2021 WiP Conference (25th Anniversary) – Rites of Passage

DAY ONE

Guest Registration

8.30-9am  

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Keynote Address: Dr Kate Cantrell

9-10.15am  – Room 1

Chair: A/Prof Venero Armanno

Abstract

Wanderlust or Wanderbust? Rediscovering the Lost Art of Wandering in Precarious Times

At present, the most important challenges in the humanities and arts are amplified by the fact that we are caught in an epistemological gulf between research rigour on one hand, and research relevance on the other. Closing this gap – whether it be through cross-disciplinary collaboration and engagement or a stronger focus on end user experience – is absolutely essential for a more visible and more vibrant arts sector.

Wandering, as wayward travel, as a form of displacement, and as non-linear movement that is simultaneously purposed and directionless, is an apt metaphor for the precarious nature of both contemporary art practice and academic work. Wandering, like any regime of precarity, is marked by what Michael Ingatieff calls “a metaphysics of restlessness” (1989). Yet wandering, as Jane Robinson reminds us, allows us to stray from “well-ordered paths of scholarship towards a much more promising and colourful vista of adventure, unorthodoxy and general misrule” (1994, xi).

This paper asks: what can artists-academics gain from writing and theorising precariously? What does it mean to be a reluctant wanderer at this moment in time? How can the lived experience of wandering, and its culturally-mediated associations and ideas, help us make measurable progress towards re-defining, or at least re-narrativising, the value of the arts?

About 

Kate Cantrell is an award-winning writer, editor, and teacher working at the intersection of creative writing, mobility studies, and social justice. Kate’s research specialisation is contemporary accounts of wandering and narrative representations of illness, immobility, and displacement.

The first Arts researcher in Queensland to be awarded a Smart Futures Fellowship, Kate’s research on wandering has attracted external funding and often attracts media interest. She has produced commissioned output for community organisations such as Surf Life Saving Australia; government bodies such as Tourism Queensland; and NGOs such as UNANIMA International. She has also consulted on global campaigns at the United Nations, where she continues to build globally significant partnerships through her arts advocacy.

Kate has published over 50 journal articles, conference papers, and essays, as well as impact articles in high-profile outlets such as The Conversation, The Sunday Mail, and Times Higher Education, where she is a regular contributor. Her short stories, creative non-fiction, and poetry appear in highly esteemed magazines and journals such as Overland, Meanjin, and Westerly, among others. 

At present, Kate is working on a poetry collection that uses narrative devices and techniques to interrogate the way that lost, missing, or murdered children are represented in contemporary Australian media and literature.

 

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Morning Tea Break

10.15-10.40am

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Panel 1A (parallel session): Shifts in climate change and policy

10.40am–12.20pm – Room 1

Chair: Dr Franzisca Weder

Expressions of drought: The untold stories of Australian farming women, social media and climate change

Presented by Amy Samson 

Gender in climate change adaptation initiatives: Acknowledging or acting on the need for change

Presented by Debashish Dev

Exploring Representations of Ecoanxiety Through the Lens of News Media

Presented by Carla Magi-Prowse

Resurrecting rhetorical theory for ethical and rational climate change debate: An Aristotelian rhetorical analysis of climate change communication in the Australian parliament

Presented by Simon McLaughlin (Zoom)

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Panel 1B (parallel session): Erasing boundaries: Oppression / Empowerment (trigger warning) 

10.40am–12.20pm – Room 2

Chair: A/Prof Venero Armanno

Transitioning Taboos: Depicting both the Truth of Trauma and the Truth of its Incomprehensibility  

Presented by Taryn Bashford 

Poetry reading: “Standish”

Presented by Sarah Day

The added value of community radio listening groups towards women empowerment in Kenya

Presented by Doreen Busolo

Reading from novella: “‘Til Death Us Do Part”
Presented by Alison Goodman (Zoom)

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Lunch Break

12.20–1.20pm

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Panel 2A (parallel session): Pathways for Emotions and Representations 

1.20–3pm – Room 1

Chair: Dr Jennifer Clement

A Monstrous Identity: Hybrid autobiography and the boundaries of self

Presented by Joanne Anderton

Investigating transitions to understand the emotional experience of academic writing

Presented by Bernadette Huber

Self-Cultivating Techniques of Traditional Chinese Painting

Presented by Georgina Hooper

Othello’s Black(?) Handkerchief: textual instability as locus for de-colonisation on stage

Presented by Caitlin West (Zoom)

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Panel 2B (parallel session): Forging Passageways: Cultural Histories and Identity Creation

1.20–3pm – Room 2

Chair: Dr Richard Newsome

Journey into exile: Narrative of exile, belonging and liminality
Presented by Tania Layden  

The making of men: Investigating adolescent boys’ experiences of school-based rites of passage programs
Presented by Jo Kingsman 

Magic, Power, and the Witch: Performing Gender Identity in Jessica Townsend’s “Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow”
Presented by Jessica Cook 

Ballet as metonymy for Australia
Presented by Gareth Belling (Zoom) 
 

