CASS News Reel: 2009

After the Iron Curtain: Transitions and Transformations in Central Europe, 1989-2009

November 20th 2009 @ 12:07pm

Mr Ernst Gelegs, Australian Broadcasting Corporation The first breach in the Iron Curtain occurred along the Austro-Hungarian border in early May 1989. The collapse of Communism in Central Europe twenty years ago has transformed the region, while presenting it with both opportunities and challenges to the ongoing process of democratisation.

On Monday 16 November, the Austrian Embassy and the ANU National Europe Centre (NEC) joined efforts to launch the symposium After the Iron Curtain: Transitions and Transformations in Central Europe, 1989 -2009. Attendants from the federal government and the diplomatic and academic communities in Canberra filled the NEC auditorium.

November 12th 2009 @ 3:23pm

The second ranked prize winner, Susan Banks, with her artistic proposal of the Nobel prize winner Giulio Natta Each year students from the Italian Studies Program in the School of Language Studies and the School of Art are encouraged to reflect upon the cultural aspects of the Italian language and culture.

The ‘Istituto Italiano Di Cultura Premio Italia’ Italian Prizes are aimed at fostering the students’ creative abilities. Students are invited to submit written compositions and artistic works based on a theme, as determined by the Worldwide Celebrations associated with the “Italian Language and Culture Week”, occurring in October each year. This year’s theme centered on Science, Art and Culture.

The best students’ works are awarded the ‘Istituto Italiano di Cultura Premio Italia’ Italian Prizes, provided by the Istituto di Cultura Italiana di Sydney (Italian Institute of Culture in Sydney).

October 27th 2009 @ 10:07am

On Monday 26 October the Australian Research Council (ARC) released the results of the latest round of Discovery and Linkage Applications.

ANU’s College of Arts and Social Sciences (CASS) performed extremely well. Seventeen Discovery Project (DP10) applications from the College were funded, along with two Linkage Project (LP10) applications and one Discovery Indigenous Researcher Development (DIRD) proposal.

The total value of the grants comes to around $5.8 million.

Additionally six postdoctoral fellowships and one professional fellowship were awarded.

The CASS success rate for Discovery Project (DP10) applications was just over 30%, compared with a national success rate of 22.7%.

October 27th 2009 @ 9:02am

Congratulations to Dr Susan West on receiving the prestigious ANU Vice Chancellor's Award for Community Outreach! This award recognises the excellence and dedication Susan has brought to her role as Convenor of the innovative Music Education Program at the ANU School of Music. The award will be presented by the Vice Chancellor Ian Chubb on the 12th November in the Great Hall, University House.

October 15th 2009 @ 6:14pm

Senator The Hon Joe Ludwig joined numerous College of Arts & Social Sciences alumni, staff & students and their guests in launching the publication, Australia: The State of Democracy.

Written by CASS’ Political Scientists, Professor Marian Sawer AO, Dr Norman Abjornsen and Dr Phil Larkin, the book outlines how Australia was an early pioneer of a notional democracy that is now prescribed as inseparable from good governance, as a recipe for accountability and as an antidote to corruption.

Bridge on the River Memory

October 9th 2009 @ 9:06am

Professor Joan Beaumont. Photo: Stuart Hay by Simon Couper from the ANU Reporter

After Anzac Cove and the Kokoda Track, the Thai-Burma Railway is one of the most important sites for the commemoration of Australian war history overseas. Thousands of tourists visit it each year and the Australian Government funds a memorial museum at Hellfire Pass cutting. But what do the people of Thailand make of this reverence for a part of their territory and fragment of their history? Thai and Australian students have gone some way to bridging that divide in a new project on cultural memory and war heritage.

Jungles are supposed to be steamy, vine-tangled affairs, but can they also be deciduous and ghostly?

These were the qualities that struck Professor Joan Beaumont (Director, Faculty of Arts, College of Arts & Social Sciences) the first time she visited the jungle around Konyu Cutting in Thailand, site of the infamous Hellfire Pass.

September 28th 2009 @ 4:21pm

Are you looking for funds to enable you to engage or collaborate with international researchers? Would a travel grant to get you overseas, or to bring an international leader in your field to Australia, help you (and your colleagues) establish new collaborative research relationships?

Then you should apply for the new funding programme for humanities and creative arts scholars administered by the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

September 23rd 2009 @ 12:48pm

ANU Schools and Centres from relevant areas are invited to nominate for the 2010 H.C. Coombs Creative Arts Fellowship. In 2010 the Creative Arts Fellowship amount of $33,000 will be offered in the area of Performance (including theatre, music and dance).

The purpose of the Fellowship is to allow the recipient to: -

August 18th 2009 @ 7:13pm

ANU School of Art graduate, Danie Mellor (PhD 2005), has been awarded Australia’s prestigious Indigenous art prize – the national Telstra Art Award, at the 26th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award for his work titled From Rite to Ritual.

Measuring 2.07m x 1.54m the mixed media on paper artwork features intricate layers of imagery with Aboriginal people and Indigenous animals placed against a setting that is littered with elements of European culture.

From Rite to Ritual explores the encounter and fragile co-existence between Indigenous and non-Indigenous, or settler cultures. In this case the meeting place is the interior of a Freemason’s lodge and the work highlights the importance of secret and public ceremony and initiation in both cultures; it speaks of the challenges of settlement, and the differences in spiritual enactment and belief.

August 12th 2009 @ 5:13pm

Are you an Undergraduate and Honours Students - thinking of Honours or graduate research in the future? If you are currently enrolled full time at a university in Australia or New Zealand, you can get a head start now!

A Summer Research Scholarship at The Australian National University is an exceptional research opportunity, providing insight into what studying for an Honours or a graduate research degree is all about. You will have the opportunity to work with leading scholars in your area of interest.

Applications are open from 1 August and close on 30 August 2009.

CASS News Reel: 2009

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