Monash University Sociology PhD student Charlotte Baines has been elected the youngest female Mayor of the City of Monash, a local government area in south east Melbourne.
Read more about Charlotte's new role as Mayor of the City of Monash

Anna Eriksson has been awarded the Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology New Scholar Prize for 2009. The prize is awarded each year for the best publication in criminology or a related area. Read more about Anna's award

A symposium jointly convened by the Department of Human Services, Victoria and the School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University

26 & 27 November 2009 - Conference Room, Department of Human Services (Lonsdale Street, Melbourne)

Further Symposium information: the program and format, and key speakers - PDF format

The 2009 Sir John Monash Medal for Outstanding Achievement was awarded by the Dean of Arts, Professor Rae Frances, to Criminology Honours student, Laura A Wilson, pictured here with criminologists Dr Dean Wilson and Professor Jude McCulloch. The Sir John Monash Medal for Outstanding Achievement is awarded to final year undergraduate students with excellent academic records who have also achieved excellence in another arena. Only one of these medals is awarded each year.

Laura is a highly dedicated scholar who is committed to community service - especially in assisting the marginalized in our society. An advocate and communicator in the areas of indigenous education, road safety, mentoring and tutoring secondary and tertiary students, student transition and academic progress, primary and secondary care in drug rehabilitation, and involvement in a range of Christian outreach programs and other volunteer networks such as Red Cross. Laura has given highly valuable service in faculty and university education and student experience committees as a student representative. Laura has the notable ability to take practical experience (as with her long involvement with the First Steps drug detoxification program) and combine this with the academic aspects of research into related issues such as drug and road safety. The confidence and clarity with which those far-reaching insights can be communicated to various audiences augers well for a career in academia and/or community service.

Laura is currently studying for a Masters degree with the School of Political and Social Inquiry.

Can risk based practice, theory and politics lead to good outcomes for young people?
Friday March 27th, 2.30 - 5.00pm RMIT City Campus, 56.3.94
(corner of Lygon and Queensberry Streets, ground floor)
Speakers include: Dr Peter Kelly – Head of Behavioural Studies within the School of Political and Social Inquiry at Monash University, Mark Grant - Office for Youth, Professor Rob Watts – RMIT.
RSVP to: youthworkrmit@gmail.com
For more information download flyer here.

The Faculty of Arts at Monash University hosted "Uniting Through Faith @ Monash: Building Relationships between Indonesia and Australia through Interreligious Dialogue" as part of the Uniting Church ‘Uniting through Faith Interfaith Engagement Tour’ on Monday 9th March 2009. For further details please visit: http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/psi/uniting/

Congratulations to the PSI Student Services Team have been awarded the Dean's Award for exceptional performance by Professional Staff. They have "...experienced and successfully dealt with ongoing and often extensive changes within the School, Faculty and University. Regardless of these changes, the level of service they have provided to students and staff has not wavered or faltered. They have been instrumental in “holding together” the PSI team and have made every effort to maintain staff morale, through considerable change." (Rae Frances - 9/12/2008)

In collaboration with the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies at King's College London, Monash is pleased to announce the award of the 2008 Monash Fellowships at King’s College London. Dr Anna Eriksson was awarded a three month fellowship.

Politics lecturer and International Relations expert Dr. Remy Davison has teamed up with Professor Pascaline Winand and Professor Marika Vicziany to receive funding from the Monash Strategic Initiative Fund Program to support a project entitled, 'Teaching on European Integration in the Environment of Globalization: A Comprehensive Course Series to None - European Studies Students'

22nd October at 12.00pm - 4:30pm
Place: Monash City Campus, 7/ 30 Collins Street, City.

The Centre for Women's Studies & Gender Research is pleased to present a cross-disciplinary seminar on artistic and literary collaborations focused on the work of new Monash Fellow, Janine Burke. Dr Burke's Being Geniuses Together: Artist Couples, Communities and Collaborationsinterrogates the notion of the lone (male) genius, replacing it with an examination of rich and fruitful interactions between individuals, the elective affinities that make artistic breakthroughs possible. The Collaborations seminar brings together papers which explore the subtle, complex, emotional connections on which such relationships depend, and sometimes founder.

Lunch will be provided

For further information contact: Sally.Newman@arts.monash.edu.au

Friday 26 September at 1.15pm
Place: Manton Room SGO2. Clayton Campus

Dr Joel Thomas-Crotty, the Associate Dean of Research, will hold an information event for Honours students about HDR possibilities. All are welcome!

