Abstract  

Bilibili isa popular Chinese video-streaming platform known for its synchronised Danmu commentary system which is particularly popular with younger audiences. A growing body of literature has explored digital nationalism in the context of Chinese social media participation, with Bilibili offering some important examples.  Applying a digital ethnographic lens, I investigate how these Danmu commentary responses reflect both user-generated digital nationalist sentiment and practice, as well as state-led forms of nationalism. Drawing on one episode of the Year Hare Affair (2015-2019) and a trailer for Yao-Chinese Folktales Season 1 (2023), this article argues the responses shared in Danmu comments not only constitute a form of digital nationalism, shaped partly by the values and interests of the Chinese state government, but are also grassroots expressions of ‘imagined communities’, cultural identity, and a sense of belonging.  

Bio  

Sharpay Qiong Wu is a PhD Candidate at the University of Canberra. After studying commerce and cultural studies at the University of Canberra and the Australian National University, she is now researching Chinese domestic animation production through the lens of cultural and creative industries studies. Her research aims to provide further understanding of how popular cultural and creative practices in China have been shaped by central policies as well as through other cultural, social and economic factors. Her research addresses recent heated discussions surrounding creative industries, digital cultures, soft power and cultural nationalism in China.  

This presentation was accompanied by slides. To view the slides head to SharpayWu_Presentation.pptx 

Abstract  

Although this seminar takes Kim Kardashian's now-iconic 2014 Paper Magazine cover as its entry point, the argument it makes reaches back two centuries. When Kardashian "broke the internet" with a single image, she was participating in a mechanism of celebrity image-making with a much longer history than we might expect.  

Long before the internet, the rapid expansion of print technologies in the nineteenth century unleashed an unprecedented proliferation of celebrity images into everyday life, appearing on sheet music, lithographs, ceramics, and illustrated newspapers. Suddenly, you didn't need to hear Jenny Lind sing or see Nellie Melba perform to feel intimately acquainted with them. Their faces, reproduced and commodified, did that work instead.  

Drawing on visual culture and historical celebrity studies, this seminar argues that the relationship between fame and image is not a product of the digital age: the technology has changed, but the mechanics of celebrity have not. 

Bio  

Dr Rachel M Campbell is a Senior Lecturer in Arts at the University of Canberra. Her research sits at the intersection of Historical Celebrity Studies and Visual Culture, with a focus on the visual representation of musicians and composers in the long nineteenth century. Her doctoral work developed a multidisciplinary methodology to examine how the proliferation of print technologies transformed musical celebrity, exploring figures including Dame Nellie Melba and Jenny Lind. Dr Campbell argues that the relationship between celebrity image and fame is far from a modern phenomenon. Her teaching practice is grounded in a relational pedagogy of kindness, equity considerations, and UDL.  

This presentation was accompanied by slides. To view the slides head to RachelMCampbell_Presentation.pptx   

Abstract  

This paper reports on the Poetry for Wellbeing and Recovery program at the University of Canberra Hospital. Patients in rehab have been attending weekly sessions focused on reading and writing poetry. Reading poetry often evokes powerful memories and strong emotions, as poems seem to open outwards when the reader’s own experience is engaged, and events from the distant past are revisited and articulated. But for some participants memory is less accessible and writing about present lived experience becomes more important. Some participants have difficulty in writing, for various reasons, sometimes physical, sometimes cognitive; we often scribe for them and create ‘dictation poems’, with fascinating results. This presentation shares anecdotes and findings from the program, including examples of participant writing.   

Bio  

Owen Bullock has published four collections of poetry, five books of haiku, a bilingual edition of tanka and a novella. A new book of haiku, titled The Scuppered Lily, will be launched in August 2026, and an academic book, How to Write Haiku, in 2027. His research interests include creative arts and wellbeing; haikai literature; poetry and process; semiotics and poetry; prose poetry; and collaboration. He is Discipline Lead for Creative Writing and Literary Studies at the University of Canberra. His other interests include music, juggling and chess.   

