Abstract

Are our increasingly urban, highly mediatised lives less real or authentic than other ways of being in the world? Is the ‘mediapolis’ optional or are our identities and everyday lives so immersed in the ubiquitous and alluring logics of the media city that genuine escape is no longer possible? These questions intersect with enduring myths and metaphors about urban space. The modern city, for instance, has long been associated with alienation and an unnatural, inauthentic existence. This notion is exemplified by the dehumanising waste land of T.S. Eliot’s ‘unreal city’. And yet, urban environments and lifestyles now represent the dominant form of reality for most of the world’s population, providing the lens through which we imagine and experience ourselves, along with a variety of the city's others: the rural, the remote, and nature itself. This paper explores the relationship between urban life, mediatisation, and questions of the real, the natural, and authentic; it does so with the help of works of speculative fiction that extrapolate on a particular premise: the unreal city.

Bio

Natalie teaches into the writing and communication programs in the School of Communication and Arts and has a background in the study of literature, writing, and media & culture. Her research is focused on questions of urban space, identity, and narrative. She regularly invokes the capacity of speculative fiction to explore these questions.

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Following the lecture, please join us for drinks at St Lucy's.

About Research Seminar and Workshop Series

 


School of Communication and Arts Research Seminar Series

The research seminar and workshop series occur each semester, each with a different topic and guest speaker from UQ or otherwise.

Friday, 4 August
12-1pm

Hybrid: Online via Zoom and in person at the
SCA Writer's Studio
(Level 6, Michie)

After the Future: Heat, Collapse, and Exhausting the “Future of Work”

Dr Luke Munn

Friday, 25 August
12-1pm

Hybrid: Online via Zoom and in person at the
SCA Writer's Studio
(Level 6, Michie)

Promoting children’s environmental responsibility in the EFL classroomDr Valentina Adami

Friday, 1 September
12-1pm

Hybrid: Online via Zoom and in person at the
SCA Writer's Studio
(Level 6, Michie)

Write FOR your reader vs. writing WITH your reader: human-centred design in professional communication

and

Portraying Asian-diasporic identity beyond the limits of the literary label Asian-Australian

Catriona Arthy

and

Olivia De Zilva

Friday, 8 September
12-1pm

Hybrid: Online via Zoom and in person at the
SCA Writer's Studio
(Level 6, Michie)

Exploring Digital Humanities through the Lens of Journalism: A Case Study of Reader Comment Analysis

Dr Lujain Shafeeq

Friday, 15 September
12-1pm

Hybrid: Online via Zoom and in person at the
SCA Writer's Studio
(Level 6, Michie)

The Medicalised Body - On Illness, Humour, and Sexuality

and

Talkin about the thing that stops me writing about the thing Im talkin about: Hacking and Hofstadter on the looping effect of diagnostic labels and writing the strange double

Carly-Jay Metcalfe and Bianca Millroy

Friday, 22 September
12-1pm

Hybrid: Online via Zoom and in person at the
SCA Writer's Studio
(Level 6, Michie)

Coping with eco-anxiety: A guided journal trialDr Ans Vercammen and Dr Skye Doherty

 

Venue

Level 6, Michie Building (#9)
Room: 
601