During the most recent World Anthropology Conference held by the World Council of Anthropological Association (WCAA) in Osaka (July 2008) Thomas Reuter was elected Deputy Chair of the WCAA. This makes him also the Chair-elect: he will become the new chair when the current chair's term expires. (The current chair is Prof Junji Koizumi, the Vice-President of Osaka University and former president of the Japanese Anthropological Society.) WCAA is the first and only international body representing anthropology on a global scale. Members of the council are the national associations of now 25 countries, including most major associations across all continents. Each association is represented by its president or an international delegate acting on their behalf. This achievement is a measure of Thomas's distinction in his field.

Wednesday 27 February 2008
Time: 2.00-4.00 pm Place: Room PSI Library, Monash Clayton Campus

Abstract: Among which communities do international organizations require legitimacy?

In a recent article Chris Reus-Smit crystallised an assumption implicit within much legitimacy literature by stipulating that 'the constituency an actor must establish legitimacy in' is determined 'by the political realm in which he or she seeks to act.' But is this formulation accurate, or does it confuse a normative ideal with an empirical necessity?

This paper seeks to assess the level of legitimacy that international organizations require among different social constituencies by scrutinising the nature of the 'legitimacy nexus' connecting them. I propose five factors that calibrate this 'legitimacy nexus' and determine the significance of legitimation among specific constituencies for the survival and stability of governance structures. The application of this schema is illustrated through analysis of the extraordinary mass legitimation requirements that faced the international system in 1919 and resulted in the creation of the International Labour Organization as a tripartite body comprising of state, union and employer representatives. This research challenges a view that is common in both empirical and normative legitimacy literatures that legitimation by world society will gradually displace legitimation by international society. Instead, I argue that IO’s legitimation requirements fluctuate with changes in ideas, depth of global governance and the relative power of states and civil society.

Tuesday 20 February 2008
Time: 4.00-6.00 pm Place: Room H5.101, Monash Caulfield Campus

The Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, The Monash Asia Institute and the Centre for Muslim Minorities and Islam Policy Studies (CMMIPS) soon to be renamed the
Centre for Islam and Democracy, invites you to a Public Seminar: Democracy in Indonesia through Middle Eastern eyes: The view from Jerusalem .

Giora Eliraz is a Research Fellow at the Harry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His Ph.D. thesis, Egyptian Intellectuals in the Face of Tradition and Change, was written under the supervision of Prof. Emanuel Sivan at the Hebrew University. He is the author of Islam in Indonesia: Modernism, Radicalism and the Middle East Dimension, Brighton & Portland: Sussex Academic Press, 2004. For twenty years, from 1982 to February 2002, he worked in the Israeli Prime Minister's Office, specializing in political and strategic research.

All staff, postgraduate students and interested persons are most welcome.

For more information please contact:
Prof Greg Barton (0419 871170 Greg.Barton@arts.monash.edu.au)

Tuesday 12 February 2008
Time: 5.00-6.00 pm lecture 6.00-6.30 pm discussion 7:00 pm restaurant booking
Place: Main Lecture Theatre, La Trobe University City Campus, 215 Franklin Street

Professor Alan Petersen is a distinguished health sociologist, formerly of Murdoch and Curtin Universities, WA and most recently, Plymouth University, UK. Alan has recently commenced as Discipline Convenor in the School of Political and Social Inquiry at Monash University. Alan specialises in the sociology of health and illness (particularly sociology of public health and health promotion) and has published extensively on the sociology of the body, sociology of risk, sociology of biotechnologies and bioethics and news media and the biosciences.

To celebrate his return to Australia after several years in the UK, Alan will present a lecture entitled ‘Working across fields: Health sociologists and interdisciplinary research’, to be followed by an informal discussion and dinner in Melbourne. The lecture is free of charge and all are welcome.

The lecture will be held in the main lecture theatre (ground floor just inside the main doors). It is opposite the Victoria Market off the roundabout (with the white sculptures) at the top of Franklin street. Parking is not usually a problem at that time nearby (parking meters). Alternatively, public transport is to Melbourne Central station or walk across up Franklin Street from the trams on Swanston Street. Across the roundabout is an excellent café called Arrivederci Aroma (408 Queen St). Rather than have tea and coffee available at the lecture, some will grab a coffee there from 4.30 pm onwards.

