Past Visiting Scholars
Ania Niewiadomy
PhD student at Catholic University of Lublin, Faculty of Social Sciences, Social Philosophy Department, Poland
Email: Anna.Niewiadomy@uts.edu.au
I am PhD student at Catholic University of Lublin, Faculty of Social Sciences, Social Philosophy Department, Poland.
At UTS I am going to undertake research on the Concept of social semiotics in terms of Sydney Semiotic Circle, a grop that worked in Sydney in the 80’s and beginning of the 90’s. I have a MSc in Sociology. My research interests are focused on social semiotics as a method of exploration of social reality, visual communication and visual sociology, everyday life’s sociology and branding. At University I teach the following classes: Introduction to Social Philosophy and Marketing; Market Research.
For the last two years I’ve also worked as a brand consultant in advertising agency.
Seminar date: 17th October, 12.30–1.30 pm
The Sydney Semiotic’s Circle vision of social semiotics: urban advertisement analysis
Akesha Horton
November 2010–July 2011
I am a doctoral student in Michigan State University's (MSU) Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Educational Policy, housed in the College of Education. My research interest is the intersection of global and digital citizenship education. My research has been based in urban areas throughout the United States. I examine how youth engage with popular culture such as music and games, and make meaning from their experience. While at MSU, I served as a technology consultant for my department, as well as managed the content management system for the College of Education. I also have worked as a research assistant in various programs involving urban youth. I have an MSc in Education - Instructional Systems Technology from Indiana University and over 15 years of professional experience in the area of educational technology, most recently at Howard University, where I served as Coordinator of Web Design and Web Based Instruction for their Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. In May I earned a Fulbright-mtvU fellowship to do research in Sydney, Australia, during the 2010–11 school year. This research involves learning how youth learn to be global and digital citizens through their use of popular culture; specifically hip-hop.
Ushma Chauhan Jacobsen
November–December 2010
Email: USCJ@asb.dk
Ushma Chauhan Jacobsen is a PhD student affiliated to the Knowledge Communication research group at the Aarhus School of Business, Aarhus University, Denmark. Her PhD project explores the unstable concept of knowledge asymmetries — and how they appear, eclipse and are destroyed in moments of professional knowledge communication. Ushma has an MSc in Social Anthropology from Edinburgh University and has earlier worked with museums and development NGOs in Tanzania, Nepal and Denmark.
Ushma gave a talk as part of the TfC lunchtime series on the 10 November:
Knowledge asymmetries: Technologies of professional communication?
Dr Gaia Giuliani
July 2008–December 2011
Email: maquinaria2@gmail.com
Gaia presented some of her work in a TfC talk on the 24 July 2008.
She gave two more seminars in 2010 on the Idea of Whiteness in Australia and Whiteness in Italy in 2010 and she convened a Round Table on Settler Colonialism in May 2010. Please view our archived eventspage for information on these events by Gaia.
Gaia Giuliani is a Scholar in Postcolonial Studies and Political Theory at the Department of ‘Politica Istituzioni Storia’ at the University of Bologna. She was a visiting scholar at the Institute for International Studies at UTS in 2007 and has been an International Associate with TfC since 2008. Amongst her publications are, the book Beyond curiosity. James Mill e la nascita del governo coloniale britannico in India [James Mill and the creation of the colonial government in India], Aracne, Roma 2008, several essays on the colonial imaginary entailed in British imperial experience, on the contemporary debate on race and racism, and on Fascist biopolitics. She is a member of the editorial board of the first Italian review on Cultural Studies “Studi Culturali”. Her research field includes Gender and Feminist theories: she has published The Body, Sexuality, Precarity (“Feminist Review”, 2007, n. 87 and “Posse”, June 2008, n. 8), Donne Politica Istituzioni. Uno spazio “politico” in sé [Women, Politics, Institutions: a political space in itself] (“Inchiesta” 2008), and several other articles on sexuality and new queer imaginaries in the Italian newspaper “Liberazione” and in the “Quaderni d’altri tempi” on-line review (Sept. 2008). She has recently translated the American philosopher Judith Butler’s Subjects of desire (Laterza, Roma 2009) into Italian.
In 2010 Gaia edited Tutti i colori del bianco. Prospettive teoriche e sguardi storici sulla whiteness (Studi Culturali n.1, pp. 79–160, http://www.mulino.it/edizioni/riviste/scheda_fascicolo.php?isbn=13661&ilmulino=) and published Fantasie di bianchezza nell’Australia federale (G. Giuliani (ed.) (2010), pp. 141–160).
Dr Tressa Berman
Email: borderzone@earthlink.net
Tressa Berman is a cultural anthropologist (PhD University of California, LA), curator and arts policy consultant. She is Founding Director of BorderZone Arts, Inc., an international community-based arts organisation based in San Francisco, and affiliated with the Globalism Institute, RMIT. She is former faculty of Arizona State University, and has held various teaching and research positions in the US. Tressa’s research interests include contemporary art and globilisation, Indigenous intellectual property rights and cultural heritage policy. She is currently Project Director of Cultural Copy: Visual Conversations on Indigenous Arts and Cultural Appropriation, a multiple site, internationally traveling exhibition and conference project which launched at the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, in conjunction with Common Ground Conferences of Australia, with which she is currently developing an international arts conference project. In addition to numerous articles, her books include Circle of Goods: Women, Work and Welfare in a Reservation Community (SUNY Press, 2003); and No Deal! Indigenous Arts and the Politics of Possession (in preparation for UNSW Press).
