Altitude: An e-journal of emerging humanities work
Altitude: An e-journal of emerging humanities work, Volume 9, 2011.
Edited by Clifton Evers
Welcome to the re-launch issue of Altitude: An e-journal of emerging humanities work. All the previous files and data from issues from past years have been transferred to this new site. Enjoy mining the diverse collection of scholarship. To find out more about Altitude (our copyright policy, dissemination, open access policy) visit our About page, and to submit work please visit our Submission Guidelines page. Or if you want to discuss being involved contact us here.
We re-launch Altitude with an eclectic array of articles sourced from the hard work, rigorous research and creativity of emerging humanities scholars around the globe. The issue provides clear evidence of how even though this cohort remains under-funded and under-resourced they continue to produce politically important work for their respective fields, and their global communities more broadly.
We open the issue with Shè Hawke (University of Sydney) leading us into the creative and experimental realm of the humanities. Hawke’s article explores the evolution of water as charted by earlier scientific and more recent multidisciplinary inquiry. Its value lies in its comparison of these scientific approaches to water with mythic approaches to water, creation and the maternal, through the disavowed Greek mythic water deity Metis. Hawke creatively demonstrates crossovers and tensions between the disciplines of hard science and feminist humanities. In a fascinating turn, Hawke also elucidates psychoanalyst Sándor Ferenczi’s concept of utraquism at the biological and evolutionary level as a methodological tool.
Senthorun Raj’s (University of Sydney) article continues this theme of experimental and creative humanities research as he examines the relationship between performativity, embodiment and transitioning in the context of a female to male (FTM) transsexual. Using the semi-autobiographical work of Jamison Green’s Becoming a Visible Man, Raj places Green’s phenomenological accounts of gender anxiety, masculinity, and transitioning in dialogue with Judith Butler’s work on performativity and Moira Gatens’ theorisation of the ‘imagined body’. In doing so, he takes us beyond the assumed limits of bodies.
Paul Giffard-Foret continues the gender, sexuality and literary journey but combines this with important issues around race and nationalism. Giffard-Foret pushes us to consider the work of Simone Lazaroo and Hsu-Ming Teo. Through an analysis of these author’s work Giffard-Foret argues that the enduring essence or prevailing stereotype in the Western imaginary is a certain idea of Asia as the sign of femininity. He goes on to suggest that the (hyper)feminisation of Asia needs to be understood in the light of Asia’s assumed historic and ongoing threat to the West.
Clifton Evers (University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China) and Megan La Masurier (University of Sydney) continue the thematic of gender but leave the literary field and move into the field of cultural research. In this article Evers and Masurier draw on the results of a comprehensive evaluation of a sport and media workshop for young elite sportswomen. This important article finally provides the space for young elite sportswomen to express how they view the fact that women’s sports continue to struggle for recognition and coverage in newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations, and on the Internet.
And it is the Internet that concerns Marco Bastos (University of Sao Paulo), whose article presents us a with a intriguing social system’s perspective on the Internet. Bastos summarizes the contributions of German sociologist Niklas Luhmann and outlines the theoretical boundaries between the theory of social systems and that of media studies. Bastos, via Luhmann, describes the Internet as a system, in regard to its self-referential dynamic, and as an environment, in regard to the non-organized complexity of data within the medium. Bastos’ article requires us to radically rethink a number of assumptions about Internet studies and media studies.
In this re-launch issue of Altitude we have a dedicated section that contains a collection of articles to emerge, under the guidance of Lisa Waller at the University of Canberra, from the Australian and New Zealand Communications Association (ANZCA) 2010 held in Canberra, Australia. This selection of articles provide clear evidence of the quality and wide-ranging nature of emerging communications research in this region.
