What's On at UWA

Over recent decades, tensions in the ways universities are organized and operate have become increasingly apparent. On the one hand, universities have ostensibly endeavoured to move away from traditional bureaucratic modes of governance, aiming to reduce ‘red tape’ in the process. Yet over the same period, there has been growing concern internationally about everencroaching “academic bureaucratization” (Gornitzka, Kyvik, & Larsen, 1998), with the administrative dimensions of academic work apparently becoming “ever more formalized, complicated, bureaucratic and time-consuming” (Martin, 2016, 14). To this date, however, there is a lack of systematic empirical research into this ‘new’ bureaucratic phenomenon. To address the resulting lacuna, this paper pioneers a novel way of investigating academic bureaucratization, through systematically scrutinizing some of those documents and devices which themselves co-constitute bureaucratic practices. The specific case investigated are the ‘Key Selection Criteria’ (KSC) commonly used at Australian universities for the purpose of hiring academic staff. Drawing on analyses of 273 sets of KSC, the paper finds, among other things, that the number of KSC job applicants have to address in writing are unreasonably high by all standards, as is the proportion of KSC that are redundant in terms of content, or which have a purely performative or rhetorical function (e.g., having ‘a high work ethic’; or ‘an interest in academic work such as teaching and research’). Taken together, these findings pinpoint one striking manifestation of the inconspicuous yet pervasive dynamics of bureaucratization reshaping academic work today. However, it is finally argued, the phenomena investigated also indicate, at least indirectly, that academic staff have been complicit in the normalization and reproduction of mechanisms of bureaucratization.

Learn about the proper rest and recovery techniques to use before and after you have completed a workout to prevent injury and keep you feeling your best.

Key topics covered include stretching techniques and how to use a foam roller.

The UWA Friends of the Grounds are holding a Plant Sale very soon and you're invited!

Get something for Mum, improve your herb garden or add a succulent to your work space while supporting Friends of the Grounds. Plants typically $3 - $5 each. Great finds!

Open to staff, students, and the public.

Over the last forty years or so, speculation about the origins and purpose of music within the disciplines devoted to human evolution has moved from being almost systematically ignored to centre stage. This paper sets out some of the historical influences on this change in the value placed on Music, as well as proposing why the topic is significant. It presents and evaluates the trajectories of complementary theories for the role and universality of Music from Darwin and his immediate predecessors, and reviews new contributions to the debate that are appearing with increasing frequency in literatures as diverse as: pre-natal learning; acoustic archaeology; geriatric medicine; cognitive development; social intelligence; and hemispherical integration.

In conclusion, the paper will illustrate the possibility that music, rather than being a luxury that emerged as a side-benefit of language, may have played a part in the development of symbolic thinking, religious ritual, and theory of mind at an early stage in modern human cultural development.

A public lecture by Maureen O’Malley, School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry, University of Sydney and UWA Institute of Advanced Studies Visiting Fellow.

Microbes in the gut (‘microbiomes’) are thought to play a major role in producing disorders such as autism, anxiety and depression. Gut microbiomes even appear to have effects on general cognition and memory. Some strong interpretations have been made of these findings, including claims that microbes control our minds. Other researchers have argued that microbiome contributions mean we need a new concept of self: the ‘microbial self’. This talk will examine such statements in light of several broad problems in microbiome research, to do with causality, ‘dysbiosis’ (sick microbiomes), and probiotic treatments. The talk will conclude with reflections on whether insights into microbiomes change our views of who we are as humans.

Radicalisation, Counter-Radicalisation and De-Radicalisation



For nearly two decades since 9/11, policymakers and the academia alike have paid much attention to radicalisation and terrorism involving jihadist groups and Muslim actors. Despite costly military interventions and an array of counter measures and policies, transnational jihadism and its inspired acts of terrorism have not diminished, transpiring in the rise and fall of ISIS with new challenges, including the issue of foreign fighters and their families. The recent Christchurch terrorist attacks (March 2019) further have shown that radicalisation is not simply limited to groups and individuals basing themselves in jihadism and Islam. They add to the list of threats from multiple forms of extremism that exist in our societies. Overall, the situation calls for more comprehensive and evidence-based policy responses to address radicalisation and find ways towards de-radicalisation.

This one-day conference aims to explore:

Radicalisation, its causes, its various manifestations, and how different spaces enabled by globalisation have spread radicalisation

The experience of other countries in responding to radicalisation

The responses by Australian government and community to radicalisation

Emerging issues of responding to returning foreign fighters and their families exposed to terrorism in the wake of the fall of ISIS

The symposium therefore aims focuses on both research and policy in the areas of radicalisation, counter-radicalisation and de-radicalisation.



