Office of Graduate Research

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Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
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    Blunting the Cutting Edge? Analogue Memorabilia and Digitised Memory
    (Hungarian Communication Studies Association, 2018) Brabazon, Tara
    What happens to disintermediated, flattened, plural and resistive popular culture when classic rock is corporatized and the audience is middle aged white men? This article is provoked by Bob Dylan’s The Cutting Edge, the expensive reissuing of his albums from 1965 and 1966 in 2015, to offer a theorization of digital recording and sharing of analogue unboxing cultures. My interest particularly focuses on the audience of this affluent product and the odd cultural responses from the male audience. How do scholars of popular culture understand this shared enthusiasm for unpackaging consumerist items? The solution posed in this article is the deployment of Jean Baudrillard’s theories to understand and manage the cascading simulacrum.
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    The deficit doctorate: multimodal solutions to enable differentiated learning
    (Ishik University, 2018-06) Brabazon, Tara
    The doctoral space is intricate, complex and convoluted. It is torn between individual and institutional commitments, local and international relationships, standards and standardization. This paper does not atomise or discuss individual doctoral supervision, but instead explores how institutions around the world train supervisors, and also create expectations for student and supervisory relationships. The key is to move beyond experiential ideologies and individual relationships, to understand the supervisory relationship in the broader institutional context and the international environment for research.
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    Digital fitness: Self-monitored fitness and the commodification of movement
    (RMIT Publishing, 2015) Brabazon, Tara
    This article moves beyond a history of domestic home video fitness programs to explore digital fitness with specific attention to the self-monitored fitness 'movement' and the hardware and software that facilitate its proliferation. The research in this area is currently conducted through preliminary small scale studies, alongside some flawed but still (inadvertently) useful undergraduate and graduate projects. Popular cultural interest is burgeoning, with the popularity of the Fitbit suite and the iWatch surging through an array of commentaries on blogs, YouTube videos, tweets and Facebook posts. This theoretical paper links digitisation with fitness to explore the balance between self-monitoring and surveillance, motivation and shaming. The Fitbit is an example of this self-monitored fitness 'movement' that reveals the ambivalence of quantifying steps and stairs while managing a volatile neoliberal working environment.
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    Don’t fear the reaper? The zombie university and eating braaaains
    (Hungarian Communication Studies Association, 2016-11-30) Brabazon, Tara
    This article explores the role and function of neoliberalism in higher education, particularly in its manifestations after the Global Financial Crisis. Theories of managerialism are overlaid not only with questions about the purpose and role of higher education in the economy, but also the renegotiation of power and identity after 2008. Ulrich Beck’s zombie concept is reactivated and applied to the university. The paper moves through a discussion of the zombie and Beck’s zombie categories and concepts, and then concludes with a section applying these ideas to higher education.
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    The pushbike song: Rolling physical cultural studies through the landscape
    (2015-11) Brabazon, Tara; McRae, L; Redhead, Steve
    This article explores how small cities use cycling for both residential transportation and active tourism. While cycling may be child’s play, and indeed a part of childhood socialization, the ‘pushbike’ has a role in regional development. Our work investigates cycling and cycling policy. We then focus on one small city at the southern tip of Western Australia. Albany is attempting to transform itself into a cycling city and an international capital of cycling. This article engages trans-local cultural modelling and evaluates Albany’s goal in terms of health, sustainability and economic development. The synergetic and accidental commitment to cycling in Albany provides a model and opportunities for other small cities to consider, apply and improve.
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    Recession, Recovery, Regeneration and Resilience: Newport and the creation of movement cultures
    (Human Geographies, 2017-11-25) Brabazon, Tara; Redhead, Steve; McRae, Leanne
    This article aligns theories of city imaging and physical cultural studies to probe the city of Newport. This ‘new’ city shares many cultural and economic characteristics with the rest of Wales, but also reveals some significant differences. We focus on and probe the movement policies and cultures in the city , understanding the relationship between bodies and economics, cities and health. Through this discussion, we weave analyses of resilience through the paper, recognising that regeneration focuses on constructing and renovating buildings. We investigate how regeneration and resilience disconnect, with particular consequences for health. P art of this challenge emerges because of the inability to align sport and event tourism with the promotion of walking programmes for residents. Regeneration and resilience connect once more. Creating movement cultures is difficult. The ambivalent success of Newport's policies and initiatives offers both insights and warnings to other small cities.
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    Trump Studies: The Double Refusal and Silent Majorities in Theoretical Times
    (UTS ePress, 2018-11-28) Brabazon, Tara; Redhead, Steve; Chivaura, Runyararo
    This article builds on the embryonic inter/trans/anti/disciplinary Trump Studies to generate a theoretical framework for understanding the Brexit outcome and Trump’s victory. The consequences of researchers operating in a post-expertise political sphere means that new theories are required to create innovative interdisciplinary solutions to difficult, defiant and troubling social and economic problems. Using Jean Baudrillard’s theorization of banality and Stuart Hall’s ‘Great Moving Right Show,’ we consider how higher education researchers remain engaged in public discussions of, about and with ‘the silent majority.’
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    TURNITIN? TURNITOFF: The Deskilling of Information Literacy
    (Anadolu University, 2015-07) Brabazon, Tara
    Plagiarism is a folk devil into which is poured many of the challenges, problems and difficulties confronting higher education. This article investigates how software -Turnitin in particular- is ‘solving’ a particular ‘crisis’ in universities. However, I investigate how alternative strategies for the development of information literacy offer concrete, productive and imaginative trajectories for university staff and students.
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    Winter is Coming: Doctoral Supervision in the Neoliberal University
    (Ishik University, 2016-09) Brabazon, Tara
    Doctoral Education Studies, particularly in its North American manifestations, emphasizes quantitative methods. The resulting research is empirical and occasionally empiricist. The challenges revealed through this mode of research is that the highly ideological, volatile environment of higher education is flattened, framed and justified. My research offers an alternative view and perspective of doctoral education through a post-empirical, theoretical article. Within my piece, the PhD and doctoral supervision are framed by the post-Global Financial Crisis to understand the very specific – and volatile – context for research and research training.