scholarly journals Editor's welcome, PORTAL, Vol. 4, No. 2, July 2007

Author(s):  
Paul Allatson

The second issue of PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies for 2007 is a special issue with the title Contesting Euro Visions, guest edited by Dimitris Eleftheriotis (University of Glasgow), Murray Pratt (University of Technology Sydney) and Ilaria Vanni, (University of Technology Sydney). As the editors’ opening essay emphasises, this issue is not concerned to perpetuate myths of a Europe united or federated, or even cohered by shared values. Rather, it aims to reclaim something of the conceptual, transcultural and locational uncertainties encoded in the foundation myth of Europe’s origins: Europa’s seduction and abduction by Zeus, disguised as a white bull. As the editors argue, this myth is marked by the physical elusiveness of Europe’s actual location (Homer’s Europa being, for example, Phoenician, in what is now Syria), and also complicated by centuries of amendments and revisions. Thus, by approaching contemporary Europe through the prism of a mutating and unanchored foundational fiction, the editors argue that that fiction ‘can be used to understand how in Europe particular local histories and local knowledge intersect with global issues, and conversely how what appears to be “European” is, in fact, the result of global encounters. Narratives of European values need to be located in this striated space, while friction as an organising metaphor also explains the slippage and relation between the lived, heterogeneous embodiments of contemporary Europe and abstract notions of values.’ The other essays gathered in this special issue endorse this notion of a striated Europe, a shifting space best regarded as a space of friction. I would like to thank all of the authors included in this special issue for their patience, and their support for the Contesting Euro Visions ideal that frames the issue. I would also like to take the opportunity to announce a call for papers for the July 2008 issue of PORTAL, entitled ‘Italian Cultures: Writing Italian Cultural Studies in the World.’ Full details follow, in both English and Italian, and can be found on the journal’s homepage. Paul Allatson, Chair, PORTAL Editorial Committee Call for Papers ‘Italian Cultures: Writing Italian Cultural Studies in the World.’ PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies is seeking articles for a special issue on Italian cultural studies. It aims at updating existing scholarship and scoping the proliferation of interests in this growing field. It recognizes that cultural studies practitioners write multiple Italies within Italy itself and from provincialized Italies, with a perspective that is both global and informed by specific local knowledge. In particular we seek articles that map how processes of social change and identification are negotiated, imagined, explored and contested in relation to the following (but not exclusively) themes: • Belonging • Body • Cinema • Consumption • Design • Digital cultures • Everyday • Fashion • Food • Language • Media (new and old) • New writing • Place • Sport • Visual cultures Portal has built into its editorial protocols a commitment to facilitating dialogue between international studies practitioners working anywhere in the world, and not simply or exclusively in the ‘North,’ ‘the West’ or the ‘First World.’ The journal’s commitment to fashioning a genuinely ‘international' studies rubric is also reflected in our willingness to publish critical and creative work in English as well as in a number of other languages: Bahasa Indonesia, Chinese, Croatian, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Serbian, and Spanish. Portal provides open access to all of it content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. If are interested in submitting a paper please read the Author’s guidelines and information about the submission process Portal’s homepage, http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/ojs/index.php/portal. Deadline: 1 March 2008. For further information, please contact Dr Ilaria Vanni: [email protected] Portal, Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, numero speciale: ‘Italian cultures: writing Italian cultural studies in the world’. Portal, Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies sta raccogliendo articoli per un numero speciale sugli studi culturali che trattino tematiche legate all’Italia con lo scopo di aggiornare la ricerca esistente e produrre una mappatura della proliferazione di interesse in quest’area in espansione. Portal riconosce che una molteplicità di Italie viene generata dai ricercatori che lavorano nell’ambito di cultural studies all’incontro di prospettive globali e saperi locali, sia come panorama interno all’Italia sia come provincializzazioni dell’Italia. In particolare questo numero è interessato (ma non limitato) a testi sulle seguenti tematiche: • Cibo • Cinema • Consumi • Corpi • Culture visive • Design • Culture digitali • Lingua • Luoghi • Media (vecchi e nuovi) • Moda • Processi di appartenenza • Quotidianità • Scrittura creativa • Sport Portal include nei suoi protocolli editoriali l’impegno a facilitare il dialogo tra studiosi e studiose di studi internazionali che lavorano in qualsiasi parte del mondo, e non solo nel ‘nord’, nell’ ‘ovest’ o nel ‘primo mondo’. L’impegno della rivista a creare un clima genuinamente ‘internazionale’ si ritrova anche nella decisione di pubblicare testi critici e creativi non solo in inglese ma anche in bahasa Indonesia, cinese, croato, francese, giapponese, italiano, serbo, spagnolo e tedesco. Portal garantisce libero accesso a tutti i testi pubblicati sostenendo così la libera circolazione, creazione e lo scambio di saperi. Le avvertenze per gli autori sono pubblicate nel sito della rivista http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/ojs/index.php/portal. La scadenza per la presentazione dei testi è il 1 marzo 2008. Per ulteriori informazioni si prega di contattare Dr Ilaria Vanni: [email protected]