Following Alan’s lecture, you are welcome to join us for dinner at Maria's Trattoria, 122-124 Peel Street, North Melbourne. The restaurant is BYO and PAYG (pay as you go). This is on the other side of the Victoria market about ten minutes walk. A map and details can be seen at http://www.eatability.com.au/au/melbourne/maria_trattoria/map.htm

If you would like more information about the seminar or to attend the dinner please RSVP to Kate Seear by no later than Friday, February 8th, 2008.

July 3 - 4 2008

Symposium jointly supported by the School of Political and Social Inquiry and the School of Historical Studies, Monash University.

Click here for more information.

16 January 2008
H5.101 (Building H, Level 5, Room 101).
Monash University, Melbourne (Caulfield campus).

Speaker:
Professor Michael Minkenberg, Max Weber Professor of European Studies at New York University

APA (Australian Postgraduate Award) Awardees
Debra Smith	Politics
Edwina Howell	Anthroplogy
Vicky Nagy	Women's Studies
Davina Lohm	Sociology
David Tittensor	Politics
Sasha Maher	Anthropology
Perri Campbell	Behavioural Studies
MGS (Monash Graduate Scholarship) Awardees
Farhana Hashem	Women's Studies
Sandra Bader	Anthropology
Julian Madsen	Politics
ARTS FACULTY 'NEAR-MISS' SCHOLARSHIPS (one-year)
Debra McCormick	Behavioural Studies
Fiona Brookes	Behavioural Studies
ARTS FACULTY T and R (Teaching and Research) SCHOLARSHIP
Jacqui Gately	Behavioural Studies

29th-30th November 2007
H2.20 (Building H, Level 2, Room 20).
Monash University, Melbourne (Caulfield campus).

Confirmed Keynote Speaker:
Ass. Professor Armando Salvatore, Naples/Berlin/Essen

Call for papers:

The aim of the workshop is to provide an opportunity for scholars working within the field of interculturality, broadly conceived, to discuss theoretical approaches to this area of inquiry. Although the field of interculturality is well established, critical and systematic reflection on theoretical approaches to the intercultural world has been comparatively neglected. This workshop is intended to encourage the elaboration of varied theoretical perspectives from a range of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, to offer an opportunity for the presentation of such perspectives, and to provide a forum for in-depth collective discussion of issues and questions.

All Welcome!

For catering purposes, please RSVP by November 15th.

Co-sponsored by the School of Political and Social Inquiry,
the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics and the
Sociology Program
Monash University

Visit the workshop website for further information

Contact Debbie McCormick
Tuesday 27th November 9:00am
Manton Rooms, Ground Floor of the Menzies Building 11, Monash University Caulfield
Cost: Free

New students can learn from their peers at the annual symposium run by postgraduate students from the School of Political and Social Inquiry on 27 November.

The symposium allows new students to introduce themselves and their work to the postgraduate community, so that confirmed students can share and receive feedback on their research and ideas.

Participants at the symposium and subsequent dinner are also able to socialise in a relaxed environment, allowing for the development of both professional networks and personal friendships.

The full-day event will be held in the Manton Rooms on the ground floor of the Menzies Building, building number 11 on the Clayton campus.

A focus this year is to attract non-research students, including coursework postgraduates, honours students who may be interested in becoming postgraduate students, and members of the broader undergraduate community who may be curious about the workings of the Monash community and research being undertaken.

Debbie McCormick, one of the conference organisers, said speakers had been invited to address the symposium from across the Arts faculty.

"Although the symposium has been organised by The School of Political and Social Inquiry, this year we are delighted to include speakers from other schools and centres including the National Centre for Australian Studies, the Centre for Population and Urban Research, Humanities, Communications & Social Sciences and even the faculty of Law," she said.

Registrations for the Symposium and post-symposium dinner are now open.

Click here to Register.

Authored by Kylie Baxter

Thursday 29 November, 11:30am
Room SG03, Ground Floor, Menzies Building (11)
Monash University, Melbourne (Clayton campus).

To be launched by Hanifa Deen

British Muslims and the call to global jihad by Kylie Baxter is the first monograph in a new series titled "Islam and Muslim Affairs" to be published by Monash Asia Institute in association with the Centre of Muslim Minorities and Islam Policy Studies. Since the events of 11 September 2001, Western Muslim communities have been placed under a social and political microscope. Omar Bakri Muhammad and his organisation al-Muhajiroun, based in London from the mid-1990s until 2004, endorsed militant jihad and generated a very public profile as the voice of "Islamism" in the United Kingdom.

Al-Muhajiroun's tenure in the United Kingdom spanned a crucial decade in international relations and the organisation acted as a lightening rod for the debates surrounding Islamism in the West. Drawing on interviews with Bakri, British Muslims and the call to global jihad explores the ways in which al-Muhajiroun attempted, and ultimately, failed to "walk the line" between Islamism and life in a Western state.

