Language and CultureLanguage and Culture is the quarterly electronic magazine of the School of Languages and Cultures in the Faculty of Arts at Sydney University. It explores current issues in the field of languages and cultures and provides updates on the activities of the School.

issue 33 September 2015

This issue

• The 8th Biennial Conference of Italian Studies

• Some candid thoughts on the Intercultural

• A celebration of the career and contribution of Professor Suzanne Rutland

• Indonesian in Action at Sydney

• Selected Publications

• School and Department News

The 8th Biennial Conference of Italian Studies of the Australasian Centre for Italian Studies (ACIS)Associate Professor Antonia Rubino, Department of Italian Studies

From 1 to 4 July, the Department of Italian Studies, in conjunction with the Department of History, hosted the 8th Biennial Conference of Italian Studies of the Australasian Centre for Italian Studies (ACIS).

Co-convenors of the Conference were Associate Professor Antonia Rubino and Dr Giorgia Alù from Italian Studies, and Dr Nick Eckstein, Cassamarca Senior Lecturer, from History. The theme of the Conference was “Fertile spaces, dynamic places: Mapping the cultures of Italy”.

For the past fifteen year ACIS has been promoting the Italian language and culture throughout Australia and New Zealand, thanks to funds from the Cassamarca Foundation. Amongst the numerous initiatives of the Cassamarca Foundation, of major importance has been its financial contribution towards lectureships in Italian studies in various Australian Universities, including the University of Sydney, in the Departments of

Italian Studies and History.

The Conference organisers were pleased and honoured that the Vice Chancellor of the University, Dr Michael Spence, was able to officially open the Conference. Among the many distinguished guests at the opening, the Ambassador of Italy to Australia, Dott. Pier Francesco Zazo, spoke about the position of Italian as the fourth most studied language in the world. Dott Zazo also discussed the support given by the Italian Government to the teaching of Italian, such as the long standing funding of a lectureship in the Department of Italian Studies at the University of Sydney. Professor Barbara Caine, Acting Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, highlighted the important contribution of the Cassamarca Foundation to Italian Studies, and the University of Sydney in particular.

Professor Vrasidas Karalis, representing the Head of the School of Languages and Cultures, Professor Yixu Lu, stressed the strong encouragement and concrete support that the School gives to important events such as this Conference, which are opportunities to showcase the excellent work in research and teaching of the School. The final speech was delivered by Professor David Moss, Chair of the

Cassamarca Foundation, who underlined the importance of ACIS conferences as crucial and fruitful encounters amongst scholars engaged in intersecting areas of studies.

Participants’ feedback declared the Conference a resounding success. More than 50 papers were presented by scholars coming from as far as Italy, the UK, Japan and the United States, and dealing with a very wide range of topics, from literature to history, from cultural studies to migration, focusing on Italian culture both within and outside the boundaries of Italy. Several doctoral students of the Department of Italian Studies presented at the Conference (Barlow, Canaris, Davis, Possemato,

The Department of Italian Studies in conjunction with the Department of History presents

Seffer) and their papers were all very well received.

Particularly inspiring were the plenary sessions that addressed issues as diverse as the ‘soundscape’ as the expression of the identity of a city (Niall Atkinson, University of Chicago); walking in Roman gardens as essential to the experience of landscape (Katherine Bentz, Saint Anselm College, New Hampshire); dynamics of Italian and dialect in contemporary Italy (Mari D’Agostino, Università di Palermo); radical psychiatry in Italy during the 1960s and 1970s (John Foot, University di Bristol); and Italian detective novels set in the African colonies (Luca Somigli, University of Toronto).

The lecture by Professor D’Agostino, sponsored by the Italian Institute of Culture, was open to the public and attracted a particularly large audience, including many teachers of Italian and community members.

A number of special events were organised throughout the Conference and added to its success. A workshop for Early Career Researchers in Italian Studies, organised by Dr Theo Ell, was universally declared extremely useful and created the basis for a future network. The exhibition of a photographic project about recent Italian migrants in Australia by Lisa Golden (who completed Honours in the Department of Italian Studies) attracted remarkable interest. Other events were

the award of the prizes to the winners of the first Jo-Anne Duggan Essay Prize organised by ACIS (winner: Sally Grant; highly commended: Crystal Filep and Kyra Giorgia); and the presentation of recent scholarly books published by both ACIS members and conference presenters. The Conference dinner held at Womens’ College was also a great social and networking event.

