“Inside Australian Culture: Legacies of Enlightenment Values” offers a critical intervention in the continuing effects of colonization in Australia and the structures it brought, which still inform and dominate its public culture. Through a careful analysis of three disparate but significant moments in Australian history, the authors investigate the way the British Enlightenment continues to dominate contemporary Australian thinking and values. Employing the lens of Indian cultural theorist Ashis Nandy, the authors argue for an Australian public culture that is profoundly conscious of its assumptions, history and limitations.

A 2001 survey of the changing policies and priorities that are evident in a range of contemporary cultural institutions in Australia.

From countries that are spread across archipelagos to micro-island nations of the Pacific Realm to the continent-country of Australia, the cultures that have emerged from this region are some of the world's most diverse. The many nations and ethnic groups that can be found in this area, also called Oceania, have each produced a unique culture. With fact-filled text and full-color photographs, this book takes readers on an adventure through the history and traditions of Australia and the Pacific Realm.

Have you ever dreamed of living in foreign and faraway places? Have you ever wondered how, in such places, your cultural identity and your sense of self would endure? Malaysian students have been organising cultural festivals in the land, Down Under for more than 20 years. These festivals play host to cultural heritage performances that represent the various ethnicities found in the Malaysian homeland. However, very little is known about the way these diasporic performances differ from those in the homeland, and whether these differences can adversely affect the Malaysian identity they are intended to represent. This book presents the role of intangible cultural heritage performances in developing a sense of identity amongst diasporic communities by focusing on the martial art performance of Silat at three Malaysian festivals in Australia. The martial art of Silat is acknowledged in Malaysia as a Malay cultural heritage and a Malaysian national heritage. Silat contains the typical fighting skills and strategies that can be found in other martial arts. However, the culture of Silat also has the element of performance. In Malaysia, Silat is traditionally performed either in private or public contexts. As a Silat practitioner, I have personally experienced performing Silat in my Malaysian homeland and in the diasporic environment of Australia. Using participant observation in Melbourne, my own participation as a Silat performer in Sydney and Brisbane, together with numerous interviews with other performers, members of the audience, festival attendees and festival organisers, this book reveals how the performance of Silat in Malaysian festivals reflects the diasporic and multicultural identities of Malaysian communities in Australia. The information in this book provides refreshing insights into the martial art of Silat from a personal as well as diasporic perspective.

Australia is one of the most ethnically diverse societies in the world today. From its ancient indigenous origins to British colonisation followed by waves of European then international migration in the twentieth century, the island continent is home to people from all over the globe. Each new wave of settlers has had a profound impact on Australian society and culture. The Australian People documents the dramatic history of Australian settlement and describes the rich ethnic and cultural inheritance of the nation through the contributions of its people. It is one of the largest reference works of its kind, with approximately 250 expert contributors and almost one million words. Illustrated in colour and black and white, the book is both a comprehensive encyclopedia and a survey of the controversial debates about citizenship and multiculturalism now that Australia has attained the centenary of its federation.

Cultural studies has emerged as a major force in the analysis of cultural systems and their relation to social power. "Rather than being interested in television or architecture or pinball machines themselves - as industrial or aesthetic structures - cultural studies tends to be interested in the way such apparatuses work as points of concentration of social meaning, as 'media' (literally)", according to John Frow and Meaghan Morris. Here, two of Australia's leading cultural critics bring together work that represents a distinctive national tradition, moving between high theory and detailed readings of localized cultural practices. Ethnographic audience research, cultural policy studies, popular consumption, "bad" aboriginal art, landscape in feature films, style, form and history in TV miniseries, and the intersections of tourism with history and memory - these are among the topics addressed in a landmark volume that cuts across myriad traditional disciplines.

Locating Asian Australian Cultures is a timely and challenging interdisciplinary compilation that sets a contemporary benchmark for Asian Australian studies and its future directions. In the dynamic field of diasporic Asian studies, Asian Australian Studies is an emerging and contentious area. While cognisant of issues and critical developments in North America, Europe, and Asia, Asian Australian studies forges its own specific engagements with questions of identity, racialization, and nationalisms in a world of globalized cultures and movements. This book deliberately engages with international perspectives on Asian Australian studies that offer contingent connections and address crucial questions for fields that are rapidly 'de-nationalizing'. The volume focuses on Asian Australian cultural production and identity, presenting work that interrogates notions of belonging and citizenship, representational politics, and disciplinarity in the academy. The broad-ranging essays examine the politics of Asian Australian art and literature, as well as the area's significant interventions in disciplinary formations nationally and internationally. Other essays discuss the Vietnamese War memorial in Cabramatta, notions of the 'sacrificial Asian' in contemporary films, and Chinatown sites in Australia. This book will be essential reading not only for researchers in Asian Australian studies but also for those with an interest in Asian diaspora and Australian studies.

Draws on scholarship from leading figures in the field and spans Australian literary history from colonial origins, indigenous and migrant literatures, as well as representations of Asia and the Pacific and the role of literary culture in modern Australian society.