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A University Course In White Trash Studies

by | 4th, December 2008

SO bad was George Bush at being president that Americans voted for a black man. And now Barack Obama is in charge, there is nothing for white men to do other then discuss where it all went wrong.

Nowhere is the debate more earnest than at Australia’s Monash University.

‘Re-Orienting Whiteness’ invites scholars to explore the potential, or otherwise, of ‘whiteness’ in analysing the operations of ‘race’, past and present. The conference particularly seeks to bring whiteness studies into a closer conversation with other approaches to ‘race’, particularly those which have emerged from studies of colonialism and postcolonial theory. There has been remarkably little cross fertilisation between these areas of scholarship, despite the many obvious synergies between them. We envision the conference traversing a variety of countries, periods, methodologies and theoretical concepts, bringing together scholars of diverse backgrounds and interests. Broadening out from the (settler colonial) context of the United States, we wish to explore how whiteness operated in colonial and non-colonial contexts across the globe.

sounds great. So who are the big players in White Trash Studies?

Professor Ann Curthoys
Keynote Address/Public Lecture: ‘White British, and Genocidal’…

 

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I want to tease out the connections and dissonances historically between white identities and British identities, and the relationship of both of these to the destructive impact of colonization in the Australian colonies. I want to consider where historical responsibility lies for the enormous destruction of life and society wrought by the process of colonization (the British authorities? the settlers? colonial governments

Ann Curthoys is an Australian Research Council Professorial Fellow and was the Manning Clark Professor of History at the Australian National University from 1996 to November 2008….She is currently writing a short book with Ann McGrath for UNSW Press called How to Write History that People want to Read.

Professor Aileen Moreton-Robinson
Keynote Address: ‘Writing off Indigenous Sovereignty: White possession within the United States’ Whiteness Studies literature’ …

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Aileen Moreton-Robinson is a Geonpul woman from Minjerribah (Stradbroke Island), Quandamooka First Nation (Moreton Bay) in Queensland, Australia. She is Professor of Indigenous Studies at Queensland University of Technology. Prior to this appointment she taught Women’s Studies at Flinders University and Indigenous studies at Griffith University and the University of South Australia…

Professor Lynette Russell
Keynote Address: ‘Race Incarnadine: The Fluidity of Nineteenth-century Categories of Race, Colour and Competency’

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Lynette Russell is hold the Chair in Australian Indigenous Studies at Monash University, in Melbourne, Australia, where she also Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Arts…

Select Publications
… ‘“Whiteness” and “Aboriginality” in Canada and Australia: Conversations and Identities’, Feminist Theory 8, no. 2 (2007).

Associate Professor Matt Wray
Keynote Address: ‘Whiteness Studies and Boundary Theory: New Contributions and Future Research’

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This paper briefly traces the development of whiteness studies in the United States from 1990 to 2008…

Select Publications

Not Quite White: White Trash and the Boundaries of Whiteness (Duke University Press, 2006); “That Ain’t White: The Long and Ugly History of ‘Trash’ Talk.” American Sexuality Magazine. (May 2007); … White Trash: Race and Class in America (Routledge, 1997).

So this is where all the white people have gone..

Spotter



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