Past Events Archive
Events 2010
7 October 2010
CHERHub all-day event
Location
Jessie Webb Library,
School of Historical Studies,
John Medley Building
9.00-12.45
Postgraduate and Early Career Researcher Masterclass with Dr Liz McFall.
Postgraduate and Early Career Masterclass on New Approaches to the Sociology of Economic Life
The School of Historical Studies under the auspices of the Cultural History of Economies Research Hub (CHERHub) is excited to offer postgraduate students and early career researchers in any discipline area the opportunity to workshop their research with acclaimed, international scholar Dr Liz McFall. Dr McFall is a leading scholar of the sociology of economic life with particular emphasis on the historical formation of markets especially through advertising and other promotional practices. Her publications include: 'Devices and Desires: how useful is the new 'new' economic sociology for understanding market attachment', Sociology Compass (March 2009); 'Rethinking Cultural Economy: pragmatics and politics', Journal of Cultural Economy (July 2008); and Advertising: A Cultural Economy (London: Sage 2004).
Please send a brief biography and description of your project to Dr Jackie Dickenson (jackied@unimelb.edu.au) by 31 August 2010. Places are limited. We are unable to provide funds for travel to the workshop, but morning tea will be provided.
Masterclass Facilitator: Dr Liz McFall (Open University, UK)
2.30-3.15
Dr Lewis Mao, Economic Worlds and the Lives of Birds – Thoughts
on Territory, Population and Security
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Abstract In 1989 the senior Chinese Communist leader Chen Yun suggested that the reforming Chinese economy might be thought of as a bird cage - if the cage was too small, the bird would suffocate, if too large the bird would fly away. This avian metaphor for conceptualising economic development is much less famous than the Flying Geese model for the relationship between advanced economies and those following in their wake which was put forward by the Japanese economist Kaname Akamatsu in the 1930s. The relationship between birds, markets and governments to which these metaphors refer is one which has a much longer history, relating to the connection between avian life, the state and what eventual becomes thought of as economic activity. This paper examines the three types of power modalities that constitute our concept of economic life and how these might be related to a particular avian history: one is the question of sovereign power over territory analysed with reference to the history of eagles; another is the question of the governance of populations, discussed with reference to the most famous case of mass extinction of a bird species – the Passenger Pigeon, and the third is the question of security and environment, examined through the attempts to create viable living spaces for the endangered New Zealand parrot, the Kakapo. |
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3.30-4.30
Roundtable on Current Directions in Cultural Economy with Dr Liz McFall.
22-23 April 2010
Symposium: Re-thinking Advertising: Histories, Praxis and Interpretations
The University of Melbourne, Melbourne
The Cultural History of Economies Research Hub (CHERHub) in the School of Historical Studies invites you to participate in this forthcoming event.
CHERHub provides a meeting point for an interdisciplinary group of scholars who are engaged in, and seeking to orientate and develop, a cultural approach to the study of economies. The working premise for this approach is that the economy is a culturally charged arena and that the coherence of the economy and its ability to function depends on the aptitude of people to interact, to allocate values and norms, and also on their willingness to share representations of these values and norms.
Advertising is an important site for scholars engaged in this approach. It is the powerhouse of the modern global economy yet little research has been done on how this industry works in Australia.
This symposium aims to place the advertising industry in its historical contexts, explore how it works and discuss its multi-faceted meanings.
- Re-thinking Advertising Symposium Schedule of Proceedings (325kb pdf)
- Re-thinking Advertising Symposium Abstracts (125kb pdf)
Keynote Speakers
- Dr Liz McFall (Open University, UK), author of Advertising: A Cultural Economy (2004)
- Professor John Sinclair (The University Of Melbourne), Author of Images Incorporated; Advertising as Industry and Ideology (1987).
Events 2009
15 April, 2009
Forum: 'Luxury: Development, Branding, Democratization'- Catherine Kovesi, 'The Invention of Luxury in Renaissance Italy'
- Jean-Marc Olivier, The Rise of Luxury Industry and the Development of Brands in 19th-Century France: Vuitton, Worth, Cartier, Guerlain'
- Susan Smulyan, 'Inventing and Gendering Nylon: Stockings as Democratic Luxury in the United States'
- Charles Sowerwine, 'From Elite Display to Mass Consumption'
Luxury: Development, Branding, Democratization Abstracts (315kb pdf)
28 August 2009
Forum: 'Print Culture in Comparative Perspective: China and the West'
- Joan Judge: 'Everyday Life in China's Early Republic: Evidence from Funü Shibao (The Women's Eastern Times)
- Gideon Reuveni, 'Reading Germany: Literature and Consumer Culture in Germany Before 1933'
- Anne McLaren, 'Popular Literature of the Lower Yangzi Delta Region Late 19th-early 20th Centuries'
Print Culture in Comparative Perspective: China and the West Abstracts (255kb pdf)
14 October 2009
- David Bennett, 'Libidinal Economy, Sexual Revolution and Biopolitics'
Libidinal Economy, Sexual Revolution and Biopolitics Abstract (205kb pdf)
Events 2008
16 May 2008
Antonia Finnane, 'Confucian Consumers? Shops, Shopping, and Brand Names in Olde Cathay'
11 August 2008
Helen Davies, 'Jewish Solidarity and Big Business: How the Sepahrdic and Ashkenazi Jews Revitalised The Economy of Nineteenth-Century France' Jewish Solidarity and Big Business Abstract (85kb pdf)
3 October 2008
Judith Smart, 'Consumption, Collectivism and Conservatism: Food in the Mobilisation of Housewives in Interwar Southeastern Australia'
7 November 2008
- Lewis Mayo, 'Cultural Capital Markets: A Tentative Global Geography, 10th to 21st Centuries'
Cultural Capital Markets Abstract (250kb pdf)
Events 2007
18 August 2007
Symposium: 'Market Day: Shopping ideas, hawking cultural histories, trading theories'- Opening address, Chips Sowerwine, 'Markets, Cultures and Consumers: The Development of the Marketplace Soceity'
Market Day: Shopping ideas, hawking cultural histories, trading theories Abstracts (70kb pdf)