Digital Commons Network^™

Australia's Proposed Internet Filtering System : Its Implications For Animation, Comic And Gaming (Acg) And Slash Fan Communities, Mark J. Mclelland

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

This paper investigates the implications of the Australian Government’s proposed Internet filtering system in the light of Australia’s blanket prohibition of ‘child pornography’ (including cartoons, animation, drawings, digitally manipulated photographs, and text) for Australian fan communities of ACG and slash. ACG/slash fan groups in Australia and elsewhere routinely consume, produce and disseminate material containing ‘prohibited content’ (i.e. featuring fictitious ‘under-age’ characters in violent and sexual scenarios). Moreover, a large portion of the fans producing and trading in these images are themselves ‘under age’. Focusing specifically upon the overwhelmingly female fandom surrounding Japanese ‘Boys’ Love’ (BL) manga, the paper argues that …

“Kissing Is A Symbol Of Democracy!” Dating, Democracy And Romance In Occupied Japan 1945-1952, Mark J. Mclelland

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Japan’s defeat at the end of its fifteen years’ war in 1945 saw widespread changes to the family and gender system. Women were given political rights for the first time and were recognised as independent agents at work, in the home and in their romantic relationships. Whereas war-time ideology had brought about the “death of romance” in popular culture, with the relaxation of censorship at the war’s end, there was a sudden proliferation in discussion about the qualities of the “new” or “modern” couple and the popular press saw the rise of an eclectic range of “experts” offering advice on …

Time For A Real Education Revolution, Anthony Ashbolt

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

News that elite private school fess are becoming increasingly less affordable hardly comes as a surprise. What would be genuinely surprising is news that they had become increasingly accessible to poorer sections of the community. That, of course, is not going to happen. Elite private schools service the elite. Forget the occasional dramatic publicity about Aboriginal scholarship students. They are publicity tokens propping up the illusion that social justice informs these school's charters. Elite Catholic schools are particularly good at manufacturing images of social concern and commitment. The images disappear at the front door. Rigorous selection criteria, based now more …

Free Music And Trash Culture: The Reconfiguration Of Musical Value Online, Andrew M. Whelan

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Over the past few years, portable communication devices have transformed the ways many people around the planet interact and transfer knowledge. Released in 2007, Apple's iPhone is one such wireless device that combines in a single portable unit a mobile phone, touch-screen iPod, camera, and internet device. It has a 9cm diagonal widescreen multi-touch display, and is 11.55cm high, 6.21am wide, and 1.23cm deep. It weighs 135 grams. (Later models vary slightly.) Along with the iPod Touch (also released in 2007) and the iPad, which was launched in 2010, both of which have all the main functions of the iPhone …

Cultural Flows Beneath Death Note: Catching The Wave Of Popular Japanese Culture In China, Peter Goderie, Brian M. Yecies

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

The government of the People’s Republic of China has often been criticized for its policies regarding freedom of expression. Cinema in China has been central to this criticism, particularly with respect to the distribution of foreign films. This article uses a case study of the Japanese film Death Note (Kaneko Shūsuke, 2006) to advance current understanding of Chinese cinema found in important studies such as Chu (2002), Zhang (2004) and Berry and Farquhar (2006). To better understand the controversy surrounding Death Note in the Chinese context, this article explores the historical precursors to the Chinese Communist Party’s ban on horror …

The Digital Public Domain : From A Spatial Metaphor To Citizen’S Cyber-Right, Kwang-Suk Lee

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

This essay explores the term “public domain,” consciously sug- gested in discourses of liberal U.S. legal scholars, to be a problem- atic feature of copyright law. By critically reviewing popular spatial meta- phors of the public domain as a sanctuary against the copyright regime, this article argues that the public domain should be regarded as part of the public rights of citizens, and restoration of the citizens’ rights could be accomplished by pushing the liberal discussion of the public domain into the more counter-property ideal of a Marxist tradition. As alternative models of copyright and for underpinning the public domain, …

Public Education For Our Future, Anthony Ashbolt

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Anthony Ashbolt examines the funding inequalities in education and problems with policies of social exclusion.

