Discussions on the history and historiography of Australia's New England

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Framing Lives, the 8th Biennial Conference of the International Auto/Biography Association 17-20 July 2012, Canberra, Australia

My thanks to David Roberts at UNE for this one.

The Humanities Research Centre and National Centre of Biography at the Australian National University, in partnership with the National Portrait Gallery, present Framing Lives, the 8th Biennial Conference of the International Auto/Biography Association.

The field of auto/biography and life narrative studies is dynamic and interdisciplinary. Founded in 1999, the International Auto/Biography Association (IABA) is the leading international forum for scholars, critics and practitioners. The Framing Lives conference will feature distinguished international speakers and events at the National Portrait Gallery and other national collecting institutions.

Framing Lives draws attention to the extraordinary turn to the visual in contemporary life narrative: to graphics and animations, photographs and portraits, installations and performances, avatars and characters, that come alive on screens, stages, pages, and canvas, through digital and analogue technologies. At the same time, framing suggests the ways that lives are lived, recorded and viewed through multiple frames including those of language, politics, place, gender, history and culture. It draws attention to the multiple ‘I’s of auto/biographical representations now, and the various fields of vision, lines of sight, and points of focus for critics, artists, writers, historians and curators in the life worlds of auto/biography. Conference themes include depiction and display, ethics and rights, living archives, place and displacement, media and celebrity, digital identity and social media, and creative life narrative.

CONVENORS: Paul Arthur (Deputy Director, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University), Rosanne Kennedy (Associate Professor and Head of Discipline, Gender Sexuality & Culture, Australian National University), Gillian Whitlock (ARC Professorial Fellow, School of English, Media Studies & Art History, University of Queensland)

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: We welcome paper and panel proposals that connect with the conference themes as well as wider aspects of biography, autobiography and life narrative in the 21st century.  
For individual papers, please submit a one-page proposal including full name, title, institutional affiliation (if applicable), email address, postal address, abstract (max 300 words) and bio (max 200 words) by email to papers@theiaba.org.

For panel proposals, please submit a short panel description (max 200 words) along with individual paper proposals for each presenter by email to papers@theiaba.org.

Deadline for paper and panel proposals: 15 November 2011
Notification of acceptance: 15 December 2011
Conference website: http://www.iaba2012.com <http://www.iaba2012.com/>

Monday, September 05, 2011

Roberts re-elected as Director, Heritage Futures Research Centre

Dr David Roberts was re-elected as Director at the Annual General Meeting of the Heritage Futures Research Centre held in Armidale on 24 August 2011. Dr Andrew Piper and  Dr Pam Watson were elected as members of the coordinating committee. 

Two of the key strengths of the HFRC lie in its multidisciplinary approach, along with the way it integrates people such as myself who are presently outside the normal groves of academe with the academics. This is potentially very powerful.

One side effect is the way in which a number of us have become involved as a resource for students for particular courses, something I mentioned in my own context in UNE's HINQ101 The Historian.

Like so many parts of the Australian higher education system, the Centre went through a period of drift because it was just so difficult to maintain continuity at a time of constant chops and changes. However, supported by the dedication of a few, HFRC is now gaining real strength.

I wish David and his core colleagues every continuing success. 

Friday, September 02, 2011

New England's History reader interests August 11

stats Aug 11 2

The graphic shows visits (yellow) and page views (yellow plus red) on this blog to end July 11.

The most popular posts on this blog in August were:

Aboriginal posts continue to be very popular. In this context, the second most popular post on my personal blog was another Aboriginal history post, Report of the NSW Aborigines Welfare Board, year ended 30 June 1940 with 140 page views.