Co-hosted by

Centre for Muslim States and Societies, University of Western Australia

Public Policy Institute, University of Western Australia

Australian Institute of International Affairs WA

SPEAKERS

Keynote address, Professor Stephen Smith, Advisory Board Chair of UWA Public Policy Institute

Dr Hass Dellal AO, Preventing violent extremism, Executive Director and Company Secretary, Australian Multicultural Foundation

Professor Shamit Saggar, Evidence about Islamist inspired radicalisation, Director, Public Policy Institute, University of Western Australia

Professor Raymond Taras, Xenophobia and Islamophobia: what has changed since Runnymede 1997?, The Australian National University, Canberra

Professor Michele Grossman, Radicalisation and counter-radicalisation: post-Christchurch attacks, Deakin University

Dr Mark Briskey, The rise of right wing extremism, Murdoch University

Ms Shameema Kolia, Muslim youth response to Christchurch attacks, Community Relations Manager at MAA International

Ms Rizwana Begum, Pluralism as Counter-Radicalization strategy: the education of Singapore Muslims

Professor Samina Yasmeen, Returnees and dealing with children and women exposed to terrorism and radicalisation in Syria, The University of Western Australia

Dr Azim Zahir, Salafism, radicalisation and foreign fighters: lessons from the Maldives, Associate Lecturer, University of Western Australia

Mr Muhammad Suleiman, Countering radicalisation: African experiences, PhD Candidate, University of Western Australia

Conveners

Professor Samina Yasmeen, Director, Centre for Muslim States and Societies, University of Western Australia

Dr Azim Zahir, Associate Lecturer, University of Western Australia



Tickets: Tickets via Eventbrite. Prices include morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea (Vegetarian and non-veg options would be available. For dietary requirements please email to [email protected] with the subject line "dietary restrictions")



For more information: Dr Azim Zahir, Associate Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, University of Western Australia

M: 0417800303; E: [email protected]

Trirelational kin terms are lexemes that identify a family member (the referent) via triangulation, by simultaneously specifying their relationship to two other parties: the speaker and propositus (person from whose perspective the relationship is calculated—often the addressee) (Laughren, 1982; McConvell, 1982; Merlan, 1989; O’Grady & Mooney, 1973). Modern descriptions of Australian languages often concede that trirelational terms are no longer actively used, or indeed even remembered (Dalton et al., 1995, p. 93; Meakins & Nordlinger, 2014, p. 166). Logically, as these systems fell out of usage they must have passed through intermediate stages, however brief, in which subsets of speakers still controlled subsets of terms—or, intriguingly, subsets of the meanings that these terms once encoded. To my knowledge, however, the progress of this shift has never been directly observed. This paper provides just such an observation.

Mudburra (Ngumpin-Yapa, Pama-Nyungan) is a highly endangered language of Australia’s central Northern Territory. While modern Mudburra speakers no longer use any trirelational terms as such, these lexemes and their meanings are not entirely lost; in fact, they seem to be contracting in a very systematic fashion. Data from eight speakers of varying fluencies show that trirelational terms are evolving into simple terms through erosion of the speaker-propositus and speaker-referent relationships, with the propositus-referent relationship maintained. Furthermore, data from one elderly speaker reveals an intriguing intermediate stage: as in traditional usage, he insists that these terms must involve three parties—but unlike traditional usage, he only specifies the propositus-referent relation (allowing the other two to be of any sort). This step-by-step contraction suggests that, of the three relationships that trirelational terms index, propositus-referent is most salient. Furthermore, it provides yet more evidence that language change is structured, even in situations of extreme pressure and shift.

The UWA Friends of the Grounds are holding a Plant Sale very soon and you're invited!

Get something for Mum, improve your herb garden or add a succulent to your work space while supporting Friends of the Grounds. Plants typically $3 - $5 each. Great finds!

Open to staff, students, and the public.

Be transported from the everyday by our free lunchtime concert series, featuring the best musical talent from within the UWA Conservatorium of Music and around the country.

New in 2019, Paul Rissmann will work with EChO11 to mentor and perform side-by-side with students from Tertiary Education Partner, UWA Conservatorium of Music in a special collaborative creative development project.

Students will be guided to utilise Julian Yu's arrangement of Pictures at an Exhibition as a gramework to explore composition, creative ideas and musical expression through performance.

Join us for the Final Showing in this special lunchtime concert!

Free entry, no bookings required.

Join Chair of Guitars Jonathan Fitzgerald as he works with talented high-school guitarists in a free masterclass.

Expressions of interets to perform: [email protected]

Free entry - no bookings required

Held at the University of Western Australia, the Day of Percussion is a day of masterclasses, workshops and performances of percussion related music for all ages and skill levels.

