While many Australians are experiencing sand between their toes next month, Australian and international academics will be discussing the beach at a UQ-based conference.
On the Beach is the theme of The Cultural Studies Association of Australia's annual Conference 2000 to be held at The University of Queensland's St Lucia campus from December 4 to 6.
It's also the title of a novel and film by author Neville Shute. While on set in Australia, Hollywood star Ava Gardner gave her now-famous quote that Melbourne was a perfect place to make a novel about the end of the world. This reference is alluded to in several conference papers.
Conference chair Dr Frances Bonner of UQ's English Department said the beach had long been a privileged site in Australian culture, but in recent times, Cultural Studies had paid it little attention.
"It's timely that we reconsider the beach, especially in the light of recent arguments seeing it as the quintessential Australian location," she said.
"In organising the conference, we also hoped that the Neville Shute fiction and its spin-offs would lead to people writing on apocalyptic themes. Both these hopes have been met decisively in the 90 or so papers which will be presented on a wide range of beach-related subjects."
Topics will include: surfing and beach-set films; fashion and the beach in art; the place of the beach in immigration, refugee and invasion reports; beach nudity and beach sex; as well as the dark side of the beach with beach crime, beach rubbish, beach development and apocalyptic fictions, not to mention the ambivalent figure of the shark.
Keynote speakers are:
o Cultural anthropologist Professor Michael Taussig from Columbia University New York, who will discuss On the Beach at Ibiza with Walter Benjamin;
o Author Associate Professor Philip Hayward of Macquarie University, who will speak on Beaches, Decks and Betweens - The Re-Creational Project of Music; and
o Author Associate Professor Anne Freadman from The University of Queensland, discussing The Insistence of the Singular.
On the Beach is being jointly organised by UQ's Media and Cultural Studies Centre, Department of English and the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies.
It will follow the Television: Past Present and Futures conference at UQ December 1-3.
For further information, including registration details, visit the conference website:
http://english.uq.edu.au/csaa-conf-2000/
Media: For further information, contact Dr Frances Bonner, telephone 07 33651438 or Jan King at UQ Communications 0413 601 248 or email: communications@mailbox.uq.edu.au
