Ceridwen Spark, Post Doctoral Fellow, Victoria University

In 2012 a new magazine entitled Stella was launched in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. In this seminar Cerwiden Spark will discuss preliminary findings from her research about Stella. Drawing on her analysis of the magazine’s contents, including the letters page and interviews with Papua New Guinean women, Spark will discuss Stella as a site for the assertion of new femininities in Papua New Guniea.

Spark argues that the implied audience of the magazine is educated, urban dwelling women who tend to be construed as ‘inauthentic’ Papua New Guineans, and demonstrates the significance of Stella’s acknowledgement of this group.

Ceridwen Spark is a postdoctoral fellow in the College of Arts at Victoria University in Melbourne. Spark conducts research on gender in Papua New Guinea and is particularly interested in the experiences of educated women. She is Chief Investigator on the Pawa Meri project: an AusAID-funded collaboration that involves making films about leading women in Papua New Guinea.