Author(s):  
Paul Allatson

This special issue of PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies is entitled ‘Italian Cultures: Writing Italian Cultural Studies in the World,’ guest edited by Ilaria Vanni (University of Technology Sydney). The issue aims at updating existing scholarship and scoping the proliferation of interests in the growing field of Italian cultural studies, whether conducted in Italy or outside that country. The issue proceeds from the premise that cultural studies practitioners write multiple Italies within Italy itself and from provincialized Italies, with a perspective that is both global and informed by specific local knowledge. As Vanni says in her introduction to the special issue, a number of questions arise when critics attempt both to imagine and work within the relatively recent field of Italian cultural studies: ‘Is there a specific genealogy to the study of cultures in Italy that intersects with the Anglophone definition of cultural studies? Is Italian cultural studies confined to cultural practices in Italy, or does it expand to include the cultural practices of the Italian diaspora? If there is an Italian cultural studies tradition, where is it? What do Italian cultural studies academics write about?' The contributions included here respond to such questions by drawing on a range of disciplinary and critical traditions to problematise received ideas about what Italy signifies and for whom. This issue of PORTAL also contains an essay and two cultural works in its cultural works section. ‘In the Age of Schizophrenia, Icebergs, and Things that Grip the Mind,’ from the Vietnam-based visual artist, curator, and writer, Sue Hajdú, is an evocative meditation on Saigon as represented in the work of five Vietnamese photographers— Ngo Dinh Truc, Lam Hieu Thuan, Nguyen Tuong Linh, Bui The Trung Nam, and Bui Huu Phuoc— who were born in the 1970s and whose work is reproduced by permission here. In her response to these young artists’ representations of contemporary Saigon, Hajdú notes how each photographer is inevitably grappling with the historically and nationally specific notion of contemporary Vietnamese time, ‘the monumental demarcation line’ signified by 1975. We also include in the cultural works section a suite of Spanish and English-language poems, ‘From/De Infernal : romantic,’ by Sydney based Vek Lewis, and a poem entitled ‘Mutiple Strokes’ by the Nigerian writer and critic, Obododimma Oha. Paul Allatson, Chair, PORTAL Editorial Committee


Author(s):  
Paul Allatson ◽  
Jo McCormack

This special issue of PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, jointly edited by Jo McCormack and Paul Allatson, is dedicated to exile and social transformation. Some of the papers presented here derive from a highly successful workshop and symposium on exile held at the Institute for International Studies, University of Technology Sydney, in July and December 2004. Others arrived in response to a call for papers sent out in early 2004, which attracted a great deal of attention. We would like to thank all those involved at the first two events for their productive discussions and feedback, and extend our thanks to the many people who responded to the call for papers on the topic. The next issue of PORTAL will also be a special issue, “Strange Localities: Utopias, Intellectuals and National Identities in the 21st Century,” with three guest editors: Alistair Fox (University of Otago), Murray Pratt (University of Technology, Sydney), and Hilary Radner (University of Otago). And, as always, we would like to encourage practitioners of international studies and cultural producers working anywhere in the world, and in any of the PORTAL languages, to submit material for future issues. Finally, and returning to this issue’s special theme, it was with great sadness that we learned from one of the contributors to this issue, Sue Hajdú, of her father’s recent death. Sue’s critical and creative meditation on her father’s status as a Hungarian exile is one of this issue’s highlights. On behalf of the members of the Portal Editorial Committee, this special issue is dedicated to him. Paul Allatson, Chair, PORTAL Editorial Committee