The Conference was supported by the University of Sydney (DVC Research) through the funding of four scholarships for doctoral students; the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, the School of Languages and Cultures, and the School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry.

Other sponsors were the Italian Institute of Culture in Sydney, ACIS, the Association for the Study of Modern Italy (ASMI, through the sponsorship of a Conference panel), Intext and Ferrero.

The Italian newspaper ‘La Fiamma’ and SBS Italian Radio provided wide coverage to the event, including interviews with several plenary speakers.

Finally, the great success of the Conference would not have been possible without the help of colleagues, Honours and Postgraduate students of the Department of Italian Studies; and of the administrative staff in the School of Languages and Cultures, in particular David Allen, Rosemary Go, Danielle Seesink and Wendy Ju.

Australasian Centre for Italian Studies

Some candid thoughts on the Interculturalby Nobel Laureate J.M.G. Le Clézio

The word “culture” is not a new word; yet over the past century, it seems to have taken on a new meaning. In France, at the end of the XIX century, they would speak of “race”, “customs”, or “literature”.

I remember the time when, in France, the textbook of philosophy ended at the Greek and Latin philosophy, from Aristotle, Plato, to Ovid, Cicero, Marcus Aurelius, or Saint Augustine. They made a brief reference to the “pre-Socratics”, but forgot about Manilius and Astrology. Towards the end of the textbook, there were only a few pages that mentioned some of the oriental ideas: Confucianism, Taoism, Hinduism and Buddhism. Moreover, the book claimed that these oriental teachings could not be considered under the name of philosophy. At best, they would be moral codes or at the worst, they would be considered as mere superstitions. As for the pre-Hispanic Americas and the Pacific cultures or African people, they were not even mentioned. Therefore, the largest part of the world was a black hole in terms of philosophy and culture. In Mauritius, at the same period, a cultivated person was referred to as “well groomed”, i.e., he or she had received enough education to show politeness, elegance, the use of the British understatement and the reluctance to “show off”. In France, Malraux has a famous saying about culture, compared to marmalade: the less you have of it, the more you spread.

Nowadays, culture has an important role in social life. There are ministries of culture, whose utility has yet to be proved. We have cultural attachés, cultural centers. The word culture has replaced literature, visual arts, cinema, dance, and music. We even speak of “street culture”, “minority culture” “subculture”, and even of “counter-culture”. We find oxymora and opposites in the same word: if culture is the place for protest, it is also more than often the symbol of imperialism and the oppression of identities.

During the reign of the Nazi, the German culture (so called Aryan, impregnated with the idea of pure race) justified the oppression and the elimination of other cultures that were deemed inferior. Such violence has not been unique in history. Imperial Japan experienced the same downfall, and the colonial states of Europe tried to justify their conquests by the civilized role they contended to play against the barbarian nations of Asia and Africa. In the name of culture, in a more recent past, some political powers have managed campaigns of ethnic purification in Cambodia or in Africa. In China, the so-called Cultural Revolution sought to completely annihilate what was perceived as a corrupt heritage. Culture, then, became associated with politics. Rather than being seen as the expression of individual identity, culture came to signify the influential forces of a society. We know the disasters that have followed such programs and the folly caused by the realization of utopias. Nevertheless, we know that such ideas are not dead and, from time to time, we see them reappear under different masks. If they do not brutally express ethnic purity, they still seek to establish superior and inferior cultures that lay the foundation for the illusory arguments of Samuel Huntington followers that propose a world divided by fractal lines that can only result in the clash of civilizations. Noam Chomsky summed up the attitude in “The West, and the rest” -- that is, we, and the others.

And so we must ask ourselves: culture - for whom and by what means? As a writer, I prefer to speak about books. Literature is an important part of our present culture, because it is founded on language that links the individual with the linguistic domain from which he or she is originated.

Literature is the perfect place for exchange. By the novel, by poetry and theatre, the public gains

In our present days of global crisis and crony capitalism, it is time for us to think about the meaning that we want to give to the word “culture”? What culture? For whom? Following what modes of expression? And to what end?

“we must ask

ourselves: culture - for

whom and by what means?”

access to the truth of a territory, both material and spiritual. The portrait is seen in its most profound truth, without the use of tinted glasses. Truth in literature has nothing to do with politics, propaganda, or even moral rules. Truth can be bitter as in The Shadow of thorny bushes of the Korean novelist I Seung U, sensitive as in Birth of the Day by

the French novelist Colette, squalid as Nausea by Jean Paul Sartre, militant as in The Grapes of Wrath of American novelist Steinbeck, or emotional as in Call it Sleep by the New York novelist Henry Roth. By the grace and power of literature, we can step inside another’s mind to the point to where it becomes our own.

