UC EVENTS

"Sometimes your health and wellbeing may be adversely affected by legal issues you don't even know exist - talking to a lawyer can help!" - UC's Citizen Centred Justice Legal ClinicA by appointment free legal advice clinic on Fridays at the University of Canberra for UC students and members of the local Canberra community.Do you have a problem with your employment, discrimination, workplace bullying and harassment, housing immigration, family or custody matters, violence or sexual assault, with Centrelink or any other matters that are causing you concern? If so, come and have a chat with a lawyer at our free Citizen Centred Justice Clinic. Even if we can’t help you directly we will be able to refer you to someone else who will.Open for legal advice services on Fridays (except for Public holidays) in Building 1, Level B, at the UC Medical & Counselling Centre, University of Canberra, the clinic is run by lawyers supported by students gaining legal practice experience towards their legal qualification. This service is confidential.

The Culture and Creativity seminar series is run by the Centre for Cultural and Creative Research. It explores culture, creativity and the myriad connections between them. All welcome. Culture and Creativity seminar series, s1 2023 – Poetic Topography: Boston in the work of Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell and Anne SextonSpeaker: SJ Burton (Research Fellow, ANU) Date\Time: Thursday 6 Apr 2023, 12:30-13:30Location: Building 2 Level A Room 2A13, University of Canberra (https://www.canberra.edu.au/maps/buildings-directory/building-2); or Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/95333397464 AbstractMid-20th century American poets Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell and Anne Sexton were pivotal in changing the shape of contemporary verse in English. This paper seeks to examine the influence of the city of Boston and its cultural and social paradigms on the work of the trio. I will present a reconsideration of their work beyond mere confessional parameters which is grounded in both biography and material environments. BioSJ Burton is a postdoctoral research fellow in English at the Australian National University. Her research is centred on early to mid-twentieth century American poetry and history and she has a passionate interest in literary groups and archives. Culture and Creativity Seminar Series is hosted by the Centre for Cultural and Creative Research (CCCR), Faculty of Arts and Design, University of Canberra. To discover upcoming seminars, please follow us on facebook @uccccr, or instagram and twitter @uc_cccr. Alternatively, join our mailing list by emailing cccr@canberra.edu.au. Any question and accessibility requests please contact: cccr@canberra.edu.au.

 Culture and Creativity seminar series, s1 2023 – Stateless Love: War, interracial marriage, and Australia’s Asian Deportations 1946 – 1950Speaker: Dr Ernest Koh (UC) Date\Time: Thursday 13 Apr 2023, 12:30-13:30Location: Building 2 Level A Room 2A14, University of Canberra (https://www.canberra.edu.au/maps/buildings-directory/building-2); orZoom: https://zoom.us/j/99618656133 AbstractIn 1942, as Japanese armies swept through Southeast Asia, hundreds of vessels carrying European refugees fleeing the fighting began arriving in the north and west of Australia. These vessels were crewed largely by sailors of Malay, Chinese, and Filipino descent. Upon their arrival, most of these sailors enlisted in the Australian and American navies, and several were injured or killed in various naval campaigns across the South Pacific. By the end of the war in 1945, many of the surviving Asian sailors had settled down in Australia, fallen in love, and started families. But with the conflict over, the Commonwealth government began to deport the sailors, and in a number of cases their Australian-born wives and children as well.  Drawing from a range of archival sources including court documents, private letters, and contemporaneous newspaper coverage, as well as oral history interviews, this paper examines the social, political, and legal repercussions of these erstwhile little-known deportations on Australia’s subsequent immigration policy.  Image: Tony and Marjorie Ang (nee Pettit) c.1944. They had met in Brisbane while Tony was enlisted in the US Army during the Second World War, subsequently married and had five children together. They were deported to Hong Kong in June1949. With thanks to the Ang family and MediaCorp for the use of this image. BioErnest is an historian with the Faculty of Arts and Design at the University of Canberra. Originally from Singapore, he has also held research fellowships at the University of Washington and Beijing University. He has authored and edited several books, including Diaspora at War, Oral History and Memory in Southeast Asia, and the forthcoming Maids and Modernities: A history of domestic service in Singapore. Ernest’s first documentary, Forgotten Heroes, won a ‘Gold’ award in the history category at the 2022 Cannes television festival. He has recently completed two further documentaries on the deportation of Asian sailors. This project was funded by, and undertaken in collaboration with, the Singapore government via its media subsidiary MediaCorp “The Culture and Creativity seminar series is run by the Centre for Cultural and Creative Research. It explores culture, creativity and the myriad connections between them.”Culture and Creativity Seminar Series is hosted by the Centre for Cultural and Creative Research (CCCR), Faculty of Arts and Design, University of Canberra. To discover upcoming seminars, please follow us on facebook @uccccr, or instagram and twitter @uc_cccr. Alternatively, join our mailing list by emailing cccr@canberra.edu.au. Any question and accessibility requests please contact: cccr@canberra.edu.au.

TOPIC: SWANSEA-CANBERRA COLLABORATIVE TEACHING PROJECTSCourse-tailored Virtual Reality as a Teaching Aid for Anatomy: Dr Laura Mason (Swansea University & Dr Julie Cooke (University of Canberra)The impact of mental health literacy, stigma, and help seeking behaviours on the wellbeing of university students: A cross cultural analysis of UK and Australian undergraduates:Dr Denise Hill (Swansea University) & Dr Andrew McKune (University of Canberra)8.30am GMT / 7.30pm AEDTThis seminar will be held via Zoom:  https://swanseauniversity.zoom.us/j/98235292746?pwd=eU5SaVEwNkluZVdNa0N2M3FzVEFpZz09This event is open to faculty, staff and students from Swansea University and University of Canberra. Attendees from outside organisations may attend with prior arrangement - please email UCSportStrategy@canberra.edu.au.

