The Cultural Studies Association of Australia was established in 1992, and in 2002 became the Cultural Studies Association of Australasia. The broad aims of the Association are to develop the study, teaching and public profile of Cultural Studies throughout Australasia.

The Association’s work centres upon an annual conference, which attracts some 150-250 academics from across Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the world. Since 2000, we have discussed Ute Culture in Melbourne, Everyday Transformations in Perth, On the Beach in Brisbane, Culture Incorporated in Christchurch, What's Left of Theory? in Hobart, Culture Fix in Sydney, Unaustralia in Canberra, and the Scholarly Affair in Byron Bay. In other words, the conference is a themed event, and is held in a different city each year. The attempt to locate one’s research in relation to another’s theme, and the general disorientation that travel induces, can have powerfully interpellative, disruptive and creative outcomes. That’s one set of reasons to attend the conference. Another is that the Association provides an umbrella home to a broad range of scholars working at the cross-disciplinary and cutting edges of humanities scholarship: Queer Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Film and Television, Feminism, New Media, Poetry, Marxism, Gender Studies, Fictocriticism, Philosophy, Music, Internet Studies, Creative Industries, Psychoanalysis, Creative Activism, Cyberculture, Body Modifications and more are all encountered, in dialogue, disagreement and debate. The Association is just this conversation. That is to say, it’s an unorthodox one.

As well as staging some of Australia’s most interesting and cross-disciplinary humanities conferences, the CSAA hosts a range of on-line and print activities through the year. Many scholars, both in the organization and outside it, avail themselves of the Association’s blog, the CSAA-Forum, which features up-to-the-minute postings on current events, questions, interventions, arguments. Then there are the various services performed by this website, including the register of abstracts of recent Cultural Studies theses, and the listings of current projects and recently published books by our members. 

You can join the Association by clicking the 'Join CSAA' tab above, or simply by attending the Annual Conference, which includes membership dues in its registration fees. We look forward to you joining the conversation.

Amanda Third

President, Cultural Studies Association of Australasia