Literature is the heart of a nation, of a language. The great question is how to increase access to literature: the percentage of people reading is extremely feeble. In France, it is 2%, and in developing countries, it seems as if the number has become insignificant. The causes of low access to literature are numerous: analphabetism (in Mauritius for instance, the percentage of illiteracy is around 30% of the population, mainly women), lack of resources or public libraries. Although printing was invented nearly a thousand years ago, access to books is still an inaccessible luxury for the greatest part of humanity. Literature is not only a social class privilege, as defined by sociologist Gramsci. It is above all, an impossible world that, for most humans, is as unreal and unattainable as trying to reach for the stars in the sky. Thus, culture becomes a kind of an elusive element, sometimes violent like a rude stream or slow and motionless as a marsh, where politicians find the ammunition for their personal battle. When bound to a language, a culture or a political milieu, literature expresses communalism, regionalism, and sometimes patriotism. Homer, Virgil, Dante and Tou Fou were the glory and the honor of the countries where they were born, of the language they served -- which they often did not even choose.

Writers had a long-lasting influence on their language: they gave it new forms,

suppleness and truth. As said by French Renaissance poet du Bellay, they illustrated and defended their mother tongue, by providing proof that it could be used to express thought and beauty as well as the ancient languages -- in the case of neo-European languages, which had to rival classic languages such as Greek, Latin or Sanskrit.

In a way, by their art, writers participated in the competition of languages, often unjust and unequal. They contributed to the imposition of an unique language and an unique culture to plural and diversified countries. Since this time, Art has been at the service of a central power to establish the invention of “minorities”.

Has it been damaging? It is difficult to imagine what the world might have been if, instead of the great currents of thought (religious or philosophical), nations had been broken up into numerous languages and states, of which the greatest part would have been at the scale of a tribe. This would not have prevented communication, the exchange of myths and techniques, or the migration of ideas. Perhaps the world would not have been more peaceful, but perhaps it would have spared us bloody conquests and worldwide conflicts.

Chivalry novels are already out of fashion, only the ignorant conquistadores quote them, particularly the Amadis des Gaules in order to illustrate their combat against the indigenous people of America. What they did not know, on the other hand, is that the Aztec people would submit to their authority due to their impregnation by a pessimistic prophecy, thus making their defeat ineluctable. Had the Spaniards been aware of this, it probably would not have changed anything, and their conquest would not have been less ferocious. Interculturality and the universality of humanity, for the conquerors, had no meaning.

As an illustration of the power of exchange in literature, allow me to share with you a personal experience of mine. One of the

Some Candid Thoughts on the Intercultural

“By the grace and power of literature, we can step

inside another’s mind to the point to where it

becomes our own”

“Art has been at the service of a central power to establish the invention

of “minorities”

greatest emotions in my childhood was reading two books, whose authors I was not aware of at the time. One was the Lazarillo de Tormes, the anonymous relation of a young boy accompanying an old blind man as he begged in the streets of a Spanish town. The other was the Quixote of Cervantes. Both books belonged to the private library of my great grandfather, who had been the Chief Judge at the Supreme Court of Mauritius and constituted the unique family heritage. Those books were by no means ordinary. They were, like all the books that my ancestor bought during his life: collector’s books, beautifully bound in leather and illustrated with engravings. A mid-XIX century edition of Quixote was translated by Louis Viardot and illustrated by Tony Johannot. I spent many days reading and rereading those books, as if they had been written for me. Then, when I grew up, it gave me food for thought. I realized that my great-grandfather, a very wealthy man, had preferred books over everything else: he probably lost part of his fortune because he was more attracted to the adventures of the knight of La Mancha than by the administration of his sugar estates. Then, after his ruin, he eventually escaped the company of his contemporaries in Mauritius and took shelter with all his books in the city of Bordeaux in France, and then in Montparnasse in Paris, where he died during the typhus epidemic at the end of the First World War.

