Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Indigenous Identities And The Politics Of Authenticity, Michelle Harris, Bronwyn Carlson, Evan S. Poata-Smith

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

The very question of Indigenous authenticity, as Jeffrey Sissons reminds us, ‘‘…has deep roots within colonial racism’’ (2005, 43). Racialisation and the practice of creating and imbuing racial categories with seemingly impermeable boundaries and indestructible meanings has, after all, underpinned a range of colonial practices from the systematic alienation of Indigenous land and resources to child abduction. Regimes of biological and cultural authenticity continue to shape state policies and practices that regulate the everyday lives of Indigenous people around the world. Indeed, in some contexts, expectations of Indigenous cultural purity or environmental naturalness exist alongside the imposition of varying degrees …

The Politics Of Gene Sharp, Brian Martin

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Gene Sharp's contributions to the understanding of nonviolent action provide a useful lens for understanding developments in the field in recent decades. Sharp built on Gandhi's pioneering endeavours, but moved away from Gandhi by providing a pragmatic rationale for nonviolent action. Three important contributions by Sharp are his classification and cataloguing of methods of nonviolent action, his consent theory of power and his framework for understanding nonviolent campaigns. However, few academics have paid much attention to Sharp's work, and policy-makers have largely ignored it. In contrast, activists have taken up Sharp's ideas enthusiastically. Sharp is an imposing figure in the …

Punching, Prodding And Blocking: The Opposition's Changing Role In Politics, Gregory Melleuish

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Australian parliamentary politics has always had a reputation for a certain rough and tumble. In the 1850s, British economist William Stanley Jevons commented on the rowdiness of the proceedings of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly.

Some decades later parliamentarian John Haynes rained blows down on Paddy Crick in the parliament, affectionately known as the “bear pit”.

In comparison, today’s parliamentary politics are a somewhat tame affair, with any aggression playing out verbally.

Cultural Politics: Who Cares About The Arts?, Marcus O'Donnell

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

The fact that the arts haven’t starred in this election and its media coverage is perhaps no big surprise. But it sends a disturbing signal about the place of the arts in our public discourse.

When Arts Minister Tony Burke and shadow arts spokesperson George Brandis addressed an arts forum in Western Sydney last week it was one of the few moments when the arts got a focus in media reporting, but even then coverage was scant. A single story appeared in the Fairfax papers, The Australian followed up their debate story with a Brandis profile and this week the …

Rudd Rewrites Playbook On Wedge Politics, Marcus O'Donnell

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

It’s the end of day eight and Kevin Rudd’s surprise debate announcement on same-sex marriage is still making news - maybe he is the suppository of all wisdom.

SBS Evening News led with an exclusive from Karen Middleton that even Julia Gillard was thinking of changing her mind on the issue. The staunchly anti-marriage-equality, former PM was apparently seeking a meeting with Ellen Degeneres and her Australian born wife Portia de Rossi during their Australian visit in March. Middleton reported Gillard was considering using a photo-op with the stars to announce a change of heart. But it didn’t come off.

Target: Biomedicine And Racialized Geo-Body-Politics, Shiloh Krupar, Nadine Ehlers

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

On August 1, 1896, W. E. B. Du Bois began a fifteen-month sociological study of "forty thousand or more people of Negro blood . . . living in the city of Philadelphia." Commissioned by the University of Pennsylvania, and eventually published as The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study (1899), this work is widely recognized as the first great empirical book on black life in American society. Part of Du Bois' study included an analysis of the health conditions of Philadelphia's black population and might be seen as an example of a race-specific biopolitics of health. For Michel Foucault, biopolitics is …