Imagining the Antipodes

Abstract

Bernard Smith is widely recognised as one of Australia's leading intellectuals. Yet the recognition of his work has been partial, focused on art history and anthropology. Peter Beilharz argues that Smith's work also contains a social theory, or a way of thinking about Australian culture and identity in the world system. Smith enables us to think matters of place and cultural imperialism through the image of being not Australian so much as antipodean. Australian identities are constructed by the relationship between core and periphery, making them both European and Other at the same time. This 1997 work is a book-length analysis of Bernard Smith's work and is the result of careful and systematic research into Smith's published works and his private papers. It is both an introduction to Smith's thinking and an important interpretive argument about imperialism and the antipodes.

Using Yeast to Define the Regulatory Role of Protein Lysine Methylation

“…Set1, the catalytic component of the COMPASS complex, is well-characterized as the sole histone H3K4 mono-, di-, and tri-methyltransferase in yeast and is linked to gene activation and repression in different cellular contexts [5,27]. In addition, yeast cells lacking Set1 show severe mitotic defects and disrupted transcriptional programs throughout the cell cycle [2,5,26,44]. While there appears to be a role for H3K4 methylation in some of these defects [2], Set1 has also been reported to methylate the kinetochore component Dam1 at K233 [72] in a manner dependent on the other members of the COMPASS complex as well as H2B K123 ubiquitylation [34].…”

“…In addition, yeast cells lacking Set1 show severe mitotic defects and disrupted transcriptional programs throughout the cell cycle [2,5,26,44]. While there appears to be a role for H3K4 methylation in some of these defects [2], Set1 has also been reported to methylate the kinetochore component Dam1 at K233 [72] in a manner dependent on the other members of the COMPASS complex as well as H2B K123 ubiquitylation [34]. Methylation of Dam1 has been shown to impede nearby phosphorylation of the protein by the Aurora kinase Ipl1, which targets Dam1 to regulate kinetochore-microtubule attachments [11], representing a phospho-methyl switch interaction [72].…”

How an Antipodean Perspective of International Schooling Challenges Third Culture Kid (TCK) Conceptualisation

“…Such centrism makes several assumptions not borne out in more objective framing. Antipodean theorising by Beilharz (1997Beilharz ( , 2009 and Beilharz and Hogan (2012) recognises that Australia and New Zealand are on the global margins. Their antipodean perspective argues that going out from or coming back to Australia is quite different from returning to the United Kingdom, European or United States geo-political centres.…”

Comparative book review on three volumes

“…In movement one, why accord the word “kinetic” to the global centres only? In movement two, why make the south's actions “appropriation” when antipodean theory points out that the case is often the reverse (Beilharz, 1997), and centres know themselves, or evolve themselves from their peripheral tributary societies? Why in movement two are the problems geographically located in edge societies—are the centres trouble‐free?…”