In fact, the way he treasured his books over his fortune provided me with an explanation for what we call culture. It gave me a hint about the stakes of the word “culture”, i.e., reality is always challenged by creation. In a way, that lesson seems completely opposite of what is cherished in our contemporary world. To have been attracted in Mauritius by the adventures of the ingenious Hidalgo, meant more than curiosity, it implied the capacity to see the essential of the human mind in a completely exotic decor. In fact, I could imagine that there were common points between Spain at the time of Don Quixote and Mauritius with their shared busy, gaudy and unruly life, in the common boldness of the people, their use of the Creole language and their never defeated sense of humor. I could imagine my great-grandfather and

Hidalgo walking side by side in the popular streets of Port Louis -- the court of justice being very close to the bazaar -- or going horseback riding in the countryside, where Hidalgo could have fought against the sugar mills, and looked for the love of Dulcinea del Toboso in the midst of a materialistic and skeptical high society. As a matter of fact, thanks to my great-grandfather’s love for books, I discovered that at the very same time that the judge was reading the book, Don Quixote was reborn in Mauritius, under the name of the poet Malcolm de Chazal - an enthusiastic and inventive player of words, always ready to pursue his

mediocre contemporaries.

Allow me to give another example, that of Marcel Proust, an author of chronicles of the petite bourgeoisie of the so-called Belle Époque (the nickname due to it being ephemeral) with A la recherche du temps perdu. A contemporary reader might feel, like I felt myself, completely alienated from such an egocentric, refined and grotesque milieu distantly removed from the angst of his times (after all, this Belle Époque was in between two wars) and the cruelty of the colonial conquest in North Africa.

What attracted me, eventually, is close to a paradox: the perception I have that all the passions and the sufferings that compose the innervated derma of the human flesh lay under his frivolous disguise. Proust’s obsession for time, the suffering in pleasure, the cruelty of Mr. Swann’s game of seduction with Odette in order to dominate her and then the odious way in which he rejects her and leaves her prey to the despise of her relations - everything there I find moving and troubling because it is perfectly understandable. If it were not for this identification process, this obsessive play of consciousness that enables the deciphering of obstacles; if intelligence were not the key to understanding human values in a completely closed and hostile environment -- and furthermore, if it were not for the haughty elegance with which the writer invites us in his world, the charm would not exist and we would not feel such an enthralling surprise with every sentence. In fact, we go inside this world as if we were burglars breaking into someone’s dream who “hold[s] in a circle around him the sequence of the hours, the

Some Candid Thoughts on the Intercultural

“It gave me a hint about the stakes of the word “culture”, i.e., reality is always challenged by

creation”

order of the years and worlds” (Swann’s Way 5). What draws our attention in Proust’s novel, what creates our emotion is the essence of the project that is founded on the necessary and essential condition to discover the secret (or in today’s way of speaking: the password) that will allow us to enter. That secret is given just once, in the very first paragraphs of the novel, when the garden doorbell tinkles:

On those evenings when, as we sat in front of the house under the large chestnut tree, around the iron table, we heard at the far end of the garden, not the copious high-pitched bell that drenched, that deafened in passing with it ferruginous, icy, inexhaustible noise any person in the household who set if off by coming in “without ringing”, but the shy, oval, golden double tinkling of the little visitors’ bell, everyone would immediately wonder: “A visitor, now who can that be?” but we all knew very well it could only be M. Swann. (14)

Thus, a magnificent entrance sets into motion all the future parts of the novel. We then know that nothing in the history of this microcosm would be without meaning. We uncover the real source of lives devoured by time: sensations, smells and tastes. What was circulating between the words, between the images, is nothing else than the blood of existence. To say that Proust’s novels are a memory exercise would be feeble. In fact, as Proust says himself, literature is more than an exercise: “A delicious pleasure had invaded me, isolated me, without my having any notion as to its cause. I had immediately rendered the vicissitudes of life unimportant to me […] I had ceased to feel mediocre, contingent, mortal” (45).I have extensively mentioned Proust to illustrate the necessity of apprenticeship in culture - any culture. As I am strongly confident in the role of literature, I am convinced that it will contribute to the advent of intercultural by more translations, free access to books and access to other cultures through public libraries, and from now on, through the miracle of internet. Interculturality is not a fancy dream.

As sociologist Issa Asgarally wrote, the choice is clear: it will be intercultural,

or war. For realistic reasons more than candid optimism, I am convinced that the future will be in peace and sharing.

