Cultural Policy

The development of cultural policy during the twentieth century is underscored by three key developments. First, the formation of the Arts Council of Great Britain in 1946, first headed by the Cambridge economist Lord Keynes, saw the scaffolding developed for ongoing government support for the arts. In doing so, it established the principle of an “arm’s length” relationship between the government of the day and individual artists, through the development of independent arts boards engaged in the peer review of creative works. Second, the formation of the Fifth Republic in France in 1958 saw the creation of a Ministry of Culture, headed by the writer André Malraux. Malraux and his successors have seen three major tasks for a national cultural policy: government support for the creation of new artistic and cultural works; the promotion and maintenance of cultural heritage; and enabling equitable access to creative works and creative opportunities through all segments of society. Finally, at a global level, agencies such as UNESCO have sought to promote national cultural policies as an element of national sovereignty, particularly in the developing world, and this has involved addressing sources of structural inequality in the distribution of global cultural and communications resources...

Jane McCredie - Making Girls and Boys : Inside the Science of Sex [Book Review]

Activists, Feminists, queer theorists, and those who live outside traditional gender narratives have long challenged the fixity of the sex and gender binaries. While the dominant Western paradigm posits sex and gender as natural and inherent, queer theory argues that sex and gender are socially constructed. This means that our ideas about sex and gender, and the concepts themselves, are shaped by particular social contexts. Questioning the nature of sex can be puzzling. After all, isn’t sex biology? Binary sex – male and female – was labelled as such by scientists based on existing binary categories and observations of hormones, genes, chromosomes, reproductive organs, genitals and other bodily elements. Binary sex is allocated at birth by genital appearance. Not everyone fits into these categories and this leads queer theorists, and others, to question the categories. Now, “some scientists are also starting to move away from the idea of biology as the fixed basis on which the social artefact of gender is built” (5). Making Girls and Boys: Inside the Science of Sex, by Jane McCredie, examines theories about gender roles and behaviours also considering those who don’t fit the arbitrary sex and gender binaries.

The national railway of Sarah Island : Richard Flanagan's Gould's Book of Fish

In the latter half of the nineteenth century the railway became an emblem of technological advancement, stood for the improvement and progression of European life, and became a recognizable symbol for the achievements of governments and citizens. The implementation and use of the railway became closely linked with notions of national identity and character. The railway became an identifiable artefact in official history but at the same time it became a part of everyday life. Richard Flanagan’s Gould’s Book of Fish retells the life-story of a fictionalized convict sent to Sarah Island and who paints fish, eventually he metamorphoses into one. It could be thought that a novel set in convict times would have little to do with notions of national identity, technological advancement, and railway travel. However, Richard Flanagan, in this very complex, almost surreal, novel, has used the construction of a fictional national railway as one of the ways to explore Australia's complex relationship with history and space. The novel tells of the plans of a history-loving Commandant and his desire to build a national railway on Sarah Island. This paper explores how Sarah Island becomes a metonym for Australia as a whole and Flanagan's novel takes on a metaphysical dimension as he reveals the struggles that emerge when official history collides with non-official versions. The fabulations of the novel contribute to an historical reconstruction of the spatial/architectural history of the Tasmanian colonial project.

From Prosumption to Produsage

Almost a decade after the 2004 O’Reilly Media conference which popularized the term ‘Web 2.0’, the impact of this concept on users and developers of the current generation of Web technology – and by extension, on the digital economy overall – is undeniable. At the time, ‘Web 2.0’ promised an interactive, engaging online space in which users were able to do more than surf from static, fixed Website to static, fixed Website. Although the implicit suggestion that the version change to ‘Web 2.0’ represented a clean break with this inflexible past must be read as mere marketing hype, the core principles which the concept outlined nonetheless form the operational basis for most mainstream Websites of the present day.

Chinese fashion designers in Shanghai : identifying a fresh perspective about their role in the world order of fashion

Shanghai possesses an apt legacy, once referred to as “Paris of the East”. Municipal aspirations for Shanghai to assume a position among the great fashion cities of the world have been integrated in the recent re-shaping of this modern city into a role model for Chinese creative enterprise yet China is still known primarily as centre of clothing production. Increasingly however, “Made in China” is being replaced by “Created in China” drawing attention to two distinct consumer markets for Chinese designers. Fashion designers who have entered the global fashion system for education or by showing their collections have generally adopted a design aesthetic that aligns with Western markets, allowing little competitive advantage. In contrast, Chinese designers who rest their attention on the domestic Chinese market find a disparate, highly competitive marketplace. The pillars of authenticity that for foreign fashion brands extend far into their cultural and creative histories, often for many decades in the case of Louis Vuitton, Hermes and Christian Dior do not yet exist in China in this era of rapid globalisation. Here, the cultural bedrock allows these same pillars to extend only thirty years or so into the past reaching the moments when Deng Xiaoping granted China’s creative entrepreneurs passage. To this end, interviews with fashion designers in Shanghai have been undertaken during the last twelve months for a PhD dissertation. Production of culture theory has been used to identify working methods, practices of production and the social and cultural milieu necessary for designers to achieve viability.

Making orchids – Gardening an intersex experience on videotape [In German - Orchideen Züchten. Eine inter Erfahrung auf Film]

In 2004, my thirtieth year of life, I began to develop and produce a documentary about the lived experience of being intersex. At the time, I didn’t ever expect the film would be autobiographical in nature. I’d known I was intersex since I was 17, and aware of my difference for many years prior, and I’d been making and presenting documentaries for almost as long, yet the idea to expose myself so publicly was frightening to me. However, I realised I couldn’t expect others to step in front of the lens when I didn’t have the courage to do so myself. The final result was Orchids: My Intersex Adventure, which maps my intersex journey from shame, stigma and secrecy to self‐acceptance. The film has now been broadcast on television sets around the world. It has also won many awards and appeared in numerous film festivals....

Language and mobility : unexpected places [Book Review]

Language and Mobility is the latest monograph by Alastair Pennycook. It is part of the series, Critical Language and Literacy Studies. Co-edited by Pennycook, along with Brian Morgan and Ryuko Kubota, the series looks at relations of power in diverse worlds of language and literacy. As the title indicates, Pennycook’s own volume explores the idea of language turning up in ‘unexpected’ places, for example, Cornish in Moonta, South Australia, a century or two after it supposedly died with its last speaker. Why is it, Pennycook asks, that we expect to find a (particular form of a) language in a particular place? This question is generated by a critical project that seeks to leverage the educational potential of everyday moments of language use...

Pancreatic cancer – a patient and his doctor balance hope and truth [Book Review]

This book comprises 11 chapters, alternating between two authors (a patient with metastatic pancreatic cancer and an oncologist)...