Professor Ien Ang

Distinguished Professor Ien Ang, Professor of Cultural Studies and the founding Director of CCR, is currently an Australian Research Council Australian Professorial Fellow. She is one of the leaders in cultural studies worldwide, with interdisciplinary work spanning many areas of the humanities and social sciences. Her books, including Watching Dallas, Desperately Seeking the Audience and On Not Speaking Chinese, are recognised as classics in the field and her work has been translated into many languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Turkish, German, Korean, and Spanish. Her most recent book, co-authored with Gay Hawkins and Lamia Dabboussy, is The SBS Story: The Challenge of Cultural Diversity (UNSW Press, 2008)

Professor Ang’s innovative interdisciplinary work deals broadly with patterns of cultural flow and exchange in our globalised world, focusing on issues such as:

• the formation of audiences and publics 
• the politics of identity and difference
• migration, ethnicity and multiculturalism in Australia and Asia 
• issues of representation in contemporary cultural institutions.

As a prominent public speaker and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, she is frequently called on for keynote addresses in Australia and internationally. As an ARC Professorial Fellow, Professor Ang aims to explore the theoretical and practical implications of notions of ‘cultural complexity’, in a research program entitled ‘Cultural Research for the 21st Century: Building Cultural Intelligence for a Complex World’. She is a champion of collaborative cultural research and has worked extensively with partner organisations such as the NSW Migration Heritage Centre, The Art Gallery of New South Wales, The Special Broadcasting Service and the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Professor Ang has had the title of Distinguished Professor conferred on her by the University of Western Sydney in recognition of her outstanding research record and eminence. She is the first person at UWS to be conferred with this honour.  

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Qualifications

PhD, 1990, Social and Cultural Sciences, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Doctorandus/Mphil, 1982, Mass Communication, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Kandidaats/BA, 1977, Psychology, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

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Honours and Awards

Scholar in Residence, Scholars Program for Cultural and Communication, Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania (2006)

Australian Research Council Professorial Fellowship (2005-2009)

Visiting Professor, Advanced Cultural Studies Institute of Sweden, Linkoping University, Sweden (2005)

Visiting Professor, City University of Hong Kong (2004)

Recipient, Centenary Medal, Australian Commonwealth Government (2003)

Benjamin Meaker Visiting Professor, University of Bristol (2003)

Presenter of the Annual History Lecture, History Council of NSW (2001)

Fellow, Australian Academic of the Humanities (2000) and elected Member, Council of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, (2001-2003)

Isaac Manasseh Meyer Fellowship, National University of Singapore (2000)

Center for Cultural Studies Resident Scholarship, University of California, Santa Cruz (1998)

Obermann Center Research Fellowship, University of Iowa (1998)

Cultural Studies Research Fellowship, East West Center, Hawaii (1994)

Visiting Professor, University of Stockholm, Sweden (1992)

Fulbright Fellowship, junior scholar category, City University of New York (1986)

Member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the following journals: New Formations, Cultural Studies, Continuum: Australian Journal for the Media, Cultural Studies Review, Social Semiotics, European Journal of Cultural Studies, Hecate, Feminist Media Studies, International Feminist Journal of Politics, Topia: Canadian Journal for Cultural Studies, Traces: Multilingual Journal for Cultural Theory, Ethnicities, Comparative American Studies, American Ethnologist (1986-present)

External advisor, National Museum of Australia (2003-2004)

Member, International Advisory Committee, Institute for Citizenship and Globalization, Deakin University (2002-2004)

Australian reader, Humanities and Creative Arts panel, Australian Research Council, 2002

International (Non UK) Adviser, Communications, Cultural and Media Studies assessment panel, Research Assessment Exercise, United Kingdom (2001)

External Examiner, Cultural Studies Program, Lingnan University, Hong Kong, PRC (1999-2003)

Member, Reference Group for the Migration Heritage Centre, Premier's Department, State Government of New South Wales, (1999-2002)

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Selected Publications

Books

Ang, I., Hawkins, G. and Dabboussy, L. 2008, The SBS Story: The Challenge of Cultural Diversity, Sydney: UNSW Press.

Ang, I. 2001, On Not Speaking Chinese: Living Between Asia and the West, London and New York: Routledge.

Ang, I. 1996, Living Room Wars: Rethinking Media Audiences for a Postmodern World, London and New York: Routledge.

