1,720,995 research outputs found
The New Museum: Function, Form and Politics
No full textRecent literature addressing the museum indicated that the institution was in crisis despite growth in visitors and investment in new buildings. It was suggested that the museum had to change, expand its mission and public programs and foster inclusive practices and perspectives to become a socially relevant institution. The museum was recognized to be a permanently evolving and diverse institution with scores of different themes, objects and narratives being presented for public viewing. The aim of this thesis is to identify the factors influencing recent museum development and to investigate why the debate of the last thirty years served to revolutionise some institutions and transform others into novel and complex cultural projects. The thesis draws on a literature review, case studies and perspectival knowledge to investigate the research question: Are new museums post-museums? An investigation of the literature dealing with the institution’s expanding mission was undertaken to identify the issues and factors influencing institutional development. A key focus of the study was testing Eilean Hooper-Greenhill’s classification scheme that categorises the museum as modern, modernist or post-museum depending on the institution’s relationship with its visitor. This relationship is complex and depends to a large extent on the way objects and collections are used and the way information is structured and mediated by exhibition practice. This study develops Hooper-Greenhill’s classification scheme by proposing a new category. It finds that four types of culturally and politically valid museums exist today. The first type is modern museums that maintain the traditions of display, investigative research and public instruction through accepted collection acquisition and exhibition practices. The second type is modernist museums that have repositioned themselves in the public’s mind by employing architecture as an attention seeking strategy but essentially not changing their development-by-accumulation collection model. The third type is post-museums that have taken on board postmodern criticism and become more pluralistic and complex in their construction of history. Use and repatriation rather than acquisition is this institution’s collection model. The forth type is new museums, not classified as such because of construction dates, but because they are commemorative and non-inclusive. The new museum is created for and maintained by a small elite, essentially to reposition its own history as central. This museum no longer stands at the end point of development-by-accumulation but at the beginning of a paradigm shift. The energy for its progress now comes from the selective retelling of events rather than the selective acquisition of objects. The theoretical and substantive significance of this study is that it differentiates between the purpose and function of the modern, modernist, post and the new museum and it aligns each museum with different curatorial practices and agendas. This reflects a reorientation of the role of the museum in the early twenty first century from classifier to advocate, a common principle of contemporary museums being intervention. This shift is the outcome of a struggle between competing forces: collection, administrative, political, professional and audience.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)School of Arts, Media and CultureFaculty of ArtsFull Tex
Shrouded histories: Outlaw and Lawmaker, Republican politics and Women's Interests
No full textThis essay reads the novel of expatriate colonial writer Rosa Praed, Outlaw and Lawmaker (1893), as an intervention in the public debate about the Irish question and the marriage question which were vigorously discussed in the late 1880s in Britain, the United States and Australia. Although the novel belongs to the genre of colonial romance, Ferres argues that its author ‘speaks from a range of different positions within these debates, and thus underlines the inherent difficulty of characterising women’s interests’ (32).Arts, Education & Law Group, School of Humanities, Languages and Social SciencesFull Tex
Contending With Feminism: Women's Health Issues in Margaret Atwood's Early Fiction
No full textMargaret Atwood's early fiction provides a valuable insight into issues surrounding the establishment of the women's health movement. From The Edible Woman in 1969 to The Handmaid's Tale in 1985, Atwood's work takes up key issues of the movement during this time. Her fiction explores a number of women's health topics including contraception, abortion, birthing, assisted reproductive technologies, eating disorders and breast cancer. Atwood's interest in the appearance of victims in Canadian literature, however, leads to a rejection of the notion that women are fated victims of patriarchal institutions like medicine. This thesis argues that while she does not deny women can be victims, she refuses to accept that this role is inevitable. Foucault's later constructions of power and resistance are explored with the female protagonists refusing to believe their situations are inescapable. Atwood's recognition of her role as a popular fiction writer and her refusal to wear the 'feminist' label allow her the space to critique the women's health movement. Her early fiction exposes the absolutism of the movement and demonstrates its limitations in accounting for women's diversity.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)School of Arts, Media and CultureFull Tex
Whiteness as Goodness: White Women in PNG & Australia, 1960's to the Present
No full textIn this thesis I examine the contemporary nexus between White women and the raced and classed institution of White womanhood. More specifically, I focus on White Australian women who are middle class, rich in cultural capital, and generally consider themselves to be progressive; that is race privileged women but women who are not usually associated with overt racism. My analysis unfolds White Australian women in the discursive context of the ideologies of feminism and feminist-influenced anti-racist politics, as well as the ideologies of femininity. The thesis shows how this nexus is enacted through a vision of White women as Good as expressed in the political commitments, mentalities, relationships, narratives and corporeality of such women. The research problem that I identified and worked through in the thesis is as follows: for middle class White women, (who can be seen and see themselves as generic 'women'), Whiteness has been seen and played out as Goodness. Further, in the playing out of this Goodness White women accumulate and defend the prestige and privileges of Whiteness. Specifically, I argue that Whiteness is reproduced in some of the discourses and practices of White feminism, by the progressive White women involved in anti-racist