Globalisation: Before And After The Crisis, Sharon Beder

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

So-called »free« markets are becoming the new organising principle for the global order. The idea that governments should protect citizens against the excesses of free enterprise has been replaced with the idea that government should protect business activities against the excesses of democratic regulation. What business leaders seek, and to a large extent have achieved, are »business-managed democracies«, that is, democracies where the politics and cultural life of nations are managed in the interests of business.

Nuclear Energy: A Panacea For Climate Change?, Adam Robert Lucas

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Calls for a public debate about nuclear energy as part of the solution to global warming have been gaining regular coverage in the international media for the last several years. A number of politicians, business leaders and scientists tell us that the world is experiencing a 'nuclear renaissance' which none of us can afford to ignore. Proponents of nuclear argue that the grounds for scepticism about nuclear energy are no longer valid, and that technological improvements in recent years make it a viable and even a desimble option for new clectricity generating capacity. So what is the status of nuclear …

Introduction: Currents, Cross-Currents, Undercurrents, Frances Devlin-Glass, Tony Simoes Da Silva

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

The similarities in an issue such as this one are often purely serendipitous; JASAL 10 brings together work submitted to a general, non-thematic issue and it should not surprise that the range of material is very diverse. Yet on occasion there are obvious points of contact between the various pieces and that is certainly the case here. The subtitle we have given to this brief Introduction seeks to capture some of the ways in which the essays interrelate, both complementing (and supplementing) each other and complicating particular readings. Essays included here range from critical examinations of well-known works, as is …

Displaying The Monster: Patrick White, Sexuality, Celebrity, Guy R. Davidson

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

For all his reputation as a singular figure, Patrick White's relation to fame exhibits contradictions or tensions that are, up to a point, entirely characteristic of the Anglophone literary modernism of which he was a belated proponent.

Disarming Japan’S Cannons With Hollywood’S Cameras: Cinema In Korea Under U.S. Occupation, 1945-1948, Brian M. Yecies, Ae-Gyung Shim

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Reorienting the southern half of the Korean Peninsula away from the former Japanese colonial government's anti-democratic, anti-American and militaristic ideology while establishing orderly government was among the goals of the U.S. Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK, 1945-1948). To help achieve this aim on a wide front and as quickly as possible, USAMGIK’s Motion Picture Section in the Department of Public Information arranged the exhibition of hundreds of Hollywood films to promote themes of democracy, capitalism, gender equality and popular American culture and values. While U.S. troops in the field enjoyed the increased availability and calibre of American feature films, …

Uses Of The Albatross: Threatened Species And Sustainability, Graham Barwell

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Since first encounters with albatrosses in the early modern period, western cultures have reacted with amazement and wonder at the birds’ flight, while taking a more pragmatic attitude towards them as creatures whose worth can be measured in their use value. In 19th and early 20th century western discourse the birds featured as objects of sport, as saviours of various kinds – whether as food for hungry sailors or victims of shipwreck in the southern oceans, as messengers, or as lifebuoys – as well as predators, and as objects to be collected for scientific inquiry. In non-western traditions, such as …

Hierarchies And Levels Of Reality, Patrick Mcgivern, Alexander Rueger

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

We examine some assumptions about the nature of 'levels of reality' in the light of examples drawn from physics. Three central assumptions of the standard view of such levels (for instance, Oppenheim and Putnam 1958) are (i) that levels are populated by entities of varying complexity, (ii) that there is a unique hierarchy of levels, ranging from the very small to the very large, and (iii) that the inhabitants of adjacent levels are related bu the parthood relation. Using examples from physics, we argue that it is more natural to view the inhabitants of levels as the behaviors of entities, …

Ohs In China - Work In Progress, Diana J. Kelly, Rowan Cahill

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

This paper explores the barriers and challenges to effective implementation of occupational health and safety regulation (OHS), and occupational exposure limits (OELs) in China in order to identify the lessons for social science scholars and activists. It finds that formal labour legislation, including occupational health and safety legislation is relatively extensive, but rarely effectively realised. This has partly been because of the pace of political and economic transformation in China. As a result, the soft infrastructure of skills and knowledge necessary for an active, effective and genuinely protective OHS system are inchoate, and often, as OHS awareness has grown, firms‟ …

