18,103 School of Indigenous Australian Studies at Charles Sturt University, seminar series.

Apologies for cross-posting Researchers from the School of Indigenous Australian Studies at Charles Sturt University are presenting on their research in this seminar series.

Seminar 1

May 12th, 12noon AEST, Dr. Holly Randell-Moon

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“Now entering Pawnee, good luck with that”: Place-making and settler autochthony in Parks and Recreation

Abstract: The North American television show Parks and Recreation focuses on the bureaucratic processes and practices of managing the Parks and Recreation Department for the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana. Filmed in the mockumentary style of television comedies such as The Office, humour is derived from the discrepancy between the self-importance the main character, Leslie Knope, deputy director of the department, attaches to the department’s work and the mundane realities of mid-level bureaucracy in municipal government. Drawing from a co-authored article with Arthur J. Randell, in this presentation, I elaborate on the politics of bureaucracy in place-making, with relation to the Indigenous histories that are produced through bureaucratic relations with the Pawnee Parks Department. Place is central to the construction of bureaucracy in Parks and its comedic aesthetics. By using the mockumentary conceit to focus on public administration, Parks and Recreation reveals the role of bureaucracy in place-making and the attendant histories that are included and excluded in the foundation of settler autochthony.

Holly Randell-Moon is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Indigenous Australian Studies at Charles Sturt University, Australia. Her publications on popular culture, biopower, gender and sexuality have appeared in the edited book collections Common Sense: Intelligence as Presented on Popular Television (2008) and Television Aesthetics and Style (2013) as well as the journals Feminist Media Studies, Celebrity Studies,and Refractory.

Seminar 2

June 16th, 12noon AEST, Professor Sue Green

Seminar 3

August 11th, 12noon AEST, Dr. Nick RuddellDeveloping Inter-cultural STEM Capabilities in Education

Seminar 4

September 8th, 12noon AEST, Dr. Peta JeffriesDecolonising ecologiesFor more information, please visit here: https://criticalindigenousresearch.csu.domains/events/