Lucy Morieson’s (RMIT University) article tackles the issue of interactivity so pertinent to the communications industry and to journalistic practice in the modern era. Morieson argues that while interactivity is often cited as a central characteristic of online news, a number of empirical studies suggest that it is more often held as an ideal than accepted journalistic practice. Morieson compares the adoption of interactivity at two Australian online news sources – The Age Online and Crikey. Moriseon argues that the adoption of interactivity at these sites is shaped not by the sites’ history, but rather by the way in which each of these publications positions themselves in relation to journalism’s changing social and political role, wrought by broader technological, economic and social conditions.
Perin Brown (La Trobe University) tackles the difficult questions that are coming out of the nexus of journalism, law, the public, and compiling news stories on an ‘off the record’ basis. Drawing on qualitative interviews with three journalists, two of whom have been charged or convicted for contempt of court, and two lawyers who specialise in contempt law, Brown explores the issue, arguing that legislation is the only satisfactory protection for ensuring the continuance of unauthorised leaks to journalists, which remain important for public interest journalism.
Kirsti Rawstron’s (University of Wollongong) article examines the portrayal of gender relations and issues in the Japanese media through a case study of discussions in mainstream newspapers surrounding the introduction in 1985 of the Equal Employment Opportunity Law (EEOL) in Japan. This law was introduced as part of Japan’s ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The debate surrounding the changing EEOL is examined through articles from three mainstream daily national newspapers, notably the Asahi Shinbun, the Nihon Keizai Shinbun and the Yomiuri Shinbun.
Sarah Coffee (University of Newcastle) examines the meaning of ‘creativity’ through Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s system’s model of creativity. The article delves into four profiles of creative practitioners from the areas of music, art, science and journalism. In conjunction with some self-reflexive considerations investigates the nature of creativity for cultural producers.
Similarly, Janet Fulton (University of Newcastle) emphasises the creativity of journalism and explores how the social structure of print journalism, what creativity researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls the field, influences print journalist’s interaction with the field and what effect this interaction has on their practices. This article examines a selection of semi-structured interviews conducted with journalists and editors.
The theme of exploring creativity continues in the article by Chloe Killen (University of Newcastle), who argues that the best approach to the examination of creativity is through a ‘confluence approach’ rather than ‘unidisciplinary approaches’. Again, using Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s systems model of creativity, but this timein confluence with Pierre Bourdieu’s notions of cultural production, Killen investigates how contemporary Australian picture book authors operate. The article is a case study of five authors of Australian children’s books.
| She Hawke: Evolutionary Water: Wombs, seas, tears and their utraquistic relation |
Search terms: Amphimixis, Utraquism, Phylogenetic Regression, Aquagenesis, Sàndor Ferenczi, Sigmnud Frued, Charles Darwin, Evolution, Water, Elaine Morgan, Anna Gibbs, Fictocriticism, Gender Studies
| Senthorun Raj: Bodies in new territories |
Search terms: FTM, Masculinity, Transexual, Performativity, Judith Butler, Jamison Green, Embodiment, Transitioning, Gender Studies
| Paul Giffard-Foret: Advance Australia Fear: Performing feminised Asia |
Search terms: Masculinity, Asia, Asian Masculinities, Hsu-Ming Teo, Simone Lazaroo, Asian Australian Literature, Asian Studies, Orientalism andAustralia
| Clifton Evers and Megan la Masurier: Get Out in Front: An evaluation of a media workshop for young elite sportswomen |
Search terms: Girls, Australia, Sport, Young Women, Media, Evaluation, Workshop, Indigenous, Rural, Metropolitan, Access
| Marcos Toledo Bastos: Miklas Luhmann: A social systems perspective on the Internet |
Search terms: Niklas Luhman, Internet, Communications Theory, Media Studies, Sociocybernetics, Media Theory
