About Dr Ruth Barcan
Dr Ruth Barcan's research and teaching interests include nudity and nudism; feminist cultural studies approaches to the body; alternative therapies and New Age practices; and the university, academic life, and pedagogy.
Dr Barcan joined the Department of Gender Studies in 2004, after working at the University of Melbourne and the University of Western Sydney. Her research interests include nudity and nudism; feminist cultural studies approaches to the body; alternative therapies and New Age practices; and pedagogy.
She is the author of Nudity: A Cultural Anatomy (Berg 2004), and the co-editor of Imagining Australian Space: Cultural Studies and Spatial Inquiry (UWA Press 1999) and Planet Diana: Cultural Studies and Global Mourning (Research Centre in Intercommunal Studies, UWS Nepean, 1997). She is the author of numerous articles in areas such as the body in culture, consumer culture, and teaching.
Dr Barcan is an active member of the Cultural Studies Association of Australasia. She has given two invited plenary addresses to the annual conference of this association. These addresses focused on the teaching of cultural studies to undergraduates, and in particular the question of values. The first focused on the question of hope in teaching; the second on students' responses to the question of what they valued in cultural studies. Both addresses attracted much favourable attention.
Dr Barcan's interest in the values and politics of teaching has been recognised in other ways. A trained teacher, she won a prestigious Department of Education award (CAUT, 1997) to investigate task-based ways of teaching critical theory to undergraduates.
Her current research project is on alternative therapies.
Her current writing project is a book on university life and teaching, to be published with Ashgate.
Selected publications
Barcan, R. (2012) Emotions, Ethics and Politics in University Research and Teaching: Hope and Other Choices. Ashgate Publishers, forthcoming, 2012.
Books
Barcan, R. (2011) Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Bodies, Therapies, Senses. Oxford: Berg Publishers.
Barcan, R. (2004). Nudity: A Cultural Anatomy. Oxford & New York: Berg Publishing. Series: "Body, Dress, Culture."Edited Collections
Barcan, R. and Buchanan, I. (eds.) (1999). Imagining Australian Space: Cultural Studies and Spatial Inquiry. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press, for the Centre for Studies in Australian Literature
Re:Public (eds.) (1997). Planet Diana: Cultural Studies and Global Mourning. Kingswood, NSW: Research Centre in Intercommunal Studies, UWS Nepean (Re:Public is the corporate editorial name. Editors were Ien Ang, Ruth Barcan, Helen Grace, Elaine Lally, Justine Lloyd, Zoë Sofoulis).
Book Chapters
Barcan, R. (2011, forthcoming), ‘Invisible, Dispersed and Connected: The Cultural Plausibility and Attractiveness of Subtle Body Models in the Contemporary West’, in G. Samuel and J. Johnston (eds), Religion and the Subtle Body in Asia and the West: Between Mind and Body, London: Routledge.
Ruth Barcan & Jay Johnston. “Fixing the Self: Alternative Therapies and Spiritual Logics.” Mediating Faiths: Religion and Socio-Cultural Change in the Twenty-First Century. Ed. Michael Bailey and Guy Redden. Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2011: 75–87.
Barcan, R. (2010). "'Mobility is the Key': Bodies, Boundaries and Movement in Kate Grenville's Lilian's Story." Revised version in Kate Grenville: Essays and Interviews. Ed. Sue Kossew. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 2010:93-117. Ser. Cross/Cultures.
Barcan, R. (2010) “Dirty Spaces II: Separation, Concealment and Shame in the Public Toilet.” Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing. Ed. Harvey Molotch & Laura Noren. New York: NYU Press, 2010: 25-41.
Barcan, R. (2009). “Intuition and Reason in the New Age: A Cultural Study of Medical Clairvoyance.” In David Howes (ed.). The Sixth Sense Reader. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2009. 209-232.
Barcan, R. (2009). “Spiritual Boundary Work: How Spiritual Healers and Medical Clairvoyants Negotiate the Sacred.” In E.B Coleman and K. White (eds). Medicine, Religion and the Body. Leiden: Brill, 2009: 129-146.
Barcan, R. (2008). "Alternative Therapies as Disciplinary Practices: The Uses and Limitations of a Foucauldian Approach." In Nicole Anderson and Katrina Schlunke (eds) Cultural Theory in Everyday Practice. South Melbourne: Oxford UP, 2008. 14-27.
Barcan, R. (2005). "Nudism". In Steele, Valerie (ed.), Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons (3 vols), 2:458-460.