This presentation was accompanied by slides. To view the slides head to Owen Bullock_Presentation.pptx 

Abstract  

Why do political slogans so regularly resort to rhyme? Why does alliteration play the prominent role it does in advertising? According to one study, ‘Two T-shirts for $21’ clearly outsells ‘2 T-shirts for $19’ (Davis, Bagchiand Block 2015). The presentation starts by considering social science explanations for the emphasis accorded to such seemingly childish devices in our public communications. Ideas to do with fluency of cognitive processing, and the gains these lead to in liking and perceived trustworthiness, are considered and then supplemented with notions from the field of poetics. The connection long mooted in that field (e.g. Attridge 1995) between rhythmic language and the sense of collective utterance is evoked and connected to ideas of social proof, viz. the principle (Cialdini 2009) that the more people who seem to be acting / speaking a certain way, the more reasonable their conduct will appear. That such collectivist intimations can pertain to even the most idiosyncratic of lyric utterances provides an interesting counter-angle on the forms of majoritarian behavioural modification tracked in political and commercial fields so far in the paper. Might Emily Dickinson’s strangest thoughts become—for the very fact that they are couched in musical form—thereby more thinkable, reasonable, assumable?   

Bio  

Paul Magee studied in Melbourne, Moscow, San Salvador and Sydney. He writes poetry and has published extensively on the history, ethnography and philosophy of poetic composition, the links between orality and writing, and the relationship between creativity and traumatic thought. Paul's involvement in socially-impactful deployment of Creative Arts workshops for wellbeing and repair includes his decade-long role as a Co-Investigator on the Defence ARRTS Programme, which helps ill and injured service people to find a creative voice, and his work with Indigenous communities as a member of the Story Ground team, which is dedicated to Writing on Country. Paul’s latest monograph is Suddenness and the Composition of Poetic Thought (Bloomsbury, 2022). His second book of verse, Stone Postcard, was named in Australian Book Review as one of the books of the year for 2014. Paul is Professor of Poetry and Director of the Centre for Creative and Cultural Research (CCCR) at the University of Canberra.  

This presentation was accompanied by slides. To view the slides head to PaulMagee_Presentation.pptx 

Abstract  

This presentation reintroduces robotic musicianship as a way of understanding human–AI interaction through musical practice and performance. It begins with Savery’s recent work with Jen Music, a generative music start-up exploring ethical dataset construction, attribution, and transparency in AI training. It then turns to a DECRA project on robotic musicianship, which investigates long-term interaction, group dynamics, and trust in human–AI collaboration. From this broader agenda, three recent projects are presented: failure and ambiguity in creative AI, AI understanding of expert saxophone practice, and agency in AI-assisted lyric writing. Together, these projects position music as a testbed for more human-centered AI.  

Bio  

Richard Savery develops AI and robotics, using music and creativity to design richer interactions between humans and machines. He is currently an ARC DECRA Fellow (2026–2028) at the University of Canberra, researching robots and AI for long-term use and group interaction. Previously, he was a Research Fellow at Macquarie University, where he built robotic musicians that could rap and drum with human performers, and later worked at Jen Music on high-fidelity, ethically trained AI music systems. His work has attracted $3.8 million in funding and been featured by Scientific American, BBC Radio, and Disney+.  

Dr Savery is the recipient of an Australian Research Council Australian Discovery Early Career Award (DE250100275) funded by the Australian Government.  

Interested audience can see examples at www.richardsavery.com   

This presentation was accompanied by slides. To view the slides head to RichardSavery_Presentation.pptx 

Abstract  

During the Second World War, the Australian military relied on a sizeable contingent of Asian workers who were already present in Australia to fill labour shortfalls and key gaps in combat expertise. At the end of the conflict, the Commonwealth government sought to deport these workers under the framework of the White Australia Policy, to uneven levels of success. This paper maps the experiences of Australia’s Asian troops during and after the Second World War, and how their plight intersected with a gradual but noticeable erosion of public support for White Australia in the postwar period.  

Bio  

Ernest is an historian with the Faculty of Arts and Design at the University of Canberra. Originally from Singapore, he has previously held research fellowships at the University of Washington and Beijing University, and is the author and editor of several books, including Diaspora at War, Oral History and Memory in Southeast Asia, and The Pacific War. He has also helped write and produce several documentaries, including the Emmy-nominated programme The Exiles (with Tom St John Gray).  

This presentation was accompanied by slides. To view the slides head to ErrnestKoh_Presentation.pptx 

Abstract  

This seminar explores the rapidly developing field of virtual production, a form of filmmaking that combines live-action and computer-generated elements on set, enabling real-time interaction between performers and digital worlds. Drawing on several years of practice-led inquiry and professional experience as a freelance motion capture technician, it examines the lived experience of performance within these hybrid spaces. The discussion will focus on how actors and other creative practitioners navigate the perceptual, spatial, and social challenges of working in digitally mediated environments, offering new insights into immersion, embodiment, and the evolving relationships between people and technology in contemporary screen production.  