The 2019 Day of Percussion program will include sessions on, contemporary drumset, orchestral percussion, concert marimba, flamenco castanets, African marimba, concert performances, and much more!

All welcome!

Fee - $30

Accompanying Mum's attend for FREE (Happy Mother's Day!)

Contact details: [email protected]

A public talk by Dr Stefano Carboni, Director, Art Gallery of Western Australia.

The celebrated Venetian painter Gentile Bellini was sent by the Serenissima Republic to spend two years at the court of Mehmet II the Conqueror in Istanbul in 1479. This important moment in the cultural and artistic relationship between Venice and the Ottomans ushered in an Orientalist phase in Venetian painting and also inspired Turkish artists to portray Ottoman courtly figures in the “European” manner. No other city or European power from the Medieval and Renaissance periods can claim the complex and mutual closeness to the Islamic world that Venice enjoyed for many centuries. Progressively losing control over the Mediterranean waters that were to become the “Ottoman lake” and becoming sidelined by the new profitable transoceanic trade routes, Venice eventually became more closely aligned with the other European powers, losing her unique connection with the southern and eastern Mediterranean countries. The 15th and 16th centuries, therefore, represent a true “moment of vision” in the fecund relationship between two distant cultures.

2019 marks the 90th anniversary of the teaching of Italian language and culture at The University of Western Australia. In 1929, Francesco Vanzetti, an idiosyncratic and popular Venetian, offered the first courses in Italian. This was the first appointment of a lecturer in Italian in any Australian university. This lecture series, supported by the Institute of Advanced Studies and by Italian Studies in the UWA School of Humanities, celebrates aspects of Italian language and culture, past and present.

Edmund Gurney was a late-nineteenth-century polymath who is today best remembered for his writing on music and listening, and for his research into ‘psychical’ phenomena such as telepathy and ghosts. He wrote an influential book in 1880 titled The Power of Sound (1880), which is customarily read as an enclosed work of music philosophy. Yet much of the text of this book was initially published as separate essays in the liberal press years earlier—such as in the Fortnightly Review, Fraser’s and Macmillan’s Magazine, as well as in Nineteenth Century, and Mind. Gurney’s ideas about music were therefore initially directed at and read within the context of the broader discourses on politics, economics, moral philosophy and psychology that regularly appeared in these journals. This presentation will trace the interaction between Gurney’s wide-ranging thinking and the traditions of utilitarianism, political economy and liberalism through his association with the novelist George Eliot and the moral philosopher Henry Sidgwick in particular, as well as through the liberal press. It will argue that one of the central tenets of Gurney’s thinking on sound—namely the idea that there is an irreducibly ‘musical’ form of beauty—might be construed as a manifestations of a form of ‘liberal individualism’ as it was framed by the liberal utilitarians with whom he associated. Bringing together ideas about sound, pleasure, labour and the good, these figures attempted to combine the cultivation of disinterestedness with the pursuit of pleasure as a means to attain a balance between self-interest and the common good.

Special Collections

The Friends of the Library have recently donated a facsimile copy of the Barcelona Haggadah to Special Collections. The illuminated Hebrew manuscript dates from the fourteenth century and contains the Haggadah, Laws for Passover, piyyutim and Torah readings for the festival of Passover according to the Spanish rite. The purchase of the facsimile was supported by Assoc/Prof Suzanne Wijsman (Chair of Strings Conservatorium of Music) for her research as the manuscript contains illustrations of musical instruments.

Special Collections will next be open on Tuesday 11th June from 6.30pm – 7.15pm for members to view the Barcelona Haggadah.

Members: Free, Guests: $5 donation

The vision of the UWA Conservatorium of Music is to enrich all lives with music. Through UWA’s broadening units, all undergraduate students have the opportunity to engage in practical music-making as part of their degree.

Enrich! brings together these students in vibrant and dynamic ensemble performances.

Come and hear the wealth of musical talent on campus.

The Percussion Fiesta will feature over 80 students, performing pieces from film and TV, Pop and Rock favourites as well as more traditional African melodies in the culmination of their semester's work!

Tickets: $5 (available at the door)

A public lecture by Jon Blundy, Professor of Petrology, University of Bristol and 2019 UWA Robert and Maude Gledden Senior Visiting Fellow.