Barcan, R. (2005). "Nudity". In Steele, Valerie (ed.), Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons (3 vols), 2:460-461.
Barcan, R. and Fogarty, M. (1999). "Performing The Piano" (revised version). In Coombs, F. and Gemmell, S. (eds.) Piano Lessons: Approaches to The Piano. Sydney: John Libbey, 3-18.
Barcan, R. (1999). "Privates in Public: The Space of the Urinal". In Imagining Australian Space: Cultural Studies and Spatial Inquiry. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press, for the Centre for the Study of Australian Literature, 75-92.
Barcan, R. and Buchanan, I. (1999). "Introduction". In Imagining Australian Space: Cultural Studies and Spatial Inquiry. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press, for the Centre for the Study of Australian Literature, 7-11.
Barcan, R. (1997). "Space for the Feminine". In Re:Public (eds.) Planet Diana: Cultural Studies and Global Mourning. Kingswood, NSW: Research Centre in Intercommunal Studies, UWS Nepean, 37-43.
Edited Collections
Barcan, R. and Buchanan, I. (eds.) (1999). Imagining Australian Space: Cultural Studies and Spatial Inquiry. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press, for the Centre for Studies in Australian Literature
Re:Public (eds.) (1997). Planet Diana: Cultural Studies and Global Mourning. Kingswood, NSW: Research Centre in Intercommunal Studies, UWS Nepean (Re:Public is the corporate editorial name. Editors were Ien Ang, Ruth Barcan, Helen Grace, Elaine Lally, Justine Lloyd, Zoë Sofoulis).
Refereed Journals
Johnston, J. and Barcan, R. (2006). "Subtle Transformations: Imagining the Body in Alternative Health Practices." In International Journal of Cultural Studies 9.1 (March 2006): 25-44.
Barcan, R. and Johnston, J. (2005). "The Haunting: Cultural Studies, Religion and Alternative Therapies". In Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies 7 (Fall): 63-81 (special issue on Cultural Studies and Religion).
Barcan, R. (2005). "Dirty Spaces: Communication and Contamination in Men's Public Toilets.". In Journal of International Women's Studies 6.2 (June 2002). Bridgewater State College. http://www.bridgew.edu/SoAS/jiws/Jun05/Barcan.pdf (Accessed 7 July 2005.)
Barcan, R. (2004). "Regaining what Mankind has lost through Civilisation: Early Nudism and Ambivalent Moderns". In Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body and Culture 8.01 (Jan. 2004): 1-20.
Barcan, R. (2003). "The Idleness of Academics: Reflections on the Usefulness of Cultural Studies". In Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 17.4 (2003): 363-377.
Barcan, R. (2002). "Female Exposure and the Protesting Woman". In Cultural Studies Review 8.2 (Nov. 2002): 62-82.
Barcan, R. (2002). "Problems Without Solutions: Teaching Theory and the Politics of Hope". In Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 16.3 (2002): 343-356.
Barcan, R. (2002). "In the Raw: 'Home-Made' Porn and Reality Genres". In Journal of Mundane Behavior 3.1 (2002) http://www.mundanebehavior.org
Barcan, R. (2001). "The Moral Bath of Bodily Unconsciousness: Female Nudism, Bodily Exposure and the Gaze". In Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 15.3 (2001): 305-19.
Barcan, R. (2000). "Home on the Rage: Nudity, Celebrity, and Ordinariness in the Home Girls/Blokes Pages". In Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 14.2 (July 2000): 145-58.
Barcan, R. (2000). "Breathing Space". In UTS Review 6.1 (May 2000): 130-49.
Barcan, R. (1999). "Teaching and the Complexities of Consumerism, Radical Teacher 55 (1999): 34-39.
Barcan, R. (1999). "Regal Baring". In Meanjin 58.1 (1999): 6-9.
Barcan, R. (1999). "Hansonism, 'Caring', and the Lament for Modernity". In Meanjin 57.4 (1998): 748-758.
Barcan, R. (1998). "'Mobility is the Key': Bodies, Boundaries and Movement in Kate Grenville's Lilian's Story". In Ariel: A Review of International English Literature 29.2 (April 1998): 31-55.
Barcan, R. (1997). "The Global Confessional: Growing Up with the Media" In Continuum, 11.2 (1997): 82-94.
Barcan, R. (1997). "On Symbolic Grounds: Climbing Mt Kosciusko". In Heat 6 (Nov. 1997): 32-44.