Bio  

Joel Bennett is a Lecturer in Digital Media and Game Development at UC. He is a designer and technology enthusiast with a background in games, animation, and creative media. His work explores how people engage with emerging technologies in screen-based and interactive environments, with a focus on virtual production, extended reality, and digital performance. He is the author of Facilitating an Immersive Performance Environment in Virtual Production (Routledge, 2025), and his current research and teaching support innovative approaches to practice-based learning in digital media and game development.  

Abstract  

The practice of organising creative works into genres emerged (at least) as early as Aristotle’s classifications in the Poetics, though more recently its value has been questioned. This presentation suggests we explore the concept of genre in terms of operations: of how writers create new works, and how critics might understand how a work of writing can function to create literary experiences.  

Bio  

Jen is Professor Emerita of Creative Practice in the Faculty of Arts and Design at the University of Canberra. Her most recent poetry collections are the sole-authored The Daily News (2024; shortlisted for the 2025 ACT Literary Awards), and the multiply-authored Grief: Five Sequences (2025). Jen is also an editor of various genres of writing, having published 11 scholarly collections and 11 creative collections. She is co-editor of the scholarly journal Axon: Creative Explorations, and the literary journal Meniscus.  

This presentation was NOT accompanied by slides.

Abstract  

From the rediscovery of the ancient Roman catacombs in 1578, until Pope Leo XII’s prohibition in 1881, the bones of men, women, and children – now known as catacomb saints – were exhumed from these subterranean cemeteries and widely distributed across Europe and the Americas. Unlike medieval reliquaries, these more recent simulacra were crafted to appear as richly adorned human bodies. In this talk I use the concept of the relational biography to think about the lived lives of these human beings, as well as the complex afterlives of the simulacra, and their entanglements in everyday social contexts. These assemblages of human remains, art and religious mystery, are vibrant agents that continue to generate networks of relations between people, things, narratives and beliefs; despite hundreds of years of religious, social and political upheaval.  

Bio 

Tracy Ireland is Emeritus Professor of Cultural Heritage at the University of Canberra. An archaeologist and heritage practitioner, she is known for her research on heritage ethics, significance and social value which has influenced practice and public policy in Australia and abroad. She leads the Australian Research Council funded projects Heritage of the Air, Everyday Heritage and Nuclear Nation. Tracy is the immediate past President of Australia ICOMOS, Editor of Historic Environment, Honorary Fellow in the Department of Archaeology, University of York, UK, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, London.  

Supports and fundings: Fundacão para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal  

This presentation was accompanied by slides. To view the slides head to TracyIreland_Presentation.pptx 

Abstract  

Each of us – whether we choose to embrace, deny or ignore this knowledge - is uniquely positioned within a shared colonial history. The question of positionality is a central theme for this seminar, to be explored through a comparison of two books that confront Australia’s colonial past and present from different starting points. In ‘Unsettled’, beloved author Kate Grenville examines the spread of white settlements beyond Sydney Cove, by injecting stories and imaginings about the region’s First Peoples into her own family history. In her memoir ‘The Chosen Son’, Leanne Weber grapples with her own experience of growing up in 1960s Adelaide with an Aboriginal foster brother placed by white authorities into her non-Indigenous family. Both books, in their own ways, depict voyages of discovery that draw on historical records, personal memories, empathy and imagination to uncover important truths about our settler colonial society.   

Bio  

Kate Grenville, AO is one of Australia’s most fearless and celebrated writers. She is best known for her novel The Secret River which ignited debate about how Australia should tell its foundational story. She has written across multiple genres, having published 10 works of fiction, three books about the writing process, a biography (of her mother), a memoir (about the writing of The Secret River) and a work of non-fiction she describes as ‘science-y’. Her latest book Unsettled was published in 2025.  

Leanne Weber is a former academic who is now an Adjunct Professor of Criminology in the Canberra Law School. She has published 11 academic books on the policing of minorities, human rights and border control and has twice been awarded the Christine M Alder Book Prize by the ANZ Society of Criminology. The Chosen Son is her first book intended for a wider readership. Leanne lives with her partner and dog on unceded Ngarigo land overlooking Lake Jindabyne.   

Professor Kim Rubenstein is an Australian legal scholar, legal practitioner, professor, who is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law and Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. From 2006 to 2016 she was Professor and Director of the Centre for International Law and Public Law at the Australian National University, from 2011-2012 she was the inaugural Convenor of the ANU Gender Institute and from 2020-2022 she was Co-Director, Academic of the 50/50 by 2030 Foundation. She is currently an Adjunct Professor at the University of Canberra and the University of Technology Sydney and an Honorary Professor at The Australian National University.  

This presentation was NOT accompanied by slides.