Articles from the 2010 Australian and New Zealand Communications Annual Conference
| Lucy Morieson: Interactivity and the Changing Role of Journalism |
Search terms: Journalism, Interactivity, Crikey, The Age Online, Web 2.0
| Perrin Brown: To Shield or not to Shield |
Search terms: Journalism, Ethics, Courts, identity, Freedom of Information, Australia and New Zealand Communications Association, ANZCA
| Kirsti Rawstron: Changing media understandings of gender relations (Japan) |
Search terms: Journalism, Gender, Japan, Equal Employment Law and Japan, Newspapers, Media, CEDAW, Australia and New Zealand Communications Association, ANZCA
| Sarah Coffee: Exploring creativity through freelance journalism |
Search terms: Csikszentmihalyi, Creativity, Journalism, Systems Model, Freelance Journalism, Communications, Australia and New Zealand Communications Association, ANZCA
| Janet Fulton: Print journalism and the creative process |
Search terms: Csikszentmihalyi, Creativity, Journalism, Communications, Systems Model, Field, Australia and New Zealand Communications Association, ANZCA
| Chloe Killen: Investigating creativity in the production of children picture books |
Search terms: Csikszentmihalyi, Creativity, Australia, Australia and New Zealand Communications Association, Children Books, Children's Literature, Pierre Bourdieu, Systems Model
Altitude: An e-journal of emerging humanities work, Volume 8, 2007: Popular Music: Practices, Formations and Change – Australian Perspectives
Edited by Sarah Baker
The papers collected here in this special edition of Altitude offer a brief snapshot of popular music research broadly connected with Australia. The essays demonstrate the variety of theoretical and methodological approaches used by researchers in the fields of popular music studies and cultural studies to explore themes of popular music practice, formation and change in an Australian context. The opening essay by Johnson reconceptualises music as ‘noise’ and introduces the reader to the violence of music in modernity. Huber’s essay then takes issue with the notion of the ‘mainstream’ and considers the term’s usefulness in cultural analysis. In a look at Australian fiction, Doyle provides an overview of music’s literary presence in regards to incidental, ethnographic and synaesthesic dispositions or registers. Cohen and Baker’s essay looks at young people’s music-making; specifically the inroads made by two Australian and two British youths as they work towards becoming DJs. Mitchell’s discussion centres on the pedagogical and experiential dimensions of Australian hip hop with a case study of Melbourne-based hip hop artist Reason. Finally, the essay by Duffy, Waitt and Gibson investigates music’s role in rural place-making through a comparison of street parades in a rural town.
Articles:
Bruce Johnson, From John Farnham to Lordi: The Noise of Music: PDF
Alison Huber, What’s in a Mainstream?: Critical Possibilities: PDF
Peter Doyle, Writing Sound: Popular Music in Australian Fiction: PDF
Bruce MZ Cohen and Sarah Baker, DJ Pathways: Becoming a DJ in Adelaide and London: PDF
Tony Mitchell, The Reography of Reason: Australian Hip Hop as Experimental History and Pedagogy: PDF
Michelle Duffy, Gordon Waitt and Chris Gibson, Get into the Groove: the Role of Sound in Generating a Sense of Belonging at Street Parades: PDF
Altitude: An e-journal of emerging humanities work, Volume 7, 2006: Culture and Climate Change
Edited by Emily Potter and Paul Starr
In a recent edition of The Monthly, one of the country’s savvier magazines of Australian politics, society and culture, Robert Manne chose the topic of climate change for the regular ‘Comment’ column.[1] His focus was Australia’s dismal record amongst the international community in addressing this environmental disaster. He pointed out the political alliances that drive our nation’s position, and, coming out of the warmest year ever to be recorded in Australia, scathingly labelled the Bush-Howard stance on climate change as ‘an anti-Kyoto Axis, a kind of Coalition of the Unwilling, which is placing the very future of the Earth at risk’ (15). While Manne’s point of view is always worth a read, what is particularly noteworthy about his column is that, in the context of this publication, and from the pen of a public intellectual associated so strongly with humanistic journalism, politics and the contemporary culture, climate change is the focus.
