M/C Journal 'bad' Issue Launched

I've just sent out the official announcement for the latest issue of M/C Journal, for which I'm General Editor. Kylie Cardell and Jason Emmett have put together a very nice collection of articles on the (unlikely?) theme of 'bad'. On the site I've also added the blurb for our upcoming issue 'copy' and confirmed the last issue for the year, 'affect'. We're still looking for an editor for 'scan', by the way - email me...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - 24 March 2005

M/C - Media and Culture
is proud to present issue one in volume eight of

M/C Journal
http://journal.media-culture.org.au/

'bad' - Edited by Kylie Cardell & Jason Emmett

"For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so"
  (Hamlet, Act 2 Sc. II)

What is a bad idea? The 2004 work-in-progress conference at the University of Queensland took "Bad ideas?" as its guiding theme in order to show up the underlying ideological tensions that inform postgraduate research. What is a bad idea when the provocative, the controversial and the unusual are what guarantee scholars attention in our disposable pop-culture scandal-hungry world? The work of any researcher in the ever-broadening field of that increasingly nebulous thing, the humanities, is to think about received ideas in surprising and unfamiliar ways, to challenge what is simply thought of as bad or good, to complicate essentialist categories and to question received thinking. Things that may have seemed insolubly bad may in fact be revealed as good precisely because they are dissolute, troubling and inevitably disruptive to accepted norms, including your own. The reverse is also true.

This issue, arising out of the energy and impetus of a postgraduate conference, features contributions that unravel the complexity of moral inflections in research in general. What kinds of research have been prevented or burdened by the value of their moral complexion and what kinds applauded?

Should we judge the value of ideas, new discoveries and inventions on their possible moral outcomes? Can an idea ever simply be bad or good?

  Feature Article
Tony Sampson
"Dr Aycock's Bad Idea: Is the Good Use of Computer Viruses Still a Bad Idea?"
Tony Sampson kicks off this issue with a thoughtful article that examines the fraught trajectory of the computer virus debate. Sampson examines to what extent paranoia and fear of the computer virus as unequivocally bad has constrained research in the field, research that may actually prove to have positive consequences in the fight against the malevolent affects of viruses. The perceived incursion of 'ethical norms' short circuits innovation as it feeds moral outrage.

  Articles
Kirsten Seale
"Iain Sinclair's Excremental Narratives"

Elanna Herbert Lowes
"Transgressive Women, Transworld Women: The Once 'Bad' Can Make 'Good' Narratives"

Damian Riggs
"Who Wants to Be a 'Good Parent'?: Scientific Representations of Lesbian and Gay Parents in the News Media"

Jacqueline Mikulsky
"Silencing (Homo)Sexualities in School ... A Very Bad Idea"

Debra Ferreday
"Bad Communities: Virtual Community and Hate Speech"

Carra Leah Hood
"Schools of Thought: The Madness of Consensus"

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Upcoming M/C issues in 2005:

'print'  - article deadline:  8 Apr. 2005
         - release date:      3 June 2005

'copy'   - article deadline:  6 May  2005
         - release date:     29 June 2005

'scan'   - article deadline:  1 July 2005
         - release date:     24 Aug. 2005

'review' - article deadline: 26 Aug. 2005
         - release date:     19 Oct. 2005

'affect' - article deadline: 21 Oct. 2005
         - release date:     14 Dec. 2005

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M/C Journal 8.1 is now online: <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/>.
Previous issues of M/C Journal on various topics are also still available.

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Visit all three M/C publications at <http://www.media-culture.org.au/>.

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All contributors are available for media contacts: mc@media-culture.org.au.

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