Faculty of Asian Studies

Dr Ruth Barraclough, of the Faculty of Asian Studies China & Korea Centre, writes:

Brendan Nelson’s time as Minister for Education had a lasting impact on the university sector, with his most infamous act his veto of funding for research projects that bothered him. Nine projects were vetoed in the face of recommendations for funding based on peer review by the Australian Research Council. This created a culture of paranoia in universities, leaving many researchers wondering if they should stop pursuing the questions they believed were important and instead focus on the question: will the government be bothered by this?

In 2005 my ARC fellowship was one of those vetoed by Brendan Nelson. Apparently the title of my project made him unhappy. As a part-time tutor at Sydney University, and with a newborn baby, I rushed to take the first job I could get and relocated to a Big Ten university in the US. Then, late last year back in Australia I got a phone call from the ARC: I was one of the “Nelson Nine”.

It is important to explain the impact that the vetoing of grants has had upon research culture in Australia. In the rumours, paranoia and disappointment that followed the news of vetoes, a culture of fear took hold. I know freshly minted PhDs who have been scared off from applying for an ARC grant because they believe it funds only “political research” that caters to a narrowly defined national benefit. These people, who are some of our best, will go overseas, or worse, not pursue the kind of research that requires a real culture of confidence and support. Following the vetoes people began to question if the largest and most prestigious research funding bodies in this country would continue to succumb to ideological intervention. The damage has been enormous.

It turns out that I was fortunate. I was at a university where our VC, Ian Chubb, protested on our behalf. I know of academics at other universities who have been advised to keep quiet about their vetoed grant for fear it might jeopardise their career. In my corridor people stumped up to congratulate me on having won anyway, and their support was the only thing that stopped me railing at the loss. For the loss is considerable. Without the precious time and money that the grant awarded me, the project has stalled. Let me explain this research that the Minister felt had to be stopped.

My project examined the Korean kisaeng, a profession similar to the Japanese geisha only with a history that goes back several hundreds of years. Kisaeng occupied the lowest rank of traditional Korea’s caste system. Born or sold into the profession they were exceptional amongst women for their accomplishments: they were trained in literature, music, dance and composition. As slaves who were literate, erudite women they also wrote some of the most treasured poetry in the Korean literary canon. My project asked: How do we understand them as both slaves and figures in high culture? I proposed that sex work and sex trafficking today in Korea and other parts of East Asia cannot be understood without reference to the historical basis of this trade. Bonded labour practices are rife in the contemporary sex industry in this part of the world. I argued that we need to understand the economic origins and cultural history of bonded sex labour if we are to truly address the resilience of the industry.

Two of the grants vetoed by Brendan Nelson over 2004 and 2005 were ranked number one in their category. At least three of the Nelson Nine took up positions overseas following the vetoes. Behind closed doors the ARC fought the vetoes but ended up being blamed for the political fiasco. Meantime Nelson moved onwards and upwards, refusing to disclose, refusing to be accountable, refusing to defend an organisation within his own portfolio.

But the question must be asked of academics and university administrators: how did we let this happen? And this is the crux of the matter: as long as “national benefit” can be harnessed by a fidgety Education Minister then this will happen again. Now is the time to set down a transparent process that defines Ministerial accountability and the appropriate limits of political power.

[This article was first printed in the opinion columns of the Canberra Times on 21 June 2008]

ANU scholars from the College of Asia and the Pacific played a key role in the success of an international workshop on “Language Change in Post New Order Indonesia” at the University of Indonesia, Jakarta, between June 9 – 11, 2008.

Among the themes of the workshop were Indonesia’s proposed new law on the regulation of language, the impact of decentralisation on Indonesia’s regional languages, and the renewed role of Chinese as a language of public disourse in Indonesia. Papers were in English and Indonesian, but discussion was conducted wholly in the Indonesian language.

Dr Tim Hassall [pictured, right] presented a paper titled “Functions and status of western synonyms in Indonesian", Mr Amrih Widodo’s paper explored “The language of security" and Dr George Quinn discussed “How Javanese distinctness finds a public place in the unitary state of the Republic of Indonesia”. Dr Francisca Handoko (Linguistics Department, RSPAS) analysed “The changing role of Mandarin in the Indonesian educational system, past, present and future: A preliminary study of its role in the international and ‘national plus’ schools in Surabaya”.

Two recent visiting fellows in the Faculty of Asian Studies also contributed to the workshop. Professor Ben Arps (Leiden University) presented a paper titled “From village dialects to Language: The becoming of basa Osing in Banyuwangi” and Professor Mikihiro Moriyama (Nanzan University) spoke on the “Revival of Sundanese?”. Professor Moriyama was also the principal convenor of the workshop.

The proceedings of the workshop are now undergoing revision with a view to publication next year.

Japan is destined to lose 70 percent of its workforce in the next forty years thanks to an aging population and a dwindling birth rate. The ruling party is floating the idea of a drastic increase in the number of migrants...

An ABC Radio Australia interview with Stephanie March (presenter) and Sumie Ishii, Executive Director of the Japanese Organisation for International Cooperation in Family Planning, Tokyo, and Kent Anderson, [pictured left] Director of Faculty of Asian Studies, at the Australian National University.