Kanchi Kohli
Email: Heather Goodall
Researcher in residence April/May 2009 in association with IOSARN
Kanchi Kohli is a researcher and activist with Kalpavriksh Environmental Action Group based in Delhi (www.kalpavriksh.org). Over the last ten years, her work there has related to action research, campaigns and advocacy on various environment and biodiversity issues, which includes support to grassroots groups and networks. She writes widely for the media and co-ordinates an Information Dissemination Service for Forest and Wildlife Cases in the Supreme Court (www.forestcaseindia.org).
Kanchi is the author of Understanding the Biological Diversity Act 2002: A Dossier (2007), a joint publication of Kalpavriksh, GRAIN and International Institute of Environment and Development, which puts together current information on the implementation of the legislation and critical issues surrounding the Act (www.kalpavriksh.org).
Kanchi holds an MA in Social Work (a program in critical development studies) from the Tata Institut in Social Sciences Mumbai (www.tiss.edu) majoring in urban and rural community development.
Kanchi re-visited TfC and IOSARN in August 2010 as a special advisor and speaker in a workshop on Climate Change Politics, organised by IOSARN on the 19 August.
Annekatrin Bruenig
September 2008–January 2009
Annekatrin is a PhD scholar at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies in Hamburg. Her research interests include: Integration policies, International Relations, International Law, Security and Foreign Policies in Asia-Pacific, Transformation, Media and Society.
Her background includes studying law and politics in Munich, Salzburg and Goettingen, internships in journalism and work in New Zealand with the Auckland City Council and the Office of Ethnic Affairs and an internship with the United Nations in Vienna.
Anna Obradors Pineda
May–October 2008
Contact: Transforming Culturesfor more information.
Anna presented a Lunchtime Talk - on the 15th July 2008
“Social Exclusion: A critical perspective for a policy frame evaluation on the Spanish National Plans for Social Inclusion” is one of Anna’s papers
Anna’s research addresses the field of social exclusion and new policies for social inclusion. Since 2000 she has been developing various research projects on these issues at the Institute of Governance and Public Policy in the Autonoma University of Barcelona where she is currently completing her PhD. Anna’s PhD research seeks to do a policy frame analysis on the National Action Plans for Social Inclusion (NAPSI) in Spain. The implementation of the European NAPSI was started from the E.U. Conference in 2000. As the rest of the European Community members, Spain is currently developing its 4th National Plan, but any evaluation on the theoretical frames of those Spanish national plans had been done. Her work while at TfC is to develop her own approach to the notions of social exclusion and inclusion based on a critical review of the main dominant theories behind the European NAPSI, and so on, establishing the methodological bases that will guide further evaluation of the Spanish plans.
Institute of Governance and Public Policy general website.
Shing Au Yeung
June–October 2008
Contact: Transforming Culturesfor more information.
Shing presented a Lunchtime Talk on Thursday, 25th September 2008
Abstract:
Hong Kong's arts funding policy and the grants supported Alternative Film and Video.
Hong Kong is commonly known as a society dominated by financial and economic directives, one in which the arts and culture takes a much lower priority in social agendas. The government has also been criticized for not providing adequate funding for the arts and culture, and not even having a cultural policy. While such critiques contain some elements of truth, they overlook the subtle essence that Hong Kong’s cultural policy, rather than being absent, could better be understood as unarticulated. Since the late 1990s, attempts to generate an official narrative of cultural policy out of existing fragments of relevant government practices, have once evolved into a emerging discourse of a “liberal” and “descriptive” cultural policy emphasizing “diversity with identity”. The talk will begin with a brief account of the government’s historical involvement in the arts and culture since the colonial times, and then use the case of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council’s one-year grants for “Film and Media Arts” to illustrate how a liberal interpretation of funding guidelines has provided a certain degree of sustainability for a wide range of artistic and cultural-political dissent for over a decade, despite their marginal position compared with more privileged “artforms” and popular culture.
Brief Biography:
Shing Au-Yeung is a researcher and art worker from Hong Kong. He is a Ph.D Candidate in Sociology, at the University of Hong Kong and has been a researcher at the University’s Centre for Cultural Policy Research (CCPR). He graduated from the University of Michigan in 2000 and subsequently obtained his master’s degrees in New Media (M.Sc., CUHK) and Sociology (M.Phil, HKU). He started his research career by involving in the Baseline study on Hong Kong’s Creative Industries (2003), conducted by CCPR and commissioned by the Central Policy Unit of the Hong Kong government. As an art worker, he produces video art and has been active in various new media projects. Every summer from 2001–2004, he curated and taught the government and university sponsored “Video-making day camp” for teenagers. He was a board member of Videotage, a Hong Kong based Asian media arts organization until early 2008. He is also currently an examiner of Hong Kong Arts Development Coucil’s Film and Media Arts Committee. In Sydney, he is working closely with Information and Cultural Exchange. Shing’s research interests include comparative cultural policy and the study of new media arts organizations.