politics, and in the femininity industry and the ways it is taken up. The nub of the problem I identify is that White women's involvement in the structures and narratives that support Whiteness is often grounded in the very qualities of character and conduct that emerge from the colonial and class-constructed ideal of White womanhood and which have historically distinguished them from denigrated others. These qualities- notably virtue, innocence and self-restraint- whilst differently nuanced in other contexts are an ongoing expression of the uses made of White womanhood as the visible sign of race and class superiority. The work examines four key periods: the Australian colony of PNG during the decolonising 1960's and 1970's; the high years of 1970's and 1980's feminism; the race debates of the 1990's; and the bodily practices of present day White women gripped by fears of fat and aging. I explore the ways in which White women's Whiteness is played out in benevolent Black/White relationships, the over-reach of difference feminism, particular kinds of anti-racist identities and activism, and body-improvement practices. In all these cultural sites, White women's Whiteness is often represented as a kind of moral being and deployed as moral authority in ways that are consonant with the raced and classed construction of White women as moral texts. My research approach was determined by the research problem I identified. Given my argument that White women mis-recognise Whiteness as Goodness in a race-structured society, then the collecting of data through interviews or surveys would have yielded material subject to this blindness. Instead, I explored sites and material where moral claims were being pressed, and case studies where 'women' were enacting themselves or being represented or interpellated as moral texts. My selection of primary source material ranges from feminist newsletters, women's and other magazines, literature, film, event programs and flyers, radio and television broadcasts, newspapers and websites, as well as reflections on my own experiences. Secondary source material includes feminist theoretical texts as well as texts drawn from a range of other disciplines, and other historical background materials. I lay out and support my arguments using a technique not dissimilar to collage, aiming to construct a picture that is compelling in its detail as well as coherent in its overall effect. This thesis is a contribution to the de-naturalisation of Whiteness. Navigating a course between the opposing hazards of essentialising Whiteness and understating its effects in contemporary Australian society, I have brought into clearer view some of the strategies which maintain the authority of Whiteness.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)School of Arts, Media and CultureFull Tex
So Hard the Conquering: A Life of Irene Longman
No full textThis biography of Irene Longman is the story of a remarkable woman. A woman of integrity, intelligence, courage and compassion. It is also the story about the period in which she lived and how her life was inevitably interwoven with the lives of others and with the social structure and culture of the times. What made Irene Longman unique was that she became the first woman to sit in the Queensland Parliament. Irene Longman was elected to the Queensland Parliament in 1929, defeating the sitting Labor member in Bulimba. She was nominated by the Queensland Women’s Electoral League and endorsed by the Country Progressive National Party, but held the seat for only one term as Labor swept back into power in 1932. Longman’s career in the Moore government coincided with a brief interruption of continuous Labor rule in Queensland (1915-1957). No other woman was elected to State Parliament in Queensland until after Irene Longman’s death in 1964 at the age of 87. Though her parliamentary career was short, Irene Longman was active in public life for over thirty years. This thesis brings to light her early childhood in Tasmania, her education and development while living in Sydney and will describe her career and the associational networks which shaped her political ideas. In 1904 at Toowoomba, Irene married Heber Longman and they made Queensland their permanent home. Although this study investigates a particular historical period in Australia, a wider account of Queensland life is incorporated to give a political context to Irene Longman’s experiences in the decades after Federation. Irene Longman was involved in a wide range of social issues including town planning and the preservation of flora and fauna. But her professional and voluntary work was principally in the field of the welfare of women and children. Therefore, this thesis is not only a historical study but it also examines other discourses related to Irene Longman’s experience and interest, such as feminism and women’s reproductive function. I consider how the strength of maternal citizenship influences the way women lived their lives and understood their positions in the world.Thesis (Masters)Master of Philosophy (MPhil)School of HumanitiesFull Tex
Shrouded histories: Outlaw and Lawmaker, Republican politics and Women's Interests
No full textThis essay reads the novel of expatriate colonial writer Rosa Praed, Outlaw and Lawmaker (1893), as an intervention in the public debate about the Irish question and the marriage question which were vigorously discussed in the late 1880s in Britain, the United States and Australia. Although the novel belongs to the genre of colonial romance, Ferres argues that its author ‘speaks from a range of different positions within these debates, and thus underlines the inherent difficulty of characterising women’s interests’ (32).Arts, Education & Law Group, School of Humanities, Languages and Social SciencesFull Tex
A Space Of Possibles: Artistic Directors and Leadership in Australian Theatre
No full textThis research investigates the agency of artistic directors of subsidised major Australian theatre organisations in the post Major Performing Arts Inquiry (1999) sector. The research was conducted in response to a new generation of artistic directors commencing leadership of the major theatre companies from 2008. This new era of leadership was expected to revitalise the sector, however it remained in a perceived state of artistic and financial crisis. This thesis considers the role of the artistic director as an artistic leader of the field, and examines how the agency of this position came to be shaped by arts policy, economic and artistic forces. I argue that historical arts policies and the recommendations of MPAI altered the structures of the sector. Furthermore, while the changes these policies introduced reorganised the structure of the sector and administration of the companies, they also restricted the transformative agency of its artistic leaders to advance the artistic and economic performance of their organisations.
