|NEWSLETTER NO. 18 FALL 1998|
|THE EDWARD A. CLARK CENTER FOR AUSTRALIAN STUDIES|
|THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN|
Four UT doctoral students conducted pre-dissertation research in Australia this past summer. They were supported by the Clark Center with a grant from the Dept. of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs (DEETYA) in Canberra to help the Center expand its teaching and research programs. A fifth doctoralstudent, Shannon Bradford, in UT-Austin's Theatre Department, will go to Australia as a Fulbright Scholar this January to study the Sydney theatre company that has pioneered performances for deaf people across the country.
Two students worked as parliamentary interns while enrolled at the Australian National University this summer. Assigned to the Hon. Nick Dondas's office in Parliament, Chris Burk analyzed Indonesian developments as seen from Canberra. His research coincided with Suharto's resignation and the other dramatic upheavals that overtook Indonesia during June and July. Eric Stroupe, who is comparing Australian and Canadian federalism, was assigned to AITSIC where he studied federal policies toward Aborigines with the Howard Government attempting to secure Senate approval of amendments to the Native Title Act, the federal role in Aboriginal affairs was very much in thespotlight.
Two more students returned to Australia to pursue research they began as parliamentary interns a year ago. Jason Pierce, who is working on the
changing roles of the Australian judiciary, especially the High Court, was in Canberra to consult with ANU constitutional law scholars and to conduct further interviews with leading jurists. George Purcell, who is focusing on Australia's trade policies toward Asia and North America, likewise conducted a range of interviews with relevant scholars, government officials, and leaders of major business associations involved in the formation of trade policy. Prior to arriving in Australia, Purcell traveled extensively on his own in China and Thailand to get a better feel for trade-related developments in the region.
Continuing to expand doctoral-level research on Australia at UT-Austin, the Clark Center expects to help two more students with pre-dissertation work next summer.
Tasmanians invade Texas
Four of the dozen Australian exchange students at UT-Austin this fall are from Tasmania. Pictured here at the Center's election night party are Jane French, undergraduate, and Mitch Parsell, Ph.D. student--philosophy, both fromUniversity of Tasmania; Jason Pierce, UT-Austin, Ph.D. student--government; Peter Orpin, University of Tasmania, Ph.D. student--sociology; George Purcell and Chris Burk, Ph.D. students in Government, UT-Austin.
This academic year marks the Clark Center's tenth anniversary. It is a time for looking back at the Center's accomplishments, but also for thinking about how to organize the Center for its second decade. This academic year marks the Clark Center's tenth anniversary. It is a time for looking back at the Center's accomplishments, but also for thinking about how to organize the Center for its second decade.
Much of our time during this anniversary year will go to planning and hosting the annual meeting of the Australian Studies Association of North America, scheduled for 25-28 February in Austin. We hope to match or even exceed the well-attended and highly successful ASANA meeting at Ryerson Polytechnic University in Toronto last March. Toward this end, we are not only guaranteeing ASANA members from more northerly climes balmy Central Texas weather in late February, but we are hoping to combine the ASANA meeting with a meeting of a dozen or so leaders of the International Australian Studies Association. Details about the ASANA meeting can be found on page three of Yacker.
The Center devoted its first half dozen years primarily to building up UT-Austin faculty strength in Australian Studies and to research projects on Australian and American immigration policies and on how NAFTA would affect Australia and New Zealand. More recently, it has concentrated on expanding its teaching and graduate student research programs. Undergraduate courses on Australian literature and film, and on Australian politics and society, are now regularly taught. They are augmented by seminars and conference courses for graduate students on Australian topics. A handful of talented graduate students are now working on research they have conducted in Australia with the Center's support and training. A growing number of undergraduate students who have taken Center-organized courses are going to Australian universities on exchange and study abroad programs, and each year brings a larger number of Australian students to UT-Austin, with a dozen Australian students here this fall.
A particular source of pride has been the Center's role in helping to ensure that the premier journal, <i>Antipodes</i>, has not missed a beat during these past ten years. Under the gifted editorship of Robert Ross, Research Associate of the Center, Antipodes has gone from strength to strength in what are now some twenty issues published in conjunction with the Center. The journal will enter its fourteenth year of publication in 1999.
Australian Studies at Texas and more broadly in North America are moving forward. Both ASANA and AAALS are flourishing. But as the closure of the Penn. State program this year shows, there are setbacks. We need to take further stock of where Australian Studies outside Australia are going, and I hope that bringing ASANA and InASA together here next February will be just the occasion for this stocktaking.
The Clark Center will host the 1998-99 Annual Meeting of the Australian Studies Association of North America (ASANA) 25-28 February 1999. This year's conference will be combined with a meeting of scholars from around the world who are active in the International Australian Studies Association (InASA).
The ASANA meeting's theme is "Modes of Belonging in Australia and North America." A Call for Papers on this or other topics of interest to ASANA members has been issued. Paper proposals in the form of short abstracts should be sent by 1 January 1999 to Dr. John Higley, Director of the Clark Center, who is also the current president of ASANA.
The joint ASANA-InASA meeting will enable ASANA members to talk with many of those who lead Australian Studies programs in Australia, Asia, and Europe. A special InASA panel will be part of the ASANA program. One highlight of the gathering will be a barbecue dinner hosted by Clark Center faculty affiliate Pam Ryan and her husband Bill Wood at their ranch about 25 miles outside Austin in the Texas Hill Country.
