous parasites yet described. However, nothing is known about the interactions of this bacterium with the host's immune system. We studied the expression of inducible antimicrobial markers in the adults of two Wolbachia infected insect species, Drosophila simulans and Aedes albopictus. The lack of available immune markers in the mosquito species led us to clone part of the defensin gene from this species, which was found to be very similar to the other mosquito defensins cloned from Anopheles gambiae and Aedes aegypti. Comparisons of the expression pattern of the antibacterial markers between Wolbachia-infected and cured lines, and also between bacteria-challenged and unchallenged adults indicated that Wolbachia does not either constitutively induce or suppress the transcription of these antibacterial genes. In addition, no difference in the transcription of these genes was found between double and single Wolbachia-infected strains or between strains in which Wolbachia has different tissue tropisms.