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Afternoon Tea Break

3–3.30pm

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Panel 3: Crossing Thresholds: Life-cycles of Legacy and Media

3.30–4.50pm – Room 2

Chair: Dr Richard Murray 

Cycles of Death and Renewal in Seasonal Anthology Television.”
Presented by Simon Hall 

As long as I live, so will he: Personal archives and bereaved communities on social platforms
Presented by Katy McHugh 

Journeys to the Bookshelf: Family, Memory, and Inheritance
Presented by Emily Baulch 

Sultan Qaboos'; Meet-the-People Annual Tours in Oman: A history-making Initiative
Presented by Tahera Mohammed Al-Aamri (Zoom) 

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DAY Two

Guest Registration

8.30-9am  

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Sojourns into creativity: Performative Panel

9-10.15am - Room 1

Chair: A/Prof Stephen Carleton 

Visual art discussion

Georgina Hooper

Poetry reading

Shastra Deo 

Reading from novella

Clare McEniery 

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Morning Tea Break

10.15-10.40am

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 Panel 1A (parallel session): Rites of passage: Queer temporality 

10.40am-12.20pm - Room 1

Chair: Dr Chris Hay

Growing Up in Queer Time: How Asexuality Disrupts ‘Coming-of-Age’ Narrative
Presented by Rosie Clarke  

Transcending Sapphic Silence: Queer Temporality as a Response to Erasure in Australian Sapphic Theatre 

Presented by Sarah Wilson 

Making it Edgy: Queer Horizon as a directorial strategy
Presented by Alex Kidman Jones 

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Panel 1B (parallel session): Technological transitions

10.40am-12.20pm - Room 2

Chair: Dr Beck Wise 

Augmented Reality (AR) filters and gender
Presented by Kiah Hawker 

Psychological ownership of nature: A recipe for encouraging environmental-friendly behaviours among people who (do not) care about the environment 

Presented by Xiongzhi (Jamin) Wang 

Digital for development: ICT4Ds coming of age, transitioning to a new technology for development paradigm 

Presented by Tiyana Jovanovic 

Diffusion of New Media and Public Service Broadcasting: Is New Media a Lifeline for Public Radio Broadcasting in Bangladesh? 

Presented by Amdad Hossan (Zoom)  

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Lunch Break

12.20pm-1.20pm

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Panel 2: Journeys in art and visual history 

1.20-3pm - Room 2

Chair: Dr Amelia Barikin

Towards a Rationalist Vision: The Political Photomontage of Giuseppe Pagano and Marcello Nizzoli at the Exhibition of Italian Aeronautics (1934)
Presented by Christian Rizzalli 

Appropriation and Temporality in Gordon Bennett’s Mirror Line (1993)
Presented by Grace Jeremy

Flight of the Angry Penguins: Australian Modernism's Rite of Passage
Presented by Tobias Broughton 

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Afternoon Tea Break

3-3.30pm

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Onward journeys: SCA alumni success panel

3.30-4.50pm - Room 1

Chair: Dr Melissa Harper

Dr Belinda Burns (PhD Writing, 2015)

Dr Sushma Griffin (PhD Art History, 2020)

Dr John Edmond (PhD Film and Television Studies, 2015) 

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Dr John McCulloch Award Ceremony

5-6pm - GCI Atrium

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Dinner and Drinks

6-7.30pm - GCI Atrium

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Welcome to the 25th annual Work in Progress Conference sponsored by the School of Communication and Arts. This year’s theme is Rites of Passage: Journeys, Transitions and Thresholds. It’s a fitting theme as the WiP Conference passes through its 25^th Anniversary threshold, a journey that has witnessed many transitions and that has seen some varied and awe-inspiring research presentations over the last two and a half decades. From Pockets of Change to The Seven Deadly Sins to Monsters: What have we created? the themes have incited thought-provoking research conundrums and attracted a wide variety of keynote speakers.

As it’s our 25^th Anniversary, we are planning some special panels alongside the usual academic paper sessions. On day one, Kate Cantrell, award-winning writer, editor, and teacher is to open the conference with her keynote address. Day two will open with a performative panel in which scholars willshowcase their work in non-traditional formats. Finally, day two will end with a success panel in which past HDR students will discuss where their PhD took them – sometimes their journeys didn’t take them to where they expected them to; sometimes, they crossed new thresholds and went through amazing transitions to get to where they are now.

All our very best,

The WiP Organising Committee (Taryn, Clare and Caitlin)

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Ticket Details

Ticket Price: $75 + Eventbrite Fee

Included in registration fee:

• You will be able to select which sessions you wish to attend on both 22 and 23 November 2021. 
• Morning tea, lunch, and afternoon tea is included on both days.
• On the final day of the conference social drinks and dinner are also included.

Rites of Passage: Journeys, Transitions and Thresholds

The concept of rites of passage was first articulated by anthropologist Arnold van Gennep (1873-1957) in his book The Rites of Passage, initially published in 1908. In this seminal work, van Gennep partitions rites of passage into three categories: rites of separation, transition rites, and rites of incorporation.

