Intellect

Intellect was very pleased to take part in the inaugural Popular Culture Association of Australia and New Zealand (PopCAANZ) annual conference, held in Sydney earlier this month.

PopCAANZ is the Australasian regional branch of the Popular Culture Association and they hosted a vibrant and international event with many distinguished speakers and much lively debate – the food wasn’t bad either!

The conference was held in the Vibe Hotel just next to Hyde Park in downtown Sydney, a great location and in walking distance to the historic Circular Quay and the magnificent Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House.

Many of the 150 delegates delivered papers and the level of research on display was of a high standard. Some of the papers that caught my attention included:
Pamela Church Gibson’s (London College of Fashion) ‘George, Brad, David Beckham and Tom Ford: A Single Man, Celebrity Culture and the Complexities of Contemporary Cinema’; Noel McLaughlin’s (Northumbria University) ‘“Bono! Do you ever take those sunglasses off? Clothing, masculinity and the contradictory significations of the performing Irish body”’; Amit Gupta’s (United States Air Force Air War College) ‘The Globalization of Sports, the Rise of Non-Western Nations, and the Impact on International Sports’ and ‘Zombies, Mobsters and Teaching: Zombies and zombiedom in popular culture and the academy’ by Chris Moore, Ruth Walker and Andrew Whelan (University of Wollongong).

The conference allowed us to catch up with some existing collaborators and make a number of new contacts who we are looking forward to working with in the future. Intellect would like to take this opportunity to thank all those involved in the event for making it such a great conference – see you next year.

See the complete conference program