'Extreme' Music And Graphic Representation Online, Andrew M. Whelan

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Previously obscure musical genres, traditionally mediated by tape trading, mail order and the like, become relatively public as they migrate into online environments. The niche is now easily available in 'pirated' format: mp3 blogs and post links to material which was previously only available on limited-run cassette or vinyl. Such material also circulates widely on peer-to-peer networks, and listeners can conveniently find each other and new bands through platforms such as Last.fm. One such genre is considered here: power electronics or 'noise'. The textual and visual material around power electronics is presented as a limit case for considering the grounds …

Sharing Music Files: Tactics Of A Challenge To The Industry, Brian Martin, Christopher L. Moore, Colin Salter

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

The sharing of music files has been the focus of a massive struggle between representatives of major record companies and artists in the music industry, on one side, and peer-to-peer (p2p) file-sharing services and their users, on the other. This struggle can be analysed in terms of tactics used by the two sides, which can be classified into five categories: cover-up versus exposure, devaluation versus validation, interpretation versus alternative interpretation, official channels versus mobilisation, and intimidation versus resistance. It is valuable to understand these tactics because similar ones are likely to be used in ongoing struggles between users of p2p …

E-Mail And Portfolio Assessment As Ways For Language And Culture Learning - Exchange Between Australia And Taiwan, Yu-Ju Chang, Su-Lien Chen

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

In Taiwan, elementary school students have started taking their formal English classes in the third grade. Besides, many students in large cities like Taipei start their formal or informal English classes at an even younger age. English learning has become a popular movement in Taiwan.

Reconfiguring "Asian Australian" Writing: Australia, India And Inez Baranay, Paul Sharrad

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

In the fifty or so years of building recognition for first "migrant" and then "multicultural" writing in Australia, it is a fair generalisation to say that visible emphasis shifted from European to East and Southeast Asian voices without much mention of South Asians. Some might attribute this to an exclusionary domination of the label "Asian Australian" by one ethnic group under the influence perhaps of critical debates in the US, or they might regard such a label, whatever it means, as a neo-colonial homogenising of ethnicities and cultural differences by ongoing white hegemony (Rizvi). Without playing a blame game, one …

Cyber-Indigeneity: Urban Indigenous Identity On Facebook, Bronwyn L. Lumby

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

The indigenous use of Facebook reflects to some degree the instruments of Indigenous identity confirmation and surveillance, which operate in the "real" world of Indigenous community networks. Of interest to this article is what Michel de Certeau calls "ways of operating", that is, the uses made by consumers of various mechanisms for purposes removed from, or different to those intended by producers and the effects of these uses in maintaining vigilance or discipline on subjects who identify as Indigenous. The aim is to open up for discussion the production of these effects in cyberspace to inform a broader interest in …

The Middle Class Novels Of Arnold Bennett And Marie Corelli: Realising The Ideals And Emotions Of Late Victorian Women, Sharon Crozier-De Rosa

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

This book builds on the large volume of existing literature that details the social, moral and economic context in which women of this era operated. It further complements the smaller body of existing writing that probes the interior lives of women. However, where as these latter works use personal documents, such as diaries and letters, to gain insight into the interior lives of mainly upper middle- and upper-class women, this study concentrates on women from the lower and middle levels of the middle classes and on the lower classes.

Managing Borders And Managing Bodies In Contemporary Japan, Vera Mackie

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Matters of border control in twenty-first-century Japan interact with current social issues involving demography, the labour market and economic relationships with other countries in the region. Japan faces a rapidly ageing population, the highest life expectancy in the world, a birth rate well below replacement level and a shrinking population. Smaller families find it difficult to provide primary care for the sick, the elderly and those with disabilities, and the welfare system is stretched to the limit. At the same time, Japanese people are increasingly unwilling to undertake work regarded as ‘manual labour’ or ‘unskilled labour’. Thus, the management of …

