ABSTRACT

Casting an eye back on the cultural scene in Perth in the late eighties and early nineties, this article reflects on the legacy of the late Brian Shoesmith. I discuss Brian’s work on Harold A. Innis and communications theory, his interests in Asian media and Indian cinema, the research agendas he forged at Edith Cowan University and his institution building efforts later in his career. In writing this piece, I am struck now by how rich this period was in Australian communications, media and cultural studies. In this respect, the article contributes to a broader collective account of a period that registers what we have lost in the metric obsessed academy of audit cultures, performance rankings and research excellence: a shared sense of intellectual adventure between academic staff and students, an institutional environment that conditioned disciplinary experimentation (or at least remained sufficiently oblivious to activities on its margins) and a general culture of living theory. Those days seem over. Yet, by reflecting on the many activities of Brian, together with his contemporaries like Tom O’Regan and many of their generation, we might recuperate a sense of the vibrancy of that time as a possible resource in negotiating an increasingly circumscribed institutional and disciplinary horizon of the present.

摘要

本文回顾了 80 年代末和 90 年代初珀斯的文化场景，回顾了已故的布赖恩鞋匠的遗产。我讨论了 Brian 在 Harold A. Innis 和传播理论方面的工作、他对亚洲媒体和印度电影的兴趣、他在 Edith Cowan 大学制定的研究议程以及他职业生涯后期的机构建设工作。在写这篇文章时，我对这段时期在澳大利亚传播、媒体和文化研究方面的丰富程度感到震惊。在这方面，这篇文章有助于对一个更广泛的时期进行集体描述，该时期记录了我们在审计文化、绩效排名和卓越研究领域迷失的指标：学术人员和学生之间的共同智力冒险感，一种制度环境，它限制了学科实验（或至少对其边缘的活动保持足够的漠视）和生活理论的一般文化。那些日子似乎结束了。然而，通过反思布赖恩的许多活动，以及他的同时代人，如汤姆奥里根和他们那一代的许多人，我们可能会恢复对那个时代的活力的感觉，作为谈判日益受限的制度和学科视野的可能资源现在的。