Author(s):  
Paul Allatson

‘Post-Mao, Post-Bourdieu: Class and Taste in Contemporary China,’ is a special issue of PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies guest-edited by Yi Zheng (University of Sydney) and Stephanie Hemelryk Donald (RMIT University). The special issue explores the relationship between taste, choice and social stratification in contemporary China, and includes a new section, ‘New Perspectives Reports,’ which is intended to showcase opinion and ideas—in this case from the People’s Republic of China, in Mandarin—that complement the main articles. We hope to include this section in future issues of the journal. The guest editors and the PORTAL editorial committee would like to acknowledge that this special issue of is a result of a funding grant from the Australian Research Council, 2003-2005: ‘The Making of Middle-Class Taste: Reading, Tourism, and Educational Choices in Urban China.’ I am also delighted to announce that the PORTAL Editorial Committee has three new members, all from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Technology, Sydney: Dr Malcolm Angelucci, Dr Beatriz Carrillo, and Dr Fredericka van der Lubbe. Paul Allatson, Editor, PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies.


Author(s):  
Paul Allatson

Since the highly successful inauguration of PORTAL in January 2004, we have received many kind expressions of support from international studies practitioners in a range of fields, and from such places as Canada, Italy, Mexico, Nigeria, New Zealand, Spain, Trinidad, the U.K., and the U.S.A. Particularly gratifying have been the endorsements of the journal and its publishing aims by people involved in their own electronic publishing enterprises. For their generous responses to PORTAL, the Editorial Committee would like to express its collective appreciation to the following people: Professor Jean-Marie Volet, of the University of Western Australia, and the guiding editor of the ground-breaking e-journal Mots Pluriels (www.arts.uwa.edu.au/MotsPluriels); and Francis Leo Collins, member of the Editorial Committee for the Graduate Journal of Asia Pacific Studies (GJAPS), based in Auckland, New Zealand. PORTAL's readers may be interested in the current call for papers from GJAPS (www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/gjaps), for a special issue on "Imagining the Asia-Pacific" (deadline October 31, 2004). This issue of PORTAL contains essays that cover wide terrain: the Chilean diasporic community in Australia; the world of German intellectuals; contemporary Mexican socio-political movements; rural-urban migration in China; and transnational advocacy networks and election monitoring in the Philippines, Chile, Nicaragua and Mexico. In the cultural section of this issue, we are delighted to present a short story from the noted German Studies scholar Anthony Stephens, and the first half of a beautiful, deeply poetic and haunting novel entitled Son, from the London-based writer and art-critic Jennifer Higgie. The novel’s second and final part will appear in PORTAL vol. 2, no. 1, in January 2005. On a different note, we would like to express our support for the inaugural Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, to be held in Ubud, Bali, from October 11 to 17, 2004. The Festival, which is attracting interest from writers across the world, maintains a website at: http://www.ubudwritersfestival.com/ Finally, I would like to remind readers that the next issue of PORTAL (vol. 2, no. 1, January 2005) will be a special issue devoted to "Exile and Social Transformation." I would also like to encourage international studies practitioners and cultural producers working anywhere in the world to submit material for future issues. Paul Allatson, Chair, PORTAL Editorial Committee


Author(s):  
Paul Allatson

PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies enters its fourth year with the journal’s first special Chinese-language issue. Organised under the rubric of ‘The Revival of Chinese Cultural Nationalism,’ the issue has been guest edited by Dr Yingjie Guo of the Institute for International Studies, University of Technology Sydney, and features the work of scholars based in China and Australia. As Guo says in his introductory essay to the special issue, debates over cultural nationalism in China have been on the rise since the events in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989; indeed, the post-Tiananmen era in China may be witnessing what Guo calls an unparalleled cultural-political movement in the country’s history. The various contributors to this special issue explore the ramifications and manifestations of that broad cultural-political movement in film production, television drama, literary texts, cultural essays, regional entrepreneurship, and contemporary debates on nationalism and liberalism. This issue of PORTAL also features four non-special issue essays: a study of feminist ethics in the work of Filipino-Australian writer and dramatist Merlinda Bobis, by Dolores Herrero (Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain); a taut critique of the discourse that regards the twentieth century as the bloodiest and most atrocious in human history, by David B. MacDonald (Otago University, New Zealand); a trenchant analysis, by Ramzi Nasser and Kamal Abouchedid (Notre Dame University, Lebanon), of what the authors call the rise of “academic apartheid” in the university sector throughout the Arab world; and a fascinating exploration of the feminism and environmentalism pioneered by the Australian author, mountaineer, solicitor and Buddhist Marie Byles (1900-1979), by Allison Cadzow (University of Technology Sydney). Finally, it is a huge pleasure to also include in PORTAL’s cultural works section a selection of poems by the Chinese poet Yang Lian, translated by Mabel Lee (responsible for translating Nobel Laureate Gao Xingjian’s novels Soul Mountain [2000] and One Man’s Bible [2002] into English). Paul Allatson, Chair, PORTAL Editorial Committee