The L Word Fan Fiction Reimagining Intimate Partner Violence, Rebecca Walker

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

The fan fiction posted to the official and unofficial fan sites of The L Word series (Showtime 2004-2009) reimagined and repositioned the lesbian couple from the series. The couple, Bette and Tina, had been ambiguously represented as being involved in intimate partner violence in the series. The fans generally re-imagined this couple as non-violent. How intimate partner violence in lesbian relations was represented in the fan fiction in general has implications for how intimate partner violence is conceived and represented in a pluralist lesbian imaginary. The fan fiction forums, as spaces which provided collective representations of lesbians that were not …

Peace And Cohesive Harmony: A Diachronic Investigation Of Structure And Texture In ‘End Of War’ News Reports In The Sydney Morning Herald, Claire Scott

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

This paper presents one aperture from a multistratal, diachronic investigation of the changing context of war news reporting in the Sydney Morning Herald from 1902 to 2003. The larger study applies an ensemble of systemic analyses and theoretical perspectives to ‘end of war’ reports from seven wars over this period. In this paper, a cohesive harmony analysis (following Hasan, 1984, 1985) is applied to three texts (Boer War, Korean War and Iraq War), providing empirical evidence for structural boundaries in the texts and giving an account of the semantics of topical relevance (cf. Cloran, 1999; Lukin, 2008 in press). The …

The Real Resource Curse And The Imperialism Of Development, Timothy Dimuzio

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

The idea that the scope of anthropology in the face of the new development economics be widened is a welcome one. In explaining what has been called ‘the resource curse’, Gisa Weszkalnys (in this issue) suggests that anthropologists must go beyond merely looking for the social details that might help economists account for why their theories often go awry in real social settings. In other words, the role of the anthropologist is not to provide social justifications for economic models gone wrong. Rather, Weszkalnys asks anthropologists concerned with studying communities with coveted and valuable world resources to approach their study …

Necktie Nightmare: Narrating Gender In Contemporary Japan, Vera C. Mackie

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

...the thing I hated most of all was the necktie.
When I wore a necktie, there was just no doubt that I was a man.
The image was of a salaryman! The mainstay of the house! The symbol of manhood!

These are the words of Nomachi Mineko in the autobiographical account of her transition from male to female. The book (adapted from a blog) appeared in late 2006 under the title O-kama dakedo OL yattemasu (I'm Queer But I'm An Office Lady). The book's publication coincided with a range of mainstream representations of trans-gendered lives - in television …

Oran Park, Ian C. Willis

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Oran Park is a locality on the southwest rural-urban interface of the Sydney metropolitan area. It is an area that has been a zone of transition and contrasts, similar to other parts of the Sydney basin. For some it is a place of loss, while for others it is a place of hope and a fulfilment of their dreams.

The New Woman At Home And Abroad: Fiction, Female Identity And The British Empire, Sharon Crozier-De Rosa

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

At the height of the British Empire, England was in the midst of major social, economic and moral upheaval. Arising from this commotion was the figure of the late Victorian and Edwardian ‘New Woman.’Her appearance on the domestic front provoked further confusion and ambiguity about gender that had repercussions for empire. Building on a previous article that explored how the many vitriolic attacks onthe British New Woman in the popular press and in popular and bestselling fiction were linked to anxiety about the future of the Empire, this essay examines, not the threat to nation and empire represented by the …

Marie Corelli (1855-1924), Sharon Crozier-De Rosa

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

During her lifetime, Marie Corelli (pseudonym for Mary Mackay) managed to attain what would today be referred to as superstar status. According to one of her biographers, Brian Masters, Corelli reigned as the bestselling writer in the world for almost thirty years, during which time at least thirty of the novels she published were ‘world best-sellers.’ Her romances, blending sensationalism with transcendentalism, outsold those of all her contemporary literary rivals, and she broke all previous publishing records by selling an average of 100,000 copies of her books per year. It was not unusual to hear of thousands fighting to touch …

Development Economics: From Classical To Critical Analysis, Susan N. Engel

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

When development economics emerged as a sub-discipline of economics in the 1950s its main concern, like that of most economic theory, was (and largely remains) under-standing how the economies of nation-states have grown and expanded. This means it has been concerned with looking at the sources and kinds of economic expansion measured via increases in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the role of different inputs into production (capital, labor, and land), the impact of growth in the various sectors of the economy (agriculture, manufacturing, and service sectors), and, to a lesser extent, the role of the state. These concerns are at …