Text | Audio

The Cultural Politics of Disadvantaged Castes in India

A workshop supported by the Australian Research Council (APFRN South Asia Node), the College of Asia & the Pacific, and the College of Arts & Social Sciences, The Australian National University.

The aim of this workshop is to bring together scholars studying old and new patterns of social, economic and political domination and empowerment in India. The participants will examine how low caste communities, such as ex-untouchable groups (dalits) and other underprivileged sections of society, encounter and experience caste, class and gender prejudice, the discourse and practice of development; law and order, media and education. The workshop aims to provide a platform for multidisciplinary discussion of the relationship between culture, community, livelihood, the nation- state and the struggles of disadvantaged castes in contemporary Indian society.

Date: 26-27 June 2008

Location: McDonald Room, Menzies Library, The Australian National University

Further information: http://occident.anu.edu.au/Cultural_Politics_web.pdf

His Majesty the Emperor of Japan has conferred The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon on Dr Royall Tyler, former Reader and now Visiting Fellow in the Faculty of Asian Studies, acknowledging his exceptional contribution in introducing non Japanese audiences to the Noh theatre through his highly acclaimed translations and publications of numerous Noh plays, culminating in over forty years of research and deep understanding of classical Japanese literature and culture.

In 2001 Dr Tyler completed translating the entire Tale of Genji, a task that took approximately eight years. The result is not only a faithful rendering of the original but an outstanding example of modern English, replete with detailed commentary and illustrations that facilitate an understanding of the story. Dr Tyler's translation has made Tale of Genji accessible to a wider audience.

In 2001, the translation was awarded the Japan-US Friendship Commission’s Translation Prize. In addition, Dr Tyler's translation of anthology of medieval setsuwa stories Japanese Tales (1987) is highly regarded and has attracted a multitude of readers. 2007 saw Dr Tyler awarded a prestigious Japan Foundation Award for his contribution to the understanding of Japanese literature and culture in foreign countries through his long term research into and teaching Japanese literature.

ANU law students proved that they could hold their own in an international competition, even when the odds are against them.

Five undergraduates went to Tokyo in December to compete in the sixth annual Intercollegiate Negotiation and Arbitration Competition.

They were representing the nation as part of the Australian Network for Japanese Law (ANJeL) team.

This includes students from the universities of Sydney and New South Wales,who competed in the English-speaking side of the competition.

The ANU students made up the Japanese-speaking half of Team Australia.

Full report: http://occident.anu.edu.au/Japanese.pdf

After many months of deliberating proposals from across the world, the Korean Film Council (KOFIC) has decided to award their annual overseas research grant (± US$ 15,000) to Dr Maliangkay, [right] Senior Lecturer in Korean Studies, in support of his Watching Images in the Dark: Cinematic Experience in Korea during the silent Era project.

The project aims to take a holistic view of the first years of Korean cinema history, carefully describing what it was like for Koreans (and a handful of foreigners) to go to the cinema during the early days of the twentieth century.

Questions he will focus on include, "what was performed on stage during the intermission or the changing of reels", and "how did the separate seating arrangement of genders affect the experience" and "how did people acquire tickets" etc.

For more information on the Council's activities, see: http://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/index.jsp

The May 2008 issue of Asian Currents, issued by the Asian Studies Association of Australia, carries a short profile of Dr George Quinn, Head of the Southeast Asia Centre in the Faculty of Asian Studies.

The profile begins:


"I was born and grew up in New Zealand. In January 1966, aged just 23, I visited Indonesia. The country was in turmoil after an army coup (or in the eyes of some, an attempted communist coup) the previous year. Hundreds of thousands of people had been killed. Inflation was running at around 600% and services were minimal. Government was still nominally in the hands of the incompetent President Soekarno but the country was emerging from the paranoia he had imposed over the previous seven years. For me Indonesia was an exciting world, dramatically different from that of remote, tranquil New Zealand..."


The full profile is at: http://iceaps.anu.edu.au/ac/asian-currents-08-05.html

The Sydney Morning Herald has given front-page attention to the Honours thesis of a former student of the Faculty, the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

The subject of Mr Rudd's thesis, submitted in 1980, was Human Rights in China: the Case of Wei Jingsheng.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the dissident Wei Jingsheng, described as 'China's Sakharov', who spent eighteen years in a Chinese prison for advocating human rights, was 'a seminal influence on Rudd'.

[full report]

On April 16-17, Pacific Studies Convener Dr. Katerina Teaiwa collaborated with Associate Professor Satish Chand of the Crawford School of Economics and Government and Professor Margaret Jolly, Head of the Gender Relations Centre, in a conjoint workshop with Sun-Hee Lee, Sophie Temby and Owen Martin of AusAID.

The workshop was Gender, Youth and Economic Empowerment in the Pacific and held at the Rydges Lakeside hotel.

[report]

Patrick Mayoh of Modern Chinese 5 won first prize in Chinese art performance and second prize in overall ranking at the Han Yu Qiao Australian preliminary in Adelaide last Friday.

The top two winners,including Patrick Mayoh, will travel to China to compete in the semi-final in June.

Han Yu Qiao (Adelaide) is a competition among university students of Chinese from the ACT, South Australia, West Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland sponsored by the Chinese Government.