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Masterclass: Media, Mobilities, and Identities in the AsiaPacific
Date:
Wednesday, August 26, 2015 – 10am – 4pm
Call For Participation
Masterclass with Professor John Nguyet Erni and Dr Yiu Fai Chow, Hong Kong
Baptist University
Abstract
Over the past two decades, increases in the trans-national mobility of both people and
media have fundamentally reshaped cultural life in diverse locales across the Asia-Pacific
region. As the cross-border mobility of both entertainment and social media intensifies
due to ubiquitous broadband connectivity and mobile communicative technologies, an
Asian mediasphere has been consolidating. Meanwhile, significant mobile ‘ethnoscapes’
have emerged through intensifying transnational flows of migrants, labourers, students,
leisure travelers and refugees. This masterclass will be of interest to PhD students and
early career researchers working on topics connected with the mobility of media and / or
people in Asia and the Pacific region. Topics might include:
-­‐ migration: labour migrants, youth travellers, international students, refugees;
-­‐ media mobilities: transnational media production; cross-cultural media
consumption; the “soft power” ambitions of nations in their media export
strategies;
-­‐ the legal and governmental regulation of media and human mobilities in the AsiaPacific;
-­‐ the impact of media and human mobilities on identity formation and subjective
experience.
Biographies
John Nguyet Erni is Chair Professor in Humanities and Head of the Department of
Humanities & Creative Writing at Hong Kong Baptist University. He has published
widely on international and Asia-based cultural studies, human rights legal criticism,
Chinese consumption of transnational culture, gender and sexuality in media culture,
youth popular consumption in Hong Kong and Asia, and critical public health. His
books include Understanding South Asian Minorities in Hong Kong (with Lisa Leung, HKUP,
2014), Cultural Studies of Rights: Critical Articulations (Routledge, 2011), Internationalizing
Cultural Studies: An Anthology (with Ackbar Abbas, Blackwell, 2005), Asian Media Studies:
The Politics of Subjectivities (with Siew Keng Chua, Blackwell, 2005), and Unstable Frontiers:
Technomedicine and the Cultural Politics of “Curing” AIDS (Minnesota, 1994). Currently, he is
completing a book project on the legal modernity of rights.
Chow Yiu Fai received his PhD degree from the Amsterdam School of Communication
Research, University of Amsterdam. He is Assistant Professor at the Department of
Humanities and Creative Writing of Hong Kong Baptist University. In 2013, his coauthored book Sonic Multiplicities: Hong Kong Pop and the Global Circulation of Sound and
Image was published. His academic works appeared in Cultural Studies; Inter-Asia Cultural
Studies; and Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. His current research projects
concern the creative class and single women. Next to his academic life, Chow is also an
award-winning creative writer. He has penned some 1,000 lyrical works for a diversity of
Chinese pop artists. Lately, Chow has been increasingly involved in prose writing, multimedia and visual art projects.
Format
The Masterclass will have a limit of 18 participants, incorporating postgraduates and early
career researchers from the University of Melbourne, Hong Kong Baptist University, and
Yonsei University, Korea. Applicants will submit 1,000 – 2,000 words of their writing
prior to the class, to be workshopped in discussion led by Prof Erni and Dr Chow
(writing samples will be due by July 25).
To apply, please send a one-page expression of interest and your one-page CV
to Jasmine McGowan (mcgowanj@unimelb.edu.au)by 1 June 2015. Required reading (to
be pre-circulated to participants):
• John Nguyet Erni, “Citizenship Management: On the Politics of Being IncludedOut,”
International
Journal
of
Cultural
Studies
2015,
DOI:
10.1177/1367877915573772;
• an in-progress paper by Dr Chow on the mobility of the creative class, to be
circulated in July.
CONVENOR DETAILS
Convenor(s): Associate Professors Fran Martin and Audrey Yue
Asian Cultural Research Network, School of Culture and Communication, The
University of Melbourne.
http://culture-communication.unimelb.edu.au/research/asian-cultural-research-network
Organised by The Asian Cultural Research Network at The University of Melbourne, cohosted in collaboration with Yonsei University, South Korea, with participation by the
Department of Humanities & Creative Writing, Hong Kong Baptist University
Venue
University House at the Woodward, The University of Melbourne, Parkville.