Today, even if the wicked prophecy of Mr. Samuel Huntington has not proved to be right, and the policy prepared by the so-called Institute for War and Peace has been a total failure, the international situation is tense. Discrimination and radicalism

seem to grow in developed countries as well as in the poor, dominated states. In the name of universal democracy, the most powerful nations on earth assume to themselves the right to bomb the feeblest countries and impose a new way of thinking and living. The consequence of this is that those vanquished countries close themselves off into the affirmation of their identity and invent a radicalism that sometimes is murderous. Never have we been in such need to open doors, not only to see what is happening on the other side, but also to invite our neighbors to share their views and their needs.

We have to always keep in mind the wise comment of the great humanist Erasmus who, when addressing Albert of Brandenburg, bishop of Mayenz, in 1519, on the subject of the religious wars, said that: “All that does not please one, all that is not understandable to one, is called “heresy”. Though poets, playwrights and novelists strongly express a definite culture and an identity, what they write totally escapes the idea of nationalism. Shakespeare, Cervantes and Proust did not write only for their fellow citizens. Thanks to translators and publishers, they can be read outside of their borders, as if they belonged to other cultures. In fact they were the first discoverers of the intercultural, and it is probably why they gained universality, and naturally to a certain limit, something of eternity.

JMG Le Clézio, 19 June 2013 Flic-en-Flac, Mauritius Edition and translation, Martha van der Drift.

Works Cited: Proust, Marcel, Lydia Davis, and Christopher Prendergast. Swann’s Way. New York: Viking, 2003.

Some Candid Thoughts on the Intercultural

“the choice is clear: it will be intercultural, or

war”

A Celebration of the Career and Contribution of Professor Suzanne Rutland, OAM

Dr Avril Alba, Department of Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish Studies

Speakers at the dinner included Vice Chancellor Dr Michael Spence, Provost Professor Stephen Garton and SLC Head of School Professor Yixu Lu. In a moving speech outlining Professor Rutland’s distinguished career, Professor Garton made special note of not only her scholarly achievements but also of her ‘moral courage’ with regard to the ongoing efforts she has

made in encouraging respectful debate and discussion across the university, even on the most difficult of issues. Professor Garton also announced that the University had bestowed upon Professor Rutland the title of Professor Emerita, a well-deserved honour.Keynote speaker, Professor Daniel Blatman of Hebrew University,

On 30 August 2015 over 260 people attended a celebratory dinner in MacLaurin Hall in honour of the Department of Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish Studies Professor Suzanne Rutland, OAM. In July Professor Rutland retired after more than 30 years of dedicated service.

visiting Sydney as a Sir Zelman Cowen Fellow, gave a thought provoking speech about the challenges and potential for Jewish studies departments internationally. In particular he urged scholars active in these areas to maintain a broad focus in their research, a posture he argued that was vital to keeping Jewish studies fresh and engaging across disciplinary boundaries.

Past students paid tribute to Professor Rutland’s dedication as a teacher both in speeches and in a movie produced especially for the occasion. A yearbook distributed on the evening contained the testimony of dozens of students who have benefitted from their studies in HBJS and have gone on to fill important positions in Jewish education and other leadership positions.

Colleagues spoke of her outstanding research record, with HBJS Chair of Department, A/Prof Ian Young noting that she could retire knowing that she had reached her ‘century’ of publications. Her outstanding service record both within the university and in the Jewish and broader communities was also noted with the diverse group in attendance bearing witness to the many communities and individuals she has forged connections with throughout her career.

Finally, the evening came to an inspiring end with the launch of the Suzanne Rutland Fund for Jewish Higher Education, which will be part of the Fund for Jewish Higher Education. The Fund supports much of the department’s activities through the generosity of the late Felicia Einhorn, whose story of survival during the Holocaust is featured in exhibition panels in the department’s corridor. The monies raised will support students undertaking Jewish studies and forging careers in Jewish education, focussing on the areas

of teaching and research about which Professor Rutland remains most passionate. Dr Avril Alba has been appointed to replace Professor Rutland and is co-ordinator of the Jewish Civilisation, Thought and Culture program.

While Professor Rutland has formally retired, she will continue to work on her many research projects, as well as maintain postgraduate supervision duties. She will also remain a mentor and advisor to HBJS faculty and students who will continue to benefit from her years of experience. We wish her a productive, happy and healthy retirement!