* Kylie Baxter is Lecturer and Deputy Director of the Centre for Muslim Minorities and Islam Policy Studies at the School of Political & Social Inquiry, Monash University.

* Hanifa Deen is an award winning Australian author of Pakistani-Muslim ancestry and has served in many community and government positions including the Hearing Commissioner for Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission of Australia.

Her publications include:

* 2006 The Pen and the Crescent: the Strange Journey of Taslima Nasreen, Praeger. * 2003/1995 Caravanserai: A Journey Among Australian Muslims (St. Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1995) won a NSW Premier's Literary Award in 1996. A revised and updated edition of Caravanserai (rewritten in the shadow of the September 11 tragedy) was released in May 2003 by Fremantle Arts Centre Press. * 1998 Broken Bangles (Sydney: Anchor Books, 1998) - was short-listed in 1998 for a literary award and was also published in India by Penguin-India in 2000.

Authored by Bree Carlton

Guest Speakers include Jude McCulloch
Wednesday 21st November 6.30pm
Readings Bookstore 253 Bay St Port Melbourne

29 October 2007 marks twenty years since the death of five prisoners in a riot and fire in the infamous Jika Jika high-security unit. This book resurrects these events and invites us to learn urgent lessons in our current age of supermax and privatised prisons, detention of asylum seekers and the controversial use of indefinite detention under the banner of a 'war on terror'.

Imprisoning Resistance provides an experiential account of life and death in the controversial Pentridge Prison Jika Jika High-Security Unit in Victoria during the 1980s. One of Australia's first hi-tech supermax prisons, Jika Jika was designed to house and manage the system's 'worst of the worst' prisoners.

Several years of deaths in custody, multiple escapes, assaults, murders, prisoner campaigns and protests, hunger strikes and allegations of prison staff brutality escalated in 1987 to a dramatic protest fire that resulted in the deaths of five prisoners. The prison was closed and a series of inquiries were commissioned.

Bree Carlton revisits this uncomfortable past and reconstructs events leading up to and surrounding the fire and deaths, while critically analysing official responses to the discreditable episodes, crises and deaths that plagued Jika Jika. To view the invitation, click here.

By Prof Douglas Pratt, University of the Waikato

Monday 19th November am 2:00pm- 4:00pm
H5.101, Monash University Caulfield

For nearly a century the term 'fundamentalism' has referred to a set of specific Christian beliefs and an allied ultra-conservative attitude. However, usage of the term has broadened: 'fundamentalism', as indicating the position of a 'closed mind' coupled with a negative – even hostile – stance toward the status quo, has migrated into political discourse and the wider religious realm. Arguably, 'fundamentalism' today names an ideological perspective found in most, if not all, major religions. Most disturbingly, it is now associated with variant forms of extremism and religiously-oriented terrorism.

This paper will argue that the fundamentalism with which religious extremism is associated follows an identifiable paradigm: 'fundamentalism' has wide applicability. In its religious mode, 'fundamentalism' denotes, among other things, a paradigm that paves the way from the relative harmlessness of an idiosyncratic and dogmatic belief system to the harmful reality of religiously driven and fanatically followed pathways of terrorist activity. I shall attempt to describe and analyse this paradigm to demonstrate the palpable link between religious fundamentalism per se (although the paradigm arguably extends to include non-religious fundamentalisms) and terrorism.

Professor Pratt is author of __The Challenge of Islam: Encounters in Interfaith Dialogue__, Ashgate 2005 and is deeply engaged in theologically sophisticated dialogue between Christian and Muslim groups. There is more information in the attached press cutting.

Supported by:

UNESCO Chair in Interreligious and Intercultural Relations - Asia Pacific
Sociology and the Global Terrorism Research Centre of the
School of Political and Social Inquiry

The Faculty of Arts, via the Centre for Muslim Minorities and Islam Policy Studies (CMMIPS) in the School of Political and Social Inquiry (PSI) is proud to announce the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with the Centre for Christian-Muslim Studies, Balamand University, Lebanon. This agreement is the result of contacts established by CMMIPS lecturer Kylie Baxter during her participation in a Council of Australian-Arab Relations visit to the Middle East in April 2007.

For more information, click here.

