MACS - "Disciplines in Flux" with Distinguished Professor John Hartley - Friday, 7 MAY

Speaker: Distinguished Professor John Hartley

We invite post-graduate students, ECR’s or anyone else interested to attend the May MACS meeting – MACS stands for Media and Cultural Studies Meetings between UQ and QUT – at the Creative Industries Precinct, Queensland University of Technology on Friday 7 May between 3 - 4.30pm. The theme is “Disciplines in Flux” and will include a talk by John Hartley. There will be plenty of time to add you own voice to the discussion.

At the core of the session is discussion around a number of key questions relating to disciplines in flux. What do disciplines mean for individual researchers in today’s research climate? How do young/emerging/established researchers position their work in/between disciplines in flux? What are media and cultural studies fields in the current research environment? How does a researcher balance their own research interests with broader institutional/ARC research agendas? How does ERA and FOR codes complicate the idea of disciplines for emerging researchers? For example, while the International Journal of Cultural Policy and Media International Australia: Incorporating culture and policy are regarded as dealing with largely media/communications subjects/articles they have been classified under the ERA system as cultural studies which means articles published in these journals are classed as cultural studies articles.

More generally, MACS provides a regular platform for discussing issues relating to these roles as well as an opportunity to contribute to wider debates taking place in the field. MACS is currently active at the University of Queensland and the Queensland University of Technology, and meetings are hosted alternatively across these two institutions.

The idea for the MACS network arose from a sense that PhD students and junior staff are often at a distance from existing forms of collaboration between researchers in different universities within the one city. While much emphasis is placed on the end product of research, and there are plenty of avenues for presenting and publishing our work, the early stages of an academic career involve particular anxieties that can be ameliorated with the support of a community of peers. The MACS group is an attempt to create a space for discussing everything to do with our work aside from the end product, to share accumulated knowledge and resources to gain insight into the options available within our field of research.

Please RSVP to Colleen on infocci@qut.edu.au

For further details, please contact Mark Ryan, m3.ryan@qut.edu.au - 07 3138 0158

Dr. Mark David Ryan
Senior Research Associate
The Institute for Creative Industries and Innovation
K Block, Room 413
Victoria Park Road
Queensland University of Technology
Musk Ave, Kelvin Grove
QLD 4059