In this public lecture Professor Blundy will discuss how our concept of volcanic systems has evolved in the light of recent geophysical and geochemical studies from the classic magma chamber concept, so beloved of textbooks, to a more nuanced system of partially molten rock that straddles the entire crust of the Earth. Professor Blundy will explain how such ‘transcrustal magma systems” can account for apparent dichotomy of outcome (“ashes or ores”) and what such systems mean for the monitoring of restless volcanoes. He will show that the build-up to very large eruptions may be much shorter than previously assumed, while some of the world’s largest copper ore deposits may form in the geological blink of an eye. The talk will draw on examples of Professor Blundy’s fieldwork in some of the world’s most hazardous volcanic regions.

The new season of moved readings is upon us and we are delighted to present our offerings for first semester 2019.Overseen by Bríd Phillips (project director) and Steve Chinna (staging director and much else!) with educational input from Kathryn Prince, the Renaissance Moved Readings Project continues the tradition of informal, participatory, fast-paced and usually hilarious readings of Shakespeare’s plays.

This semester’s moved readings are Thursdays from 4-6 pm on the New Fortune Stage:

28 March, Much Ado About Nothing (a witty battle of the sexes is waged, comedy ensues)

11 April, King Lear (a king foolishly divides his kingdom among his daughters, tragedy ensues)

16 May, The Tempest (on an enchanted island, magical and muggle characters meet, romance ensues)

Participants and spectators of all ages are welcome: over-18s are invited to bring their own libations for festive imbibing afterwards in the Shakespeare Garden.

Murujuga, Burrup Peninsula, comprises one of the world’s greatest petroglyphs assemblages. Spanning many tens of thousands of years, displaying a myriad of styles and subjects; this rock art provides many stories. Correspondingly, the discipline of rock art research has a number of paradigms and ways of interpreting. One of the advantages Australia has over many other rock art provinces is the existence of people directly linked to the art, it is a living tradition. This, sometimes, can add a complication to research but in the main it adds a rich and insightful way of viewing rock art. There are other ways of getting at the story than through the Aboriginal informed process. Description of what we see, the formal recording and analysis of objects has proved to be useful in archaeology. Ways of looking, ways of identifying and ways of interpreting are interwoven with the rock art of Murujuga. This seminar explores just some of the intertwining of these narratives, revealing patterns in understanding the petroglyphs and the sacred landscape of Murujuga.

Join us for the Anthropocene Sea Change Seminar Series talk with the UWA Oceans Institute as Jo McDonald from the UWA Centre for Rock Art Research + Management discusses recent research from Murujuga (the Dampier Archipelago).

Murujuga (the Dampier Archipelago) juts into the Indian Ocean on the Pilbara coast in Australia’s north-west. When people first started using this region 50,000 years ago, the coastline was more than 160km away. Murujuga rock art reveals the long-distance hypermobility of arid zone peoples at different times during its long occupation as well as differing human responses to major environmental changes through time. Recent archaeological work reveals that the period after the last Ice Age – as the sea level rose – was a period of intense human interactions, with hunter-gatherer villages and intensive rock art production being signs of increased social and population pressure. The engraved rock art of Murujuga provides a visual record for the entire human occupation of Australia’s north-west, up until the arrival of European explorers and north-American whalers in the early-mid 19th Century, and the Flying Foam Massacre in 1865. This seminar showcases recent findings from Murujuga: Dynamics of the Dreaming ARC Linkage project.

Jo McDonald is the Director of the Centre for Rock Art Research + Management at the University of Western Australia and holds the Rio Tinto Chair of Rock Art. She has studied the rock art of the Western Desert and Dampier Archipelago (Murujuga) for the last two decades. Jo was the Lead CI for the Murujuga: Dynamics of the Dreaming ARC Linkage Project, and is a CI on the Deep History of Sea Country ARC Project.

17th-century Italian nuns had no contact with the secular world outside of their convent, yet their fame as composers and performers spread throughout Europe and attracted visitors from far and wide to hear their music. Join us as we present chamber and choral works by Chiara Margarita Cozzolani, Maria Xaveria Perucona, and Sulpitia Cesis.

Free entry, no bookings required.

The lively public discourse on academic cheating in Indonesia is focused on the National Examination, which is a standardized test organised for Year-9 and Year-12 students. However, since the focus is too narrow, other behaviours that may actually have developed into a pervasive cheating problem have been overlooked. In 2015 the Indonesian government introduced a new twist to the problem by stating that cheating in the National Exam could be one of the causes of the country’s corruption problem. This thesis looks at patterns of actions and beliefs regarding academic cheating shared by students, teachers, and parents in two senior secondary schools in Indonesia. The findings of this study show that cheating in schools in Indonesia is indeed beyond the scope of the National Exam. The pervasiveness of the problem can be partly explained by looking at the dynamics of the social relationships of the students. As for government’s claim on the cause-and-effect relationship between academic cheating and corruption, opportunism and individual collectivism identified in both schools could become the enabling elements.