[Reader-list] Fwd: Save the Date: 17th December 2009: Talk by Cultural Theorist Ien Ang

[Shilpa Phadke]

Apologies for cross-posting.


*
The Centre for Media and Cultural Studies, TISS and Chauraha, NCPA

invite you to a Talk
Beyond the ‘Blame Game’: Reflections on the complexities of the
Australia-India relationship in the era of globalisation
by Ien Ang

Venue: Little Theatre, NCPA, Mumbai
Date: Thursday, 17th December 2009
Time: 6.30 pm

 Abstract:
Beyond the ‘Blame Game’: Reflections on the complexities of the
Australia-India relationship in the era of globalisation
Ien Ang and Nayantara Pothen

The recent attacks on Indian students in Australia, and the subsequent media
coverage that followed, has done much to damage the Australia-India
relationship. Responses in the Indian media to the attacks raised the
spectre of racism as the root cause of these attacks; a charge Australian
officials were keen to dismiss as they continually emphasised the tolerant
and multicultural make-up of Australian society in the 21st century. At the
same time members of the established Australian-Indian community negotiated
their own complex set of responses to the Indian students, framed around the
latter’s perceived class inferiority. As each group sought to construct an
‘Other’ to blame for the troubles any nuanced understanding of the
complexities of the situation has been lost.

This paper will reflect on these responses, seeking to go beyond the blame
game and demonstrating the need to use these critical incidents as an
opportunity for complex intercultural dialogue, not just between India and
Australia, but among Indians and Australians themselves. In the process what
will be highlighted are urgent issues related to race and class, migration
and globalisation in the context of the ‘rise of India’ and its implications
for Australia.


About Ien Ang*
http://www.uws.edu.au/centre_for_cultural_research/ccr/people/researchers/professor_ien_ang

Distinguished Professor Ien Ang, Professor of Cultural Studies and the
founding Director of CCR, is currently an Australian Research Council
Australian Professorial Fellow. She is one of the leaders in cultural
studies worldwide, with interdisciplinary work spanning many areas of the
humanities and social sciences. Her books, including Watching Dallas,
Desperately Seeking the Audience and On Not Speaking Chinese, are recognised
as classics in the field and her work has been translated into many
languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Turkish, German, Korean,
and Spanish. Her most recent book, co-authored with Gay Hawkins and Lamia
Dabboussy, is The SBS Story: The Challenge of Cultural Diversity (UNSW
Press, 2008)

Professor Ang’s innovative interdisciplinary work deals broadly with
patterns of cultural flow and exchange in our globalised world.
Professor Ang has had the title of Distinguished Professor conferred on her
by the University of Western Sydney in recognition of her outstanding
research record and eminence. She is the first person at UWS to be conferred
with this honour.