This research uses a qualitative case study methodology. The data was collected through interviews with artistic and administrative leaders in the field, document and archival analysis and observation. The data is analysed within a theoretical framework inspired by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s space of possibles, a conceptual device put forward in “The field of cultural production” (1983, p.313). Three chapters present the research. The first, a case study, examines episodes of artistic leadership at Sydney Theatre Company (STC) between 1980 and 2014. The second chapter also presents a case study that examines the career path of Aubrey Mellor and his leadership as the final artistic director of Playbox Theatre Company (Melbourne) between 1993 and 2004. The third chapter discusses the length of artistic director’s tenure as a significant constraint in the sector, with the time spent in the position revealing the effects of several artistic, economic and personal forces. The findings of the research indicate that the agency of an artistic director is predetermined through the organisation’s position in the field, established through the agendas of arts policy. Additionally, the agency of an artistic director is also profoundly influenced by the dynamic of the transition between generations of artistic leaders and the career trajectory of the individual artistic leader. These conclusions suggest the agency of artistic directors at major theatre companies is shaped through sector-wide and personal forces. Their capacity for transformative agency is limited.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)School of HumanitiesArts, Education and LawFull Tex
Where is my Happy Ending and Why am I Looking for it? The Romance Myth in Contemporary Popular Australian Women’s Fiction
No full textThis thesis examines the presence of the romance myth in contemporary popular Australian women’s fiction. Even after decades of feminism, the repetition of the love story discourse presents readers with a single relationship ideal: heterosexual monogamy. This thesis performs a discourse analysis on a variety of texts published before 2000 to establish a context of Australian women’s fiction, and on four texts published after 2000, in order to ask the question: how is the love story represented in the twenty-first century? Romance is always examined as a genre; its construction within texts of other genres has never before been analysed.
The Introduction outlines the discourse analysis methodology, based on the work of Michel Foucault and James Gee. Chapter One provides a literature review and discussion of how romance has been treated by critics. Chapter Two examines second-wave feminist perspectives of romantic love and the perspectives of later feminists – ‘woman’ as sexualised object appears to be the current trend – as well as the significance of feminist literary theory to popular texts. Chapter Two also discusses the work of cultural studies in relation to this thesis.
Chapters Three and Four outline a brief history of Australian women’s writing in order to highlight the recurrence of the love story discourse communicated in 150 years of fiction. Chapter Three provides an historical overview of the presence of the romance story in Australian women’s writing. Chapter Four examines the use of fiction for a specific political purpose: short stories published in The Australian Women’s Weekly during the 1940s which supported the Weekly’s overall aim to steer women towards strictly gendered roles for the good of the nation; literature that conflicted with the heterosexual monogamous ideal was banned from publication and circulation in Australia because it was considered deviant and unpatriotic; and short stories in contemporary issues of The Australian Women’s Weekly which still focus on women as wives and mothers and as concerned only with romantic love.
Each of the remaining chapters considers a contemporary genre’s use of the romance myth. In Chapter Five, an examination of a Harlequin Mills & Boon novel, Dr Blake’s Angel, reveals romantic love as being an integral part of community life and a woman’s desire to nurture. Examined in Chapter Six is Three Wishes, a chick-lit novel that follows the romantic difficulties of a set of triplets. Each triplet must learn humility and, therefore, acceptable femininity, before they can achieve a successful heterosexual monogamous relationship.
Chapter Seven analyses The Tower of Ravens, a fantasy novel also advocating conservative femininity and demonstrating a close relationship to the love story discourse. Rhiannon, although uncivilised and violent, becomes a heroine through her total devotion to Lewen. Chapter Eight investigates a crime novel, Malicious Intent, where the love story discourse is employed to distract the heroine from solving the crime. Anya is seen to believe wholeheartedly in the romance plot, as are all the victims. All women, then, are presented as perpetual victims, and all women lose because all men pose a threat. Romantic love is something to aspire to, but it cannot be achieved.
Why am I looking for a heterosexual and monogamous happy ending? As this thesis shows, the love story discourse has been presented consistently through women’s fiction that focuses on relationships. Despite the decades of feminist intervention, contemporary popular Australian fiction constantly and consistently presents heterosexual, monogamous relationships that preferably lead to marriage. The heterosexual, monogamous happy ending, or its deliberate critique, is present not only in romance fiction but also in most texts written by women, in genres that do not require a love story plot.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)School of ArtsArts, Education and LawFull Tex
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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