Ang, I. 1991, Desperately Seeking the Audience, London and New York: Routledge.

Ang, I. 1985, Watching Dallas: Soap Opera and the Melodramatic Imagination, London: Methuen.

Book Chapters

Ang, I. 2008, 'Cultural Studies', in, Bennett, T. & Frow, J. (eds), The Sage Handbook of Cultural Analysis, Los Angeles, London, New Delhi & Singapore: Sage Publications, pp 227-248.

Ang, I. 2007, 'Beyond Asian Diasporas', in, Parrenas, R. S. & Lok, C. D. S. (eds), Asian Diasporas: New Formations, New Conceptions, Palo Alto, Ca.: Stanford University Press, pp 285-290.

Ang, I. 2005, 'Diaspora', 'Difference' and 'Multiculturalism', in, Bennett, T., Grossberg, L. and Morris, M. (eds), New Keywords in Culture and Society, Oxford: Blackwell.

Ang, I. 2005, 'Who Needs Cultural Research?', in, Leystina, P. (ed.), Cultural Studies and Practical Politics: Theory, Coalition Building, and Social Activism, New York: Blackwell, pp 477-483.

Ang, I. 2004, 'Beyond Transnational Nationalism: Questioning the Borders of the Chinese Diaspora in the Global City', in, Yeoh, B. S. A. & Willis, K. (eds), State/Nation/Transnation: Perspectives of Transnationalism in the Asia-Pacific, London & New York: Routledge, pp 179-198.

Ang, I. 2003, 'Cultural Translation in a Globalised World', in, Papastergiadis, N. (ed.), Complex Entanglements: Arts, Globalisation and Cultural Difference, London: Rivers Oram Press, pp 30-41.

Ang, I. 2000, 'Identity Blues', in, Gilroy, P., Grossberg, L. & McRobbie, A. (eds), Without Guarantees. In Honour of Stuart Hall, London: Verso, pp 1-13.

Stratton, J. and Ang, I. 1998, 'Multicultural Imagined Communities: Cultural Difference and National Identity in the USA and Australia', in Bennett, D. (ed.), Multicultural States: Rethinking Difference and Identity, London and New York: Routledge, pp 135-162.

Ang, I. 1995, 'I'm a Feminist but...: 'Other' Women and Postnational Feminism', in, Caine, B. and Pringle, R. (eds), Transitions: New Australian Feminisms, St. Leonards: Allen & Unwin, pp 57-73.

Ang, I. 1994, 'In the Realm of Uncertainty: The Global Village and Capitalist Postmodernity', in, Crowley, D. and Mitchell, D. (eds), Communication Theory Today, Oxford: Polity Press, pp 193-213.

Journal Articles

Ang, I. 2008, 'Passengers on Train Australia', Griffith Review: Re-Imagining Australia, August: 227-239.

Ang, I. 2007, 'Television Fictions around the World: Melodrama and Irony in Global Perspective', Critical Studies in Television, 2(2): 18-30.

Hawkins, G. and Ang, I. 2007, 'Inventing SBS: Televising the Foreign', ACH: The Journal of the History of Culture in Australia, 26: 1-14.

Ang, I. 2006, 'From Cultural Studies to Cultural Research: Engaged Scholarship in the 21st Century', Cultural Studies Review, 12(2): 183-197.

Ang, I. 2005, 'The Predicament of Diversity: Multiculturalism in Practice at the Art Museum', Ethnicities, 5(3): 305-320.

Ang, I. 2003, 'Together-in-difference: Beyond Diaspora, into Hybridity', Asian Studies Review, 27(2): 141-154.

Ang, I. 2001, 'Intertwining Histories: Heritage and Diversity', Australian Humanities Review, Nov/Dec.

Reports

Ang, I., Brand, J., Noble, G. & Sternberg, J. 2006, Connecting Diversity: Paradoxes of Multicultural Australia, Sydney: Special Broadcasting Service Corporation.

Ang, I. & Cassity, E. 2004, Attraction of Strangers: Partnerships in Humanities Research, Canberra: Australian Academy of the Humanities.

Ang, I., Brand, J., Noble, G. & Wilding, D. 2002, Living Diversity: Australia’s Multicultural Future, Sydney: Special Broadcasting Service Corporation.

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Contact

» Contact Professor Ien Ang