PLEASE NOTE: The Centre gives notice that the Public
lecture by Dr. Owens Wiwa, 7:30pm Thursday 8 December at The
Street Theatre, has regrettably been cancelled due to ill health.
The ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope will still speak
on the death penalty, as part of the conference program at Old
Canberra House, and the West African drumming and dance performance
led by Ghanaian master drummer Tuza Afutu will also now be part
of the conference program at Old Canberra House.
The call for papers has now closed but you can still watch the
Conference Film Clip. Abstracts
have now been posted on this site, see the link above.
The so-called war on terror and its representations
have ignited interest in pain and death across a wide range
of disciplines, including criminology, political science, law,
history, literature, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies,
psychology, linguistics, journalism and philosophy. At the same
time artists working in the visual arts, as well as music, poetry,
dance, and theatre have taken up the issue of state violence
with renewed vigour.
Fertile dialogue among and between
artists, activists and scholars is the aim of this gathering.
State-inflicted and state-sanctioned violence
involves practices that are justified and contested on legal
and political grounds. Yet it also raises a question of aesthetics:
how/can officially-authorized violence be represented?
The intersections of politics, aesthetics and
legalities provoke debate, inspire protest, create moral discomfort,
invite denials, and stimulate creativity. This interdisciplinary
gathering and its associated exhibits and performances will
examine such connections across cultures and over time. The
event itself will forge new linkages.
Scholars, artists and activists working on the politics and
legalities of state violence, and those exploring and producing
representations of officially-sanctioned pain and death are
invited to submit an abstract.
Confirmed Keynote Performers
Javier Moscoso, philosopher
Jonathan Lamb, literary scholar
Owens Wiwa, Human Rights Activist
Invited Speakers
Joanna Bourke
Hilary Charlesworth
Betty Churcher
Mark Finnane
Instructions for abstract submission
Please submit an abstract of no more than 300
words, outlining your proposed topic, your approach, and the
forms/media in which you intend to present your work.
Include a brief (two-page) c.v., outlining your affiliation
and your key publications, exhibits, and/or performances.
Send your abstract electronically (preferably
in WORD or PDF) to carolyn.strange@anu.edu.au,
or mail a hardcopy to:
Carolyn Strange
Centre for Cross-cultural Research
The Australian National University
Canberra, ACT, 0200
Australia
Abstract Submission Deadline: 1 August 2005
Thematic Threads
Politics
- state monopoly on violence, its contestations
and limitations
- physical violence versus other forms
of state punishment
- sovereignty and the state’s
right to deploy violence within and beyond national borders
- political distinctions drawn between
nations and cultures on basis of their use/rejection of pain
and death
- supra-national bodies and the global
monitoring of torture and death
- “rendition” and the off-shoring
of physical punishment
- political protest and the calling
of authorities to account
Aesthetics
- historical and contemporary limitations on the sanctioned
use of pain and death
- international and national courts’ and tribunals’
jurisdictions and sanctioning powers
- individual versus state responsibility for violations of
legal limits
- determination of standards of evidence leading to the judgment
and punishment of pain and death
- torture and death as means of legal interrogation and sanctionslegal
allowances and restrictions on the administrators of and the
witnesses to pain and death
- secular penal codes versus customary and religious law
Extra Information
University
map
Australian National
University homepage
Accommodation
Contact us
Suzanne Groves, Reception
Centre for Cross Cultural Research
Australian National University
Liversidge Street, Acton
T: (02) 6125 2434
F: (02) 6248 0054
E: ccr.admin@anu.edu.au
Proudly supported by
The Centre for Cross-Cultural
Research, ANU (CCR)
The
National Institute of Social Sciences and Law, ANU (NISSL)
The National Centre for
Indigenous Studies, ANU, (NCIS)
The
Canadian High Commission
Association
for Canadian Studies in Australia and New Zealand (ACSANZ)
The British Academy –
The National Academy for the Humanities and the Social Sciences
