Reel Smart Academic Pitch

Back again for its second year, the Reel Smart Academic Pitch will provide five La Trobe University researchers working across ASSC and SHE the opportunity to pitch their research projects to documentary and factual producers, with a vision towards turning them into non-fiction screen content (including television, film and web production).

THE PROJECTS

Weasel Words: The long, slow death of Australian public language (WT) 

Dr Gwenda Tavan, Associate Professor Politics

From ‘core and non-core promises’ to ‘the real Julia’ and ‘quiet Australians’, this timely research project examines the claim that cliché, ‘weasel words’, and ‘bad language’ are undermining the quality of contemporary public discourse and democracy. 

 

---

Just Like Me

Professor Nora Shields

From repetitions to revelations: this project draws on the findings of the community-based exercise program FitSkills which gets young people with disability exercising together with peer mentors at their local gym, and shapes minds as much as bodies.

 

---

When Sports Rules go ‘Rong 

Dr Liam Lenten

This project explores the under-appreciated role of the rules of professional sport — their purpose, historical evolution and effects; not least of all the often humorous stories behind some of the most idiosyncratic moments in the annals of sports history.

 

---

Blackfellas Highway (WT)

Dr Jillian Garvey, Senior Research Fellow, Department of Archaeology and History 

The Murray River has been a major lifeline through our continent for millennia. This project investigates the deep history of our First People’s occupation and use of this vital resource, and tracks the tempo of change from its earliest colonisation to its current environment crisis. 

 

---

SexTech

Dr Alexandra James, Research Officer 

From sex robots to teledildonics, technology is transforming the most intimate human experience. SexTech hacks into human desire and imagination; it explores the future of sex.

 

---

PRESENTED BY