Welcome to the School of Arts and Communication Research Seminar Site. This site provides an archive of presentations made during the regular research seminar series, as well as other research seminars that take place within the school and/or are relevant to our research community.
The space is dedicated to continuing the excellent work of showcasing the research work conducted by staff and postgraduate students within the school.
International Women's Day panel: "Rethinking the global gender agenda"
Pink hats and bluestockings
In January, the seas of (largely homemade) pink pussy hats across the world acted as a strong visual signifier that neither feminism nor protest culture were dead, and perhaps that a new era of global activism has been (re)ignited. What place will universities take in this? This paper considers questions of what it means to be a feminist in the contemporary university space, and the implications this has for teaching new generations of critically engaged global citizens.
Dr Jess Carniel is Lecturer in Humanities and the Program Coordinator for the Bachelor of Arts at USQ, as well as the secretary of the USQ Women’s Network and the Cultural Studies Association of Australasia. As a researcher, Jess investigates the broad concepts of cultures, communities, and identities, with specific interests in ethnicity and gender. She is currently researching Australian fans of the Eurovision Song Contest.
Dianne Jones, “Add women and stir? Strategies
for winding back media sexism” Of
all the news occurring around the world every day, only some becomes news. If a
woman is involved, her story is even less likely to be told. When the Global
Media Monitoring Project checked the pulse of the world’s media from 2005
to 2015, women featured in just 26 per cent of stories. That’s alarming because
the news media is a powerful social institution – with the capacity to shape
what we perceive as normal. Dr Dianne Jones has interviewed journalists around
the world. She argues that challenging and changing the media’s under-coverage
of women involves more than simply increasing their critical mass in newsrooms. Dr
Dianne Jones is a former, award-winning broadcast journalist whose industry
practice informs her teaching in Journalism at USQ. She is particularly
interested in media representations of gender. Dianne’s five consecutive
studies of Olympic Games coverage since 2000 provide a longitudinal perspective
of the digital media’s exclusionary reporting and production practices. Her
research on the gender-sport-media triad has been cited in two Australian
Federal government reports, and published in international and national
journals and conference proceedings.
Women earn less, save less, live longer and take on more care giving responsibilities compared with men. Over the last two decades there has been a shift in policy encouraging greater self-provision for retirement. At the centre of this provision is superannuation policy that links paid employment and earnings during one’s working life with economic wellbeing in retirement. Given the gender pay gap and the time out of work care-giving, it is not surprising to see that women have lower superannuation balances than men. Unfortunately, this may mean that Elizabeth Broderick was right – a lifetime of caring means poverty in retirement. Female and old are key determinants of disadvantage. Many played by the rules and took on roles expected of them by society only to be short-changed at the receiving end of their life time contract.
A rethink is needed!
Suzanne Maloney is a Senior Lecturer in Accounting for the School of Commerce, USQ. She has taught accounting and finance over many years, been on various university, professional and governance committees, is a fellow and past Qld President of CPA Australia, a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and has a keen interest in the financial planning of women.
Kate Charles and Renee Stafleu, “Rethinking the global gender agenda”
Do Universities bare a social responsibility to shape future global gender agenda?
Working in an industry that has contact with a vast diversity of cultures, ages, genders and societal norms, we believe the answer is ‘yes’. Now more than ever before, employers are seeing the importance of targeted inclusion initiatives for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex employees. In Australia, 53% of lesbians and gay men experience workplace harassment and discrimination, 50% experience homophobic remarks/jokes in the workplace 22% report being “outed” in the workplace against their will. The University of Southern Queensland is uniquely positioned to have an impact on our rural and remote communities and contribute to rethinking the global gender agenda and the benefits of LGBTI inclusion.
Kate Charles, B.Ed (Secondary)
Kate comes from a secondary education background, having worked as a classroom based Arts-teacher, Head of Department and QSA panel member. With a strong interest equitable based learning models, Kate has worked with the School of Medicine (UQ) to develop case-based assessment models for students. Since working at USQ, her focus has shifted to supporting students, particularly those from disadvantaged or low SES backgrounds. She is currently studying her Masters of Education (Guidance in Counselling) and coordinates the USQ Ally Network.
Renee Stafleu, B.Bus
Renee comes from a varied background of public and private sector work experience. With over 10 years’ HR experience in generalist and specialist roles, Renee values the importance of working with leaders at all levels of the organisation to achieve success. Renee is currently working as the Senior Diversity Advisor for the University of Southern Queensland, with a strong employee focus on Diversity and Inclusion and its invaluable contribution to the workplace.
The Victoria Home and Orphanage was opened in Hong Kong in 1888 by Mary Ost and her husband Reverend John Ost and formed part of the Church Missionary Society’s growing presence in the British colony. This paper examines the Victoria Home as part of the women’s missionary movement focusing particularly on the role that women played in creating and maintaining the home. In particular, it looks closely at two women who were involved with the Victoria Home from its earliest stages: Mary Ost one of the Victoria Home’s founders, and her successor Agnes Hamper, who ran the Victoria Home following Ost’s departure in 1892. By examining the work and lives of these women, it is possible to demonstrate the growing influence that was being exerted by women missionaries within the wider missionary movement.
To make a successful transition to university, first year students need to reposition their expectations and to fine tune their learning approaches to meet those required by the university. To assist students to achieve these outcomes, peer learning opportunities were integrated into a first year course. To investigate their effectiveness, data obtained in an ongoing research study were interrogated. The findings confirm that these opportunities enhanced students’ transition, acquainting and expanding students’ sources of support, assisting them to gain perspective about their studies, facilitating their reflective capabilities and augmenting their personalised problem solving strategies.
Jayne Persian, ‘Cold War Warrior: Vladimir Ležák Borin’
Vladimir Lezak Borin was a post-war enigma, a Czech migrant to Australia who was much more than he seemed. Following on the tail end of the Displaced Persons (DP) scheme, through which more than 170,000 Central and Eastern Europeans arrived in Australia as International Refugee Organisation-sponsored refugees, Borin was variously described as an ‘adventurer’, a ‘fraud’, and of the ‘political underworld’. Borin’s somewhat convoluted journeys, both political and geographical, tells us something of the life of the politically elite, and active, DP. Borin’s life also points to the ambiguities inherent in disrupting grand narratives: in this case, that the DPs were politically unproblematic ‘New Australians’. Borin left Australia in the mid-1960s and his travels back to the Soviet Union, and sudden death in either 1968 or 1970, is a matter of conjecture. He was really a ‘world traveller’, a ‘complete cosmopolite’ whose decade in Australia was just one part of a transnational, politically active life.