Dr Susie Prestney

Position

Senior Coordinator, Student Mobility

School / Work Unit

Education Abroad & Client Relations

Contact Details

+(61 3) 9925 2952

susie.prestney@rmit.edu.au

Location

15.1.

City Campus

Portfolio

International Services

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Background

Susie took a while to figure out what she wanted to be when she grew up, and after having spent years immersed in academic libraries fossicking for material for her doctorate, it finally dawned on her that she should be a librarian! While finishing her PhD. in the Department of Political Science at the University of Melbourne, Susie tutored in politics, had a stint in university administration, roamed the galleries of Melbourne Museum as a customer service officer, worked a lending services officer at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image film library, and then enrolled in the GDIM at RMIT, which secured her a librarian position at City Library. Here, she worked as the Multicultural Services Librarian, managing the Chinese, Indonesian and Vietnamese collections. She was also coordinator of Yarra-Melbourne Libraries’ community development project, researching strategies for engagement with newly arrived communities.

Qualifications

  • BA (Hons 1, Political Science and Indonesian), University of Melbourne
  • Graduate Certificate, Art Conservation Studies, University of Melbourne
  • Graduate Diploma, Information Management, RMIT University
  • PhD., University of Melbourne

Awards

  • Australian Postgraduate Award with Stipend
  • Department of Political Science, University of Melbourne: Postgraduate Fieldwork Award
  • Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne: Travel Bursary and Overseas Research Scheme for Research and Graduate Studies
  • Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne: Alumni Traveling Scholarship for Foreign Language Students
  • International Office, University of Melbourne: University of Mobility in the Asia Pacific Grant

Research Interests

  • Cultural Studies & Cultural Criticism, namely culture and politics in society
  • Museology & Library history, in particular, the idea of cultural institutions as social indicators
  • Visual Culture & Visuality
  • Literary Theory & Narratology
  • Postcolonial Studies & Theory, in particular, the politics of difference and representations of race
  • Multiculturalism & Identity
  • Community Development & Multicultural Services in Public Libraries

Susie’s research interests lie in the broad areas of cultural and postcolonial studies and her doctoral thesis pursues an interdisciplinary approach to these fields. In it, she examines a specific moment in nineteenth-century British imperialism, which she calls the ‘spectacularization of race.’ This refers to the phenomenon of colonized people who were ‘imported’ to Europe and North America to be publicly displayed in a variety of exhibitionary arenas, including freak shows. Initially, she set out to uncover the narratives injected into British exhibitions of colonized peoples through empirical analyses of Africans-on-display. However, it became obvious that while these episodes are anchored in time and place, the racial stereotypes they highlight reveal both ancient roots and contemporary resonances. The raison-d’être of her work thus shifted from simply unearthing the stories of ‘spectacularized Africans’ to examining how racial stereotypes repeat and transform through history. Defining the stereotype as a major discursive device in ideological constructions of social groups and categories according to perceived notions of ‘normality,’ Susie ultimately deduced that stereotypes function like cultural narratives or myths, and should be studied accordingly. This idea unravelled over the course of a time consuming journey through the history of exhibitionary culture and public institutions like museums, libraries and department stories, and a labyrinth of complicated discourses, including psychoanalysis, anthropology and critical theory. What has emerged from this approach is a novel interpretation of the centrality of stereotypy to identity formation and conceptions of social cohesion, as well as a comprehensive socio-political analysis of the development in modernity of commodity culture, the entertainment industry and public institutions.

Teaching Responsibilities

  • Bachelor of Business (Information and Knowledge Management)
  • Graduate Diploma in Information Management

Publications

“Inscribing the Hottentot Venus: generating data for difference,” in At the Edge of International Relations: Postcolonialism, Gender and Dependency, ed. Phillip Darby, London and New York: Continuum, 2000: 86-105.

Times Available

Mon-Fri, by appointment.