Progress in 2012
2012 was marked by the geographic dispersal of the group, as Hartley took up a post at Curtin University in Perth and Potts and was appointed to RMIT University’s School of Economics in Melbourne before being awarded an ARC Future Fellowship. Montgomery joined the UK publishing start-up Knowledge Unlatched as research director. Petzold worked at WZB Berlin (www.wzb.eu/en/), joining Michael Hutter’s ‘Cultural Sources of Newness’ group.
The program became the basis for a new CCI node at Curtin University, launched during 2012, headed by Hartley, and joined by Curtin University researcher Dr Tama Leaver. Funding from Curtin was secured for a postdoctoral position, which has been offered to De Henry Siling Li of CELAP, Shanghai. Dr Li is expected to join the group in 2013.
The Cultural Science program was showcased at the CCI Symposium, held in Perth for the first time, with presentations by Hartley, Potts and Leaver. Potts and Banks attended the international ‘Consilience’ conference in St. Louis, MO, to introduce the Cultural Science program to researchers specialising in ‘evolution in biology, the human sciences and the humanities.’
2012 was a strong year for publications, with several books and numerous articles from members of the team. Hartley’s Digital Futures for Cultural and Media Studies (Wiley) related specifically to the Cultural Science program. The CCI-Creative City Index was completed and published. The International Journal of Cultural Studies (Sage Publications, London), of which Hartley is editor, continued to be supported.
The main aim for 2013 is to complete the book manuscript for Cultural Science: The Evolution of Meaningfulness (co-authored by Hartley and Potts) for Bloomsbury, London.
Hartley is a visiting fellow at WZB Berlin in early 2013, and plans to work with Petzold on new research initiatives in the area of inter-language relations on the internet, specifically the migration of oral, ‘endangered’ and minority languages—such as Australian Aboriginal languages—to online environments such as Wikipedia.
Hartley is attending the International Communication Association annual conference in London, as a newly elected Fellow of the ICA, to present four papers related to the Cultural Science program that have passed the review process (36% success rate).