2nd Biennial International Conference on “Redefining Australia and New Zealand: Changes, Innovations, Reversals”, Warsaw, 16-17 September 2019

This conference will be taking place at the Faculty of Modern Languages building, University of Warsaw. The purpose of our conference is to consolidate research groups in the field of Australian and New Zealand Studies, and to promote the culture of Australia and New Zealand in Europe. For our Warsaw conference, which will be followed by a publication, we aim to bring together scholars representing a variety of disciplines including history, political science, law, sociology, literary studies, film studies, linguistics in order to achieve a truly interdisciplinary perspective on Australia and New Zealand past and present; we would also be interested in hosting authors and artists who could offer us unique insights into the cultures of the Australasian region.

We invite papers on topics connected with, but not limited to, the exploration of Australian and New Zealand identities in a wide range of cultural texts, such as film, theatre, architecture, visual arts and media, including the social media and advertising. Based on notions of heterotopia and thirdspace, the proposals may address issues related to spaces of representation as ‟the terrain for the generation of ʽcounterspaces,’ spaces of resistance to the dominant order arising precisely from their subordinate, peripheral or marginalized positioning” (Soja 1996, 68). Hence, the proposed papers may discuss power relations that affect both the construction and the representation of gender, ethnic and class identities in a variety of contexts. Referring to Benedict Anderson’s notion of ‟imagined communities,” the proposals may also explore the importance of history and geography in the process of creating Australian and New Zealand identities. The scope of themes may address (but is not limited to):

• History (Innovative Perspectives on Australia’s and New Zealand’s Past)

• The ANZAC ‘Myth’ (De-Re-Constructions of Australia’s and New Zealand’s Participation in the Great War, the Second World War, and Post-1945 Military Conflicts)

• Race and the Nation (Indigenous Peoples in Colonial versus Post-Colonial Perspectives on

Australia and New Zealand in Past and Contemporary Cultures)

• Multiculturalism (Inclusion versus ‟Otherness” in Australia and New Zealand of the ʽHereand Now’)

• Gender (ʽFeminising’ the Past and Present of Australia and New Zealand; the Politics of Constructing National ʽMasculinities’; the Female versus the Male Body)

• Environment (The Ideology of Landscape: Australia and New Zealand from Ecocritical Perspectives)

• Linguistics (The Epistemology and Ideology of Language – Dialect/Discourse in the Australian and New Zealand National Contexts)

• Culture (Popularizing/Re-Thinking Australia and New Zealand in Literature, Film, Internet –Genres, Forms, Medias)

• Critical Theory (The Influence of Contemporary Thinking on Our Understanding of Australia’s and New Zealand’s Past and Present)

• Contemporary Politics and Geopolitical Challenges(Australia’s and New Zealand’s Present and Future)

For more information and abstract submission guidelines, see:

Image Credit: David Rumsey Historical Map Collection