The concept of rites of passage was perhaps given its best exposure to the public through Joseph Campbell’s best-selling book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which narrates the journey of the hero crossing the threshold into the underworld. In addition, rites of passage can refer to coming-of-age rituals that bring young people from the dependence of childhood to the independence of adulthood. Formal coming-of-age rituals and initiations are practised in cultures around the world, including in African countries and First Nations Australian cultures. Less formalised coming-of-age rituals may take the form of initiations into fraternities, the marking of eighteenth and twenty-first birthdays, and high school graduation balls.

The notion of rites of passage also relates to transitions within other stages of life, including birth, marriage, and death. Many religions around the world mark these stage-of-life transitions with ceremonies such as baptisms and bar mitzvahs. Most of these rites of passage are conscious and celebrated, but some are unconscious, including a person’s developing sexuality, myths pertaining to control and boundaries propagated by society and the media, and a sense of emerging identity of the self and the community.

Potential topics and research areas include, but are not limited to:

• Journeys through different real or imagined environments, crossing boundaries and thresholds, intersections and pathways, beginnings and endings.
• Coming of age, unconscious or conscious rituals, initiations and practices.
• Time, temporality, memory, impermanence, separation and absence.
• Technology as a rite of passage, interruption and disruption.
• Thresholds in taboos and controlled information in the areas of politics, education, healthcare, social media, visual arts, television, the printed word, theatre, film, dance, or advertising; filters, indoctrination, propaganda, cultural expectations, and myths.
• Sexuality, autonomy, freedom, creativity, femininity or fertility/masculinity or virility.
• Adulthood versus childhood, adolescence, maturing, evolving and developing.
• Life cycles, birth and death, aging, origins, ancestries, heritage, foundations and remembered history.
• Being on the brink, verging on the new, advancing and progression.
• Animism or the supernatural, the material and the spiritual, religious ceremonies and customs.
• Journeys through life including careers, religions, relationships and roles, scientific discoveries, technology, literature, healthcare, business and the performing arts.
• Transitions through the loss of identity, liminal spaces, suspension of individuality, being in a state of limbo, appropriation, lack of agency, loss of self.
• Rites of Incorporation: Being welcomed back into the fold, sense of belonging, returning, integration, unification.
• Moments of historical change: pivotal moments, cultural shifts, significant events.
• Shifts in the natural environment/climate, and global or local responses to these changes.

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Paper submissions:

Email an abstract of no more than 200 words and brief biography to uqwip2021@gmail.com by Monday 18 October 2021. 

We also welcome papers in alternative formats, i.e. performance papers. For enquiries around non-traditional papers please email uqwip2021@gmail.com

The School of Communication and Arts is delighted to continue the annual Dr John McCulloch Memorial Prize (valued at $1000). 

The prize is open to any Higher Degree Research (HDR) student within the School who presents a paper at the forthcoming 2021 WiP Conference.

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Dr John McCulloch OAM (1938-2010) died of pancreatic cancer in 2010, shortly after submitting his PhD thesis, a biography of Queensland suffragist Elizabeth Brentnall. John was a researcher with a special interest in the advancement of gender equity. His published work includes From Suffragists to Legislators, written to mark the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in Queensland. John was a senior parliamentary research officer at the State Parliamentary Library (1984-1995), but also found time to undertake voluntary work for the Queensland and Australian Youth Hostels Association, served as convenor of the Homelessness Taskforce 99, and was a part-time researcher for St Vincent de Paul. John was awarded an Order of Australia Medal in January 2000 for service to youth.

Premier Anna Bligh is recorded in Hansard (28th October 2010) as stating in Parliament, “The word ‘progressive’ is bandied about constantly in political circles and its definition is widely argued, but to my mind John McCulloch was a true political progressive. He was a deep thinker, an activist and a doer.” John had a long connection to The University of Queensland: roles included activity as a student, as a tutor, and as an elected Sub-Dean of the Arts Faculty. He was a member of the first Campus Camp group, established in 1973, and continued throughout his life to be a strong advocate on equity issues. Dr John McCulloch significantly contributed not only to the lives of students in the School and the University, but also to the WiP Conference which he convened and attended while he was completing his studies. But to many of us, John was an unassuming fellow student - supportive, collegial and encouraging.

We are delighted to have the support of John’s family and partner Gary in creating this prize, for Communication and Arts students, in memory of a fellow student. Gary Portley has generously offered to donate the prize to be offered at this WiP conference in memory of Dr John McCulloch OAM. The award will be presented at the conference to the author of the winning paper.

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How to Apply

School of Communication and Arts HDR students participating in the forthcoming WIP conference are invited to submit their written papers to uqwip2021@gmail.com by 5 November 2021.

All UQ School of Communication and Arts students presenting at the conference are eligible.

Written papers should be fully referenced and be no longer than 2000 words (excluding bibliography).

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Judging

Papers will be judged by an SCA panel, drawn from across a range of disciplines, and the decision of the judges will be final. Judges will select the winning paper based on academic standards; criteria include argument structure, knowledge of the field, clarity of written expression, attention to referencing, and salience of content in relation to the annual conference theme. The papers must be presented at the conference for the SCA student to be eligible for the award.