Curated Issue: Cultural Works—Transitions and Dislocations, Introduction

Introduction to the curated issue of PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, Cultural Works—Transitions and Dislocations. Some parts of this introduction contain material previously published in my review of Silvia Spitta's Misplaced Objects: Migrating Collections and Recollections in Europe and the Americas (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2009), in The Comparatist, 34 (May 2010), pp. 201–7

Editor's welcome, PORTAL, Vol. 4, No. 1, January 2007

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 Committe

Editor's welcome, PORTAL, Vol. 2, No. 2, July 2005

Welcome to the July 2005 issue of Portal, a special issue with the title ‘Strange Localities: Utopias, Intellectuals and Identities in the 21st Century,’ guest edited by Alistair Fox and Hilary Radner (both from the University of Otago, New Zealand), who convened an international colloquium on this theme in January 2004, and Murray Pratt (University of Technology Sydney, Australia). As Alistair Fox says in his introduction to the special issue, the twelve papers gathered under the ‘Strange Localities’ rubric provide rich insights into the ways by which ‘the contemporary utopian impulse is expressing itself, both in the search for utopia, and through the exposure of false utopias.’ With a broad geographical reach, and an equally broad critical gaze, the essays collected here shed new light on the critical, yet often ambivalent, role that identity politics play in myriad utopian projects, and also in such critical enterprises and epoch-defining processes as postcolonialism, postfeminism, postmodernism, transnationalism, multiculturalism, and economic and cultural globalization. In addition to the papers collected in the special issue section, this issue of Portal includes a number of essays that, while not addressing the special issue theme, also have much to say about the nexus between contemporary identity debates, intellectual practice, and utopian imaginaries. We are also pleased to introduce in the Portal Cultural Works' section two short chronicle-like pieces by Moses Iten, a young Australian writer. Paul Allatson, Chair, PORTAL Editorial Committe

Editor's welcome, PORTAL, Vol. 1, No. 1, January 2004

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 Committe

The Global Classroom in Action: Thirty Years of International Studies at the University of Technology Sydney

2024 marks a significant milestone for the Bachelor of Arts in International Studies (BAIS) and its successor, the Bachelor of International Studies (BIS), at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS): 30 years of pioneering global education and the fostering of international and transcultural understanding. To commemorate this anniversary in this issue of Portal: Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, a selection of academic staff, past and present, who have contributed to the program, share their memories and insights through short essays and reflective pieces. This initiative seeks to honour the diverse experiences and pedagogical innovations that have shaped the program’s success over the decades. It also aims to explain the inevitable evolution of international studies at UTS in the wake of the global pandemic whose associated travel restrictions forced a rethink of how UTS might better deliver international studies with an array of new “internationalised/ising” experiences some of which start right here, where we are now. &nbsp

A Transcultural Experiment: U.S. Latino Studies at UTS

In 2001, shortly after I joined as a newly minted academic the Institute for International Studies at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), the then founder and Director of the program, Professor David Goodman, approached me to canvas the possibility of a Latino USA Major in the Bachelor of Arts in International Studies (BAIS) degree. These are my reflections on this transcultural experiment in international studies at UTS

Siempre feliz en mi falda: Luis Alfaro’s Simulative Challenge

“Siempre feliz en mi falda: Luis Alfaro’s Simulative Challenge.” GLQ 5.2 (1999): 199–230. DOI:10.1215/10642684-5-2-19

Editor's welcome, PORTAL, Vol. 5, No. 2, July 2008

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 Committe

Editor's welcome, PORTAL, Vol. 3, No. 1, January 2006

Welcome to the first appearance of PORTAL for 2006 (vol. 3, no. 1), a special issue entitled ‘Other Worlds’ guest edited by James Goodman and Christina Ho from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney (UTS). The papers collected in this special issue focus on what the guest editors call “the transformative power of social movements” that respond to the processes and discourses of globalization and globalism by generating alternative sites and spaces of agency, or ‘other worlds.’ The contributors to the issue originally presented papers at a conference held in April 2005 in Sydney, with the title ‘Other Worlds: Social Movements and the Making of Alternatives.’ That conference was organized by the Research Initiative on International Activism at UTS, and supported by the Research Committee on Social Movements and Collective Action of the International Sociological Association. The Editorial Committee of PORTAL would like to thank both institutions for their support of the event that led to this special issue. I would also like to thank Wayne Peake, Kate Barclay, and Murray Pratt for their editorial efforts in seeing this issue through to publication.
 
 The Editorial Committee is pleased to showcase in the Cultural Works Section a short meditative piece by local writer Joel Scott, who is currently undertaking studies in Pamplona, Spain. When considered in the context of the special issue’s discussions of ‘other worlds’ that precede it, Scott’s ‘God, We’re Not Immigrants! A Reflection on Moving and Staying,’ provides an evocative insight into the sociocultural and imaginative limits that may preclude the construction of alternative ‘worlds.

Editor's welcome, PORTAL, Vol. 6, No. 1, January 2009

‘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