If you are passionate about data, or even just curious about data, then this is a great event for you to attend.This Data meetup event is hosted by the University of Canberra Faculty of Science and Technology, and supported by specialist IT recruiter Interpro People. Start Time: 4:30pm for 4:45pm startFinish Time: 6:30pm

The Filter in Our (?) Heads: Digital Media and PolarisationClimate change, Brexit, Trump, COVID, Ukraine: there is hardly a major topic in contemporary public debate online that does not attract heated discussion, entrenched partisanship, widespread misinformation, and conspiracy theorists. Rational, evidence-based contributions often fail to cut through, while affective polarisation is prevalent, and difficult to overcome.The facile, simplistic view of these developments is that digital and social media have disrupted the traditional public sphere, enveloped us all in ideologically homogenous ‘echo chambers’ and ‘filter bubbles’, and thereby ushered in the post-truth age – but such technologically determinist explanations have been rightly debunked for failing to account for the full complexity of the present moment in public communication. Hyperpartisans and conspiracy theorists, for instance, are abundantly aware of what their opponents think and say, but instinctively, reflexively reject those views: if there is a filter, it is located in their (and equally perhaps in our) heads, not their information feeds. Similarly, if global digital media platforms were predominantly to blame for the decline of societal cohesion and consensus, why are countries like the US considerably more deeply affected while other democracies remain considerably more resilient?While these deep divisions are often misdiagnosed as evidence of ‘echo chambers’ and ‘filter bubbles’, then, they actually point to pernicious dysfunction at a discursive level: they are evidence of deeply entrenched polarisation and hyperpartisanship. Yet digital media studies have yet to develop a full repertoire of conceptual and methodological approaches for the analysis and assessment of such phenomena. Such approaches need to be able to distinguish between benign forms of ideological agonism and partisanship and destructive, entrenched polarisation; and they need to recognise diverse ideological, issue-based, interpretive, and affective qualities in polarised discourse. This evidence is critical to enabling an urgently needed, robust defence of our society and democracy against the challenges of polarisation.This seminar will be chaired by Dr Katharina Esau.About the speakerAxel Bruns is an ARC Laureate Fellow (2021-2026) and Professor at the Digital Media Research Centre at QUT.

Deliberative Democracy for Diabolical TimesDemocracy’s seemingly inexorable advance in the 1990s and 2000s induced many observers to forget that most states and empires throughout history have been inhospitable to democracy. What’s new about our bad times for democracy is that they implicate novel forms of public and political communication in a diabolical soundscape. Minimal standards of truth and integrity are routinely violated by successful elected leaders. Print, radio, and television operations can prosper by enraging niche audiences, moving them to extremes and acting as enablers of demagogues. It is easier than ever before for large numbers of people to express themselves politically, especially on social media, controlled by massive corporations with limited interest in the pathological aspects of the political space that they have inadvertently created. Authoritarian governments manipulate and exploit this space to foster division, sow chaos, bolster extremist candidates, and destabilise liberal democratic states. An overload of political expression makes it increasingly hard for citizens and policymakers alike to detect meaningful signals amidst the lies, noise, and disinformation.As a communication-centric approach, deliberative democracy ought to have plenty to say in response. Given the chance, citizens and publics can indeed avoid manipulation and polarization, reach well-reasoned positions, and join public discourse in deliberative systems that also involve the media, leaders, and activists. Here, a capacity to rethink democracy can begin (though not end) with the deliberative dispositions and practices that all societies already possess to some degree. The dispositions might include the openness that many people already have toward deliberative ideals such as listening carefully to the other side. The practices might include informal networks of political conversations; bridging rhetoric; constructive framing; integrative performances by political leaders; dialogical connections between citizens and politicians; deliberation in social movements and protests; and traditions of holding leaders to account. Innovations might then include crowdsourced judgments and citizen participation to inform algorithms, reflective deliberative spaces online and offline (including mini-publics), and listening practices in social movements. One way of thinking about all this is that it pits the entire contemporary program of deliberative democracy against diabolical developments. Alternatively, specific aspects of the soundscape can be targeted with more precise deliberative responses.This seminar will be chaired by Dr Adele Webb.About the speakerJohn Dryzek was an ARC Laureate Fellow (2014-2020) and Professor at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra.

Future-Proofing the Public Sphere: Axel Bruns in conversation with John DryzekThe world’s most eminent scholars on digital media and deliberative democracy will offer their reflections on each other’s seminars and propose common lines of enquiry between digital media studies and deliberative democracy scholarship.This conversation will be moderated by Prof Selen Ercan.Axel Bruns | 2nd May, The Filter in Our (?) Heads: Digital Media and Polarisation. https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/the-filter-in-our-heads-digital-media-and-polarisation-tickets-522375879317John Dryzek | 9th May, Deliberative Democracy for Diabolical Times. https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/deliberative-democracy-for-diabolical-times-tickets-522419439607About the speakersAxel Bruns is an ARC Laureate Fellow (2021-2026) and Professor at the Digital Media Research Centre at QUT.John Dryzek was an ARC Laureate Fellow (2014-2020) and Professor at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra.