Encountering Australia: Transcultural Conversations
Monash University Prato Centre, Prato, Italy
24-26 September, 2014
Where and how do we encounter Australia? This conference will explore sites of contact, connection and exchange between Australia and the world, with a particular emphasis on Europe. Monash’s Prato campus, situated in the heart of Italy, provides an ideal meeting-place for such transcultural conversations. We invite papers and panels that engage with ideas of encountering Australia – imaginatively, theoretically, institutionally, politically, socially, historically, pedagogically, symbolically. This conference will provide the opportunity to instigate new ways of talking together about Australia, past and present, and will highlight the importance of cross-cultural dialogue.
Topics for papers and panels may include:
- documentary encounters
- migration, mobility and diaspora
- environment and climate change
- histories of war and violence
- experimental and avant-garde encounters
- personal, national and collective memory
- embodied encounters
- gendered and sexual encounters
- expatriate communities and collectives
- narrative and performative encounters
The organising committee welcomes submissions from disciplines including literary studies, film studies, cultural studies, historical studies, Indigenous studies, translation studies, media, journalism and communications, performance studies, gender and women’s studies, legal studies and social sciences.
Abstracts for papers and panel proposals should be submitted to EASA@monash.edu by 10 March 2014. Individual papers should be described in an abstract of 300 words. Panel proposals should include a 200 word abstract for each paper (minimum of 3) and 50-100 words on the panel topic. Please include a biographical statement of no more than 200 words with your submission.