Altitude 7 explores the relationship between culture and climate change at a time when the humanities, and those who study them, are commonly criticised for work that is abstracted from the ‘real world’. Environmental debate, as one significant ‘real world’ field of concern, is more often than not considered the purview of scientists and social scientists. Yet, as Manne’s small intervention indicates, there are voices beyond these disciplinary fields that are vital to the debate and that are active within it. Culture is not just a source of environmental ills that science can remedy: it provides a framework for their understanding, and carries the seeds of effective responses. As ecocritical theorist Greg Garrard states, environmental problems are an inevitable melange of ‘ecological knowledge and its cultural inflection’, and thus require analysis in cultural, as well as scientific, terms.[2] As a cultural issue, climate change informs cultural practices, products, networks and values, while culture itself operates as mechanism for climate change to be represented, debated and contested.
The last few years have seen an increased world-wide engagement of cultural producers and critics with climate change issues. The novelists Ian McEwan and Michael Crichton have both participated in public debates on these issues, from very different perspectives. Nonfiction writers such as Bill McKibben are writing on the topic for popular media, and online magazines such as Grist frequently dedicate space to discussion and news of climate issues. A UN-supported global photojournalism project on the impact of climate change is currently touring the world, while in our own country, the most recent edition of the journal of political and cultural writing, the Griffith Review, joins Altitude in turning its attention to our climate future, and its currency in the present. In a different register, Time magazine has come out in support of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s statements that the science debate is over, and, at a different end of the political spectrum, environmental campaigners have also cottoned on to the value of celebrity-based activism. It is clear that climate change has broken into mainstream cultural texts and media: what can be said about these, and other, recent interventions?
This collection offers a taste of the contributions that cultural analysis can make to our understanding of climate change causes, vulnerabilities, adaptions and solutions. What might climate change do to the cultures we live in, study and care for? How can the media and communications strategies promote cultural answers to climate change? And, in the mix of culture and climate change, now and in the past, where can we find cultural studies? The following pieces, in a range of critical modes, highlight the significance of cultural research for environmental questions, as well as, in the case of our interview with Clive Hamilton and Richard Eckersley, interrogating its limits. Tim Sherratt reveals the environmental damage embedded in Australian cultural history, and Jay Arthur’s reflection on her experiences of environmental communication, as exhibition curator, raises some central issues concerning the cultural contingency of our responses to the environment. Her insights extend beyond the limits of her exhibition to demonstrate the importance of keeping environmental problems, and our attentions to them, interconnected rather than compartmentalised. In our book reviews, Kate Rigby discusses Greg Garrard’s Ecocriticism, Paul Starr reviews Tim Flannery’s The Weather Makers, while Moya Costello takes a look at Sherratt, Griffith and Robin’s A Change in the Weather. A select annotated bibliography by Candice Oster and Paul Starr provides a useful insight into the offerings and, once again, the limitations, of writing [ scholarly and otherwise ] that address the overlaps and interplays between culture and climate change.
Notes
Manne, Robert. ‘The Nation Reviewed: Comment.’ The Monthly. Feb (2006): 12-15.
Garrard, Greg. Ecocriticism. London and New York: Routledge, 2004: 14
Articles:
Tim Sherratt, Civilisation versus the Giant, Winged Lizards: Changing Climates, Changing Minds: PDF
Interviews:
Paul Starr and Emily Potter, Clive Hamilton and Richard Eckersley interview: PDF
Exhibition:
Jay Arthur, Tracking Water Through the National Archives of Australia:PDF
Reviews:
Kate Rigby, Greg Garrard. Ecocriticism. London and New York: Routledge, 2004: PDF
Paul Starr, Tim Flannery, The Weather Makers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change. Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2005: PDF
Moya Costello, Tim Sherratt, Tom Griffiths and Libby Robin, eds. A Change in the Weather: Climate and Culture in Australia Canberra: National Museum of Australia Press: 2005: PDF
Bibliography:
Candice Oster and Paul Starr, Annotated Bibliography – Culture and Climate Change: PDF
©The Altitude Journal ISSN: 14444-1160.
Editors: Clifton Evers and Emily Potter. Email: clifton.evers@nottingham.edu.cn
Editors: Clifton Evers and Emily Potter. Email: clifton.evers@nottingham.edu.cn