Professor Suzanne Rutland

Indonesian in Action at Sydney:

Dr Novi Djenar, Chair, Department of Indonesian Studies

Language, History Walks and Motorbike Rides for NSW High School Students

NSW high school students came together last June for a day of linguo-cultural immersion and talks on contemporary Indonesia

The University of Sydney campus was abuzz with 242 high school students and 18 teachers on Friday 12 June 2015. Robert Holden, teacher of Indonesian at Coonabarabra High School and a Sydney graduate, travelled nearly 500 kilometers from their school to the Camperdown campus to attend Indonesian in Action, a day-long event organized for students in years 9 – 12 who are studying

Indonesian. It was a long but exciting trip for both teacher and students. The 4.5 hour drive from Coonabarabran to Sydney on the minibus had to be made the day before to enable everyone to have a good rest before the event. The following day, it was an early 8.20 am turn up at the venue for a 9.00 am start. With 40 minutes spare time before the program started, Mr Holden had the chance to show his students the place where he studied. Indonesian in Action was the result of a cross-sectoral collaboration between the Department of Indonesian Studies at Sydney and Department of Education and Communities, Association of Independent Schools, Catholic Education, and Modern Language Teachers Association. This was the third of three large events arising from this collaboration. The previous events were Indonesian: Where It Can Take You, a student day held in 2012 and attended by 220 students, and Indonesian Teachers’ Conference in 2013, attended by over 90 teachers from New South Wales, Australian

Capital Territory, Victoria, Queensland, and South Australia. This year’s event was generously funded by the government through the National Asian Languages in Schools Program awarded to the Department of Education and Communities. The University of Sydney made an in-kind contribution by providing the venue and door prizes. For the first time this year the Australia-Indonesia Youth Association Students taking part in the krupuk (rice crackers)

eating competition

Randai performance workshop

Indonesian in Action came on board and also funded some activities. Meanwhile, the Australia-Indonesia Association has been a partner since 2012 and has made available to students a number of language scholarships sponsored by the Commonwealth Bank. The Indonesian Consulate General in Sydney has also been a regular supporter. The aim of this year’s event was to promote an interest in the study of Indonesia beyond high school. An event such as this provides a good opportunity for students not only to meet other students in the state who are learning Indonesian, but also to learn about Indonesia in ways that they would otherwise not be exposed to at school. The day’s program was therefore organized around a mix of language and cultural activities, and talks designed to stimulate interest in learning further about contemporary Indonesian society. The program began in the morning with a welcome by Professor Adrian Vickers (Director of Asian Studies) followed by the official opening by Dr Yayan Mulyana, Consul General of the Republic of Indonesia. Students were then entertained with a traditional theatre-like performance from West Sumatra, Randai, before talks by Dr Vannessa Hearman (Department of Indonesian Studies) and Mr Samuel Bashfield (Sydney South East Asia Centre). Dr Hearman’s talk highlighted the exciting initiatives people in Indonesia have taken to make history more relevant to young people, such as opening new museums with attractive set-up and history walks. “More

and more young Indonesians are taking part in history walks as a fun way to understand the past”, said Dr Hearman. Mr Bashfield’s talk was based on a personal experience studying in Indonesia. He showed some of the exciting things students can explore when studying in-country as university students. Internship at the respected English-language newspaper, the Jakarta Globe, and travelling 3,000 kilometres on a motorbike from Jakarta to Aceh to raise money for charity were two

among many possibilities. After a free Indonesian lunch, students were settled into different groups for afternoon activities. These include language immersion for years 11-12 led by Indonesian Studies senior students, dance/theatre workshop by Suara Indonesia Dance Group, tumpeng (ceremonial rice) design competition

organized by AIYA, and campus tour in Indonesian led by postgraduate students. The Indonesian Student Association of NSW, which, like AIYA, participated for the first time this year, introduced students to krupuk (large crackers) eating competition - a common activity in Indonesian public holiday celebrations but something unfamiliar to the students. Participants were to eat crackers suspended on a string without using their hands. There was much initial reluctance to participate in this activity, perhaps due to its unfamiliarity. “I’m not doing that!” was the initial response line. However, after seeing AIYA members devouring the delicious crackers, students were persuaded to join in. Announcement of a number of language scholarships was made before the day closed with the distribution of door prizes. For the Coonabarabran students, it was another 4.5-hour drive back home but this time they had traditional theatre, history walks, tumpeng, krupuk, and motorbike ride in Sumatra to talk about. The organizing committee for ‘Indonesian in Action’ consisted of Lyndall Franks (Department of Education & Communities), Merryl Wahlin (Association of Independent Schools), Gillian Cordy (Catholic Education & Modern Language Teachers Association), Chris Hall (Australia-Indonesia Youth Association), and Dr Novi Djenar (