Accommodations for participants will be at the Radisson Hotel on Town Lake, 111 E. Cesar Chavez Street, Austin, Texas 78701. Further details, as well as an ASANA membership form, can be obtained on line from email@example.com or by contacting the Clark Center.
December and April will be busy for the American Association of Australian Literary Studies (AAALS). The organization has arranged two sessions at the 1998 Convention of the Modern Language Association in San Francisco, 27-30 December. Three scholars will address the topic, "Australia and the Pacific," in their papers at the academic session. In the second program, John Kinsella, one of Australia's leading young poets, will read from his work. The MLA Convention draws around 10,000 academics, writers, publishers, and editors.
The Fourteenth Annual AAALS Conference is set for 15-18 April 1999 at the Yarrow Hotel in Park City, Utah. Arranged in cooperation with the University of Utah, the Conference will feature Australian novelist Kate Grenville.
Dr. Carolyn Bliss, Conference Chair, has issued a Call for Papers. The Conference theme is "Countries of the Mind: Australian Literature as Interior Landscape." The theme permits papers on any aspect of Australian literature, Dr. Bliss explained, noting that comparative discussions are especially encouraged. Current AAALS membership is required for those presenting papers.
Due by 1 March 1999, proposals and requests for information should be sent to Dr. Bliss, 8793 S. Tracy Drive, Sandy, UT 84093-2034; telephone (O) 801/581-3283, (H) 801/944-1685; fax 801/585-3581; email firstname.lastname@example.org
------ Clark Center on the move ------------
--- Dr. Desley Deacon will be in Australia between mid-December and mid-January, for part of that time in Canberra.
--- Dr. Gary Freeman continues to work on Australian immigration policies, and is collaborating with Dr. Bob Birrell, Monash University, on a new study.
--- Dr. Don Graham, who is teaching his fully subscribed course on Australian Literature and Film both semesters this year, attended the AAALS Conference in St. Louis last April.
--- Dr. John Higley will be in Aus-tralia during the first week of November for meetings in Canberra and other capital cities.
--- D'arcy Randall, who has taught Australian literature courses at UT-Austin, gave a paper at the AAALS Conference in St. Louis. She is co- writing work with Dr. Kay Shaeffer at the University of Adelaide.
--- Dr. Robert Ross attended the AAALS Conference and presented a paper. In October and early November he will be lecturing on Australian topics at several European universities. He has also been appointed to the Selection Committee for Australian Fulbright Fellowships and will attend a meeting in Washington, DC, in November.
Co-founder Receives Prize
Desley Deacon, the Clark Center's co-founder, was awarded a $3,000 prize for one of the three best books produced by UT-Austin faculty members during 1997-98.
Her biography, Elsie Clews Parsons: Inventing Modern Life, will appear soon in a paperback edition from the University of Chicago Press.
Australians Visit Center
Two recent visitors at the Clark Center were Dr. Tim Beckett, Director of International Studies at the Australian National University, and Dr. Cliff Walsh from the Centre for Economic Studies in Adelaide.
At the beginning of November Dr. Bob Birrell from Monash University will be visiting. He is a specialist on Australian immigration
Internet Information Abounds
The Clark Center's website, maintained by Robert Cushing, has been updated and provides current information about the Center's activities. The address is: http://www.utexas.edu/depts/cas/
Information on Antipodes and the American Association of Australian Literary Studies is available on the AAALS site:
Three Australian scholars will be in residence at UT-Austin for the spring 1999 semester. Dr. Ross Terrill, author of The Australians and an eminent specialist on China, will return to teach a Center-organized undergraduate course on Australian Politics, Society and Foreign Relations. He will also lead a graduate seminar on Chinese Politics and Foreign Policy.
Dr. Malcolm Waters, Executive Dean of the University of Tasmania, will be in residence during the spring semester. A prominent sociological theorist, Dr. Waters will be attached to UT-Austin's Department of Sociology and the Clark Center. He plans to spend the semester working on a new book.
Patrick Keyser, a faculty member of the University of Sydney's School of Law, will spend the spring semester attached to the UT-Austin School of Law. He is a specialist on constitutional law and legal issues pertaining to the media.
Critic and poet Kevin Hart was quoted recently in a Melbourne newspaper as saying that he thought the book reviews in Antipodes were often more balanced than those appearing in Australian publications. While this remark may not have been ap-preciated in some quarters, it pleased those associated with Antipodes, especially the Reviews Editor, Dr. Nicholas Birns, New School of Social Research, New York.
DESLEY DEACON "Bringing Social Science Back Home: Theory and Practice in the Life and Work of Elsie Clews Parsons." In Gender and American Social Science: The Formative Years. Helene Silverberg, ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. 265-92.
DON GRAHAM Giant Country: Essays on Texas. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1998.
JOHN HIGLEY Elites, Crises, and the Origins of Regimes. Co-edited with Mattei Dogan. Boulder, Colorado: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998.
ROBERT ROSS Editor. Australia: A Traveler's Literary Companion (Australian Short Story Anthology). San Francisco: Whereabouts Press, 1998.
YACKER Is published in the fall & spring by The Edward A. Clark Center for Australian & New Zealand Studies,
Harry Ransom Center 3.362
The University of Texas, Austin, TX 78713-7219
Telephone: 512/471-9607 Fax : 512/471-8869 email: email@example.com
This Newsletter was not printed with state funds.