Come hear Waleed Aly speak about issues surrounding Islam and the West that are the subject of his first book, "People Like Us: How Arrogance Is Dividing Islam and the West".
As a Muslim born and raised in Australia, Waleed stands at the intersection of Islam and the West, revealing new insights as he unpacks the hype and hypocrisy of the media. He examines the so-called cultural chasm between the two 'cultures', teasing out the elements in those sites of difference identified as women, jihad, reformation, modernity and secularism. And scrutinises the underlying core issues.
A regular columnist in The Age, Waleed Aly is a former board member of the Islamic Council of Victoria and lecturer in politics at Monash University. This event will be facilitated by Liz Thompson from Fairwear.

TODAY:Wednesday 26 September
TIME: 6pm
WHERE: Trades Hall, cnr Victoria and Lygon sts, CARLTON

There is no need to book. The book will be on sale for $32.95 Entry by donation to NIBS FOR MORE INFORMATION contact Judy McVey 03 9662 3744 nibs@nibs.org.au

As part of the School of Political and Social Inquiry’s course PLT4430 Political Islam, a video-link was held on 17 September 2007 between Monash students and the students and staff of An-Najah University, Nablus.

This video-link provided Monash students with an invaluable insight into the dynamics of the Palestinian political situation. Centre for Muslim Minorities and Islam Policy Studies’s (CMMIPS) lecturer, Kylie Baxter has been running these video-links for Politics students since 2005. In this year’s link, An-Najah University offered a brief history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, an overview of the “Right to Education” campaign and explained the realities of daily life under Israeli occupation.

Following the presentations, Monash students had the opportunity to ask questions which covered a gamut of topics including the personal experiences of students directly caught up in the conflict, the dynamics surrounding the construction of the separating wall, and the ground realities of the political schism between Hamas and Fatah.

Monash Annual Indonesia Lecture Series 2007

Presented by the Centre of Southeast Asian Studies of the Monash Asia Institute and Anthropology, School of Political and Social Inquiry, Faculty of Arts, Monash University, in association with ABC Radio Australia, and the Australian-Indonesian Association of Victoria Inc. This is not to be missed!

Venue: Monash University Caulfield Campus, building K, level 3, lecture theatre 09
For map of Caulfield campus click here.

Monday 24th September
5.00-5.30pm drinks in foyer of lecture theatre K3.09
5.30-6.30pm Indonesian buffet (halal)
6.30pm lectures commence
Provision will be made for those wishing to attend evening prayers

To view the lecture series program click here

Authored by Professor James Walter & Dr. Paul Strangio

Do not miss out on the opportunity to celebrate the release of this famed publication. To be launched at the Australiasian Political Science Association's Annual Conference by Judy Brett, Professor of Politics, La Trobe University. To view your invitation, click here.

Co-authored by Dr. Andrew Singleton

A book launch celebrating the release of the new book will be held at the Australian Catholic University, Friday the 5th of October. All are encouraged to celebrate this achievement by attending. To view the invitation, click here.

Dr Andrew Singleton is a Lecturer in the Sociology department at Monash University. Andrew has a BA (Honours) and PhD, both from Monash. His research interests include the sociology of men and masculinity and spirituality in contemporary society. Andrew is the Sociology Undergraduate Coordinator and Honours Coordinator.

Monash 20th August 2007, 4pm
PSI Library (W.10.22), Menzies Building, Clayton Campus

A celebratory gathering will be held to award the 2007 Postgraduate Publication Prize/s and commendations.

Eleven candidates had papers read and considered by a panel and we have awarded a prize to two candidates and will highly recommend two others. Publications considered were any singly authored and already recorded in the 2006/7 research publication round. There were some 20+ papers read (several candidates published multiply last year) from candidates across the School. The standard was generally high and we have reason to celebrate all of them.

Dr Michael Janover will introduce the winners and the HOS, Professor James Walter, will present the prizes. To enhance the collegial joie de vivre drinks and nibbles will provided. I trust that all will want to join in celebrating and encouraging the work and achievements of our PhD and MA candidates.

Congratulations to Denise Cuthbert!

Associate Professor Denise Cuthbert, from Sociology in the School of Political and Social Inquiry has received a Citation for Outsanding Contributions to Student Learning in the 2007 Carrick Australian Awards for University Teaching.

We congratulate Denise on this recognition of her truly outstanding work in the graduate training area, and, in particular, for her excellence as a graduate supervisor.

Congratulations to Ms Genevieve Heard!

Ms Genevieve Heard, from Centre for Population and Urban Research in the School of Political and Social Inquiry has won the Faculty of Arts Postgraduate Publication Prize for her article 'Pronatalism Under Howard' published in People and Place.