Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference 14-17th December 2016 Program Index

creative risk. Briefs describe themselves as “an all-male sharp shootin’ cabaret of burlesque with balls, highflying
circus bandits & savage gender offenders.” A mash-up of circus, vaudeville, drag and burlesque,
featuring some of Australia’s most prolific contemporary circus artists, Briefs is based in Brisbane,
Queensland. Their work has had a highly significant impact on the contemporary circus industry nationally
and internationally. They have undertaken successive tours to London, Edinburgh and Berlin. Recent reviews
characterize them as an “Aussie Cirque du Soleil meets Ru Paul’s Drag Race”. Performer and creative
director, Fez Fa’anana explains, “Briefs likes to toy with notions of identity, masculinity and politics in a
glittery way”. By examining the work of Briefs Factory I will demonstrate some of the conceptual frameworks
and thematics that are shaping the structure of my doctoral research into Australian contemporary circus.
Exploring ideas of gender performativity, body theory and the notion of “other”, this paper aims to uncover
the position of Australian contemporary circus companies as innovators in the art form.
2L
Challenging academic cultures (Chair, Ruth Barcan)
Ron Krabill
Radical Reciprocity: Challenging Discourses of Global Citizenship in Higher Education
University mission statements worldwide claim that a central goal of higher education is the production of
global citizens. Yet what is meant by a global citizen remains amorphous, as do the particular mechanisms by
which higher education might construct such citizens. This paper follows Mahmood Mamdani’s work in
Citizen and Subject (1996) to claim that the discursive production of global citizens in higher education
depends on the production of global subjects as well. The construction of the global citizen – enlightened,
cosmopolitan, humanitarian, well-resourced, active – takes shape only in contrast to the global subject as
the ignorant, provincial, violent, impoverished, passive recipient of the citizen’s humanitarian action.
Buttressed by sentimentalism in media representations of the humanitarian, students often expect that
becoming a global citizen means simultaneously embarking on a humanitarian project of their own in the
postcolony, regardless of the impact of that project.
Mayumi Ishikawa*, Junko Otani*, Michael Annear & Xin Gao* The rise of “world class” universities and changing
scholarship in Asia: competitions, engagements and representations
The global drive for “world class” universities has transformed Asia’s research universities. They have
become competitors for superior positions in the university rankings, proactively recruiting international
students and scholars and publishing internationally so as to improve research quality assessment indicators.
Such developments foretell different futures for higher education, offering both hope and concerns for
regional convergence and divergence. On the one hand, globalization increases the contact and mobility of
scholars and students as well as sharing of information, values, and questions. It also promotes competition,
resulting in increased productivity on shared research agendas. On the other hand, the quest for “world
class” universities increases the risk of homogenization by the dominant use of English and the erosion of
attention to local research agendas. The paper thus asks several questions at the crossroads of future
directions of transforming/globalising universities.
Claudia Kunschak
Transforming academic culture: Points of contention and opportunities for engagement
Globalization has brought with it an internationalization of academic culture that has both supporters and
detractors but is probably here to stay. Top level administrators tend to relish it as it brings new customers,
markets and income; students mostly support it even though they might not take advantage of all options
now available to them. It is at the mid-level, among faculty and staff, where daily challenges and ideological
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