Re-visioning Australian social realism through a feminine lens

This research explores the unique ways in which female film practitioners in Australia are utilising social realist politics in examining the stories of women in marginalised spaces. The findings add to the much needed gravitas of the female voice in contemporary Australian film.

The relevance of perspectivism to the task of modularisation in ontology development

An ontology development methodology seeks to provide developers with established principles, processes, practices, methods and activities for developing ontologies (Gasevic et al., 2009). Diverse methodologies have been published for the development of ontologies, and have evolved, based on the diverse experiences of researchers and practitioners, and the development teams who surveyed the benefits and shortcomings of the available methodologies in order to determine the applicability of methodologies to particular contexts. An evaluation of existing ontology development methodologies has identified that the concept formulation process is not well defined, or based on rigorous processes (Castro et al., 2006; Winters & Tolk, 2009). In order for the validity of the social realism of the actors in a social setting to be captured, the perspectives of each actor needs to be acknowledged and incorporated into the concept formulation process / framework. This paper demonstrates how consideration of perspectivism leads to a meaningful modularisation of the resultant ontology.

International power transitions, critical realism, and the rise of China

This thesis employs the philosophy of critical realism to develop an innovative theory and methodology for the study of international power transitions. The theory is then applied in a future-oriented case analysis to enrich explanation and understanding of a major real world policy challenge - the rise of China.

Extro-science fusion: the marvelous realism of worlds beyond science

Most attempts to define the intellectual significance of marvelous realism have been framed by a focus on postcolonialism1 and postmodernism2. These approaches see it as a postcolonial assertion of a culture's identity and reduce it to a "going back" to an ancestral past that persists as a stubborn presence within certain geographies. This essay develops the proposition that the significance of marvelous realism goes beyond social and cultural perspectives - that it is, essentially, a mestizo ontology. Differently than the vast majority of theoretical incursions in this field, which only allude to the marvelous or fictional aspects of the movement, I will inquire instead on its singular appreciation of the real. By so doing I honor the wishes of Gabriel García Márquez, who was adamant in his defense of the real in and through his works.