Author(s):  
Paul Allatson

‘The Space Between: Languages, Translations and Cultures’ is a special issue of PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies guest-edited by Vera Mackie (University of Melbourne), Ikuko Nakane (University of Melbourne), and Emi Otsuji (University of Technology, Sydney). As Vera Mackie and Stephanie Hemelryk Donald (University of Sydney) say in the introduction to the special issue: All of the contributors to this special issue have reflected on the stakes involved in negotiating differences in language and culture. In their research and professional practice they inhabit the ‘space between’: the space between languages, the space between cultures, and the space between academic disciplines. While many of our contributors are located in the Australian university system, we also have contributors from outside that system, as well as contributors who are theorising disparate sites for the negotiation of difference. The most exciting aspect of the papers presented here is the ability to move between the spheres of cultural theory and the everyday. Analytical techniques originally developed for literary and cultural analysis are brought to bear on the texts and practices of everyday life. In addition to the critical essays, three cultural works also intervene in the discussion over what it means to inhabit the ‘space between’ languages, cultures and countries. The guest editors and the PORTAL editorial committee would like to acknowledge and thank the following institutions and individual for the support that made this special issue possible: the Australian Research Council’s Cultural Research Network; the former Institute for International Studies at the University of Technology, Sydney; the School of Historical Studies at the University of Melbourne; and the ARC Cultural Literacies Node Convener, Mark Gibson.


Author(s):  
Paul Allatson

Welcome to the inaugural issue of PORTAL On behalf of the Executive Editorial Committee of PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, it is a great pleasure to announce the virtual birth of this fully peer-reviewed journal under the auspices of UTSePress, the exciting new electronic publishing enterprise housed at the central library at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), Australia. PORTAL itself is edited by staff from the Institute for International Studies, a dynamic research and teaching centre at UTS. The launch of PORTAL's inaugural issue will take place simultaneously in Sydney, Australia, and Guadalajara, México, on January 28 (Sydney) / 27 (Guadalajara) 2004. The trans-Pacific axial enabling this twin launch is emblematic of the many axes of dialogue that, it is to be hoped, will characterize the content and reception of this and future issues of Portal. We are grateful to the many people at the Center for Social Sciences and Humanities at la Universidad de Guadalajara, México, for their provision of the technologies and tequila that will facilitate Portal's digital launch in a different space and timezone to its 'homebirth' in Sydney, Australia. As PORTAL's 'Focus and Scope' statement indicates, the journal is dedicated to publishing scholarship by practitioners of-and dissenters from-international, regional, area, migration, and ethnic studies. PORTAL is also committed to providing a space for cultural producers interested in the internationalization of cultures. With these aims in mind we have conceived PORTAL as a "multidisciplinary venture," to use Michel Chaouli's words. That is, PORTAL signifies "a place where researchers [and cultural producers] are exposed to different ways of posing questions and proffering answers, without creating out of their differing disciplinary languages a common theoretical or methodological pidgin" (2003, p. 57). Our hope is that scholars working in the humanities, social sciences, and potentially other disciplinary areas, will encounter in PORTAL a range of critical and creative scenarios about contemporary societies and cultures and their material and imaginative relation to processes of transnationalization, polyculturation, transmigration, globalization, and anti-globalization. Our use of scenario here is drawn from Néstor García Canclini, for whom the term designates "a place where a story is staged" (1995, p. 273). García Canclini's interest lies in comprehending the staging of stories at "the intercrossings on the borders between countries, in the fluid networks that interconnect towns, ethnic groups, and classes, … the popular and the cultured, the national and the foreign" (1995, p. 273). Such stories indicate some of the many possible international scenarios that PORTAL will stage in the future. A key to our ambitions for PORTAL is an editorial commitment to facilitating dialogue between international studies practitioners working anywhere in the world, and not simply or exclusively in the "North," "the West," or the "First World." This fundamental policy is reflected in our Editorial Board, with members drawn from respected academic and research institutions in many countries and continents. We would like to extend our warmest thanks to the many people across the globe who, site unseen, graciously agreed to support this publishing and intellectual endeavour by joining the Editorial Board and wholeheartedly endorsing the journal's editorial brief. PORTAL's commitment to fashioning a genuinely "international" studies rubric is also reflected in our willingness to accept critical and creative work in English as well as in a number of other languages: Bahasa Indonesia, Chinese, Croatian, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, and Serbian. We anticipate that this list will grow. Portal is also committed to the timely and constructive provision of feedback to submitted work. There will be two issues per year: one in January, the other in July. These editorial protocols make PORTAL a uniquely "international" publishing venture. Immense gratitude is due to the team at UTSePress for their dedication to, and faith in, this project. In particular, we would like to thank Alex Byrne, Fides Lawton, Richard Buggy, and Shannon Elbourne, for their hard work, support, and understanding. Thanks go to all the members of the PORTAL Editorial Committee for their contributions. Finally, special thanks to our Editorial Assistant Wayne Peake, Research Assistant John McPhillips and Editorial Committee member Kate Barclay who did so much to ensure the appearance of this inaugural issue. Paul Allatson, Chair, PORTAL Editorial Committee


2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 467-471
Author(s):  
Hongbing Yu

Abstract The present issue of Chinese Semiotic Studies is published in memory of Thomas A. Sebeok. Sebeok was not only a master semiotician, but more importantly a grand artist in semiotics. As one of the most important contemporary figures in semiotics, linguistics, ethnology, and cultural studies, Sebeok made profound contributions to the progress of global semiotics through his distinguished theoretical achievements and promotional activities. His works have proven to be so relevant that they continue to exert a determinative influence and provide directions for the development of semiotics and its many subdivisions, especially biosemiotics, beyond the 20th century. Now, 21 years into the present century, during which semiotic studies around the world have made remarkable progress, it is about time to highlight some specific ways in which his contributions will continue to shape and guide semiotic studies, demonstrating the relevance of these contributions to the 21st century challenges. To this end, this special issue presents some up-to-date and informed studies that explore Sebeok’s contributions to semiotics and their vital implications for fundamental problems relevant to humanity as a semiotic animal in the present day and in the rest of this century and beyond.


1983 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. O. Morris

We recognize that in the general line of trade (or, as we have had underlined again recently, of war) there will be places where ships have to go but where, with the best will in the world, we have not been able to provide adequate charting or even to recommend anyone else's chart as fit for use. The master and his owners, or the naval commanding officer and his operational authorities, have got to weigh the advantages of calling at that port, or using that route, against the danger to the ship and decide whether the gain justifies the risk.In 1973 we were astonished to hear that a foreign coaster on passage from a Bristol Channel port to Penzance had attempted to go between Godrevy Point, the north-eastern head of St Ives Bay, and Godrevy Island, some 2½ cables offshore, at low water. Fortunately for her, she was spotted by the local coastguard before she was irrevocably committed to the passage – and dissuaded. The largest scale chart of the area, Chart 1168, is on a scale of 1: 25000, and shows the passage as some ¾ inch across from high waterline, or less than half an inch between drying rock shelves. Admittedly it did show a narrow gap where the contour lines suggested that more than 5 m of water could be carried through the centre of the passage. The sailing directions state that the channel outside the island, between it and the outer shoals, should not be used without local knowledge. The inner passage is briefly mentioned but no instructions for passing through it are given.


2021 ◽  
pp. 136754942110555
Author(s):  
Zeena Feldman ◽  
Michael K. Goodman

Food and digital culture are mutually implicated in contemporary processes of knowledge production and power contestation around the world. Our introduction and the papers in this special issue of the European Journal of Cultural Studies seek to draw out the distinctions, parallels and overlaps across food and the digital to offer critical insights into digital food culture’s capacities, paradoxes and impacts on everyday life. We ask a series of questions fundamentally focused on issues of power that signal a critical concern for the (re)production and circulation of inequality within the food and digital nexus. For us and the authors here, Cultural Studies is particularly fertile ground from which to analyse digital food culture precisely because of the discipline’s commitment to critiquing power and inequality and its subsequent capacity to illuminate everyday digital food politics and their social, cultural and ethical impacts. This article presents and highlights key questions—and introduces related concepts and theoretical debates—that drive this research agenda. In addition, we address the ways the issue’s papers connect to digital food culture and power after COVID-19. We conclude with a summary of the articles in the issue and their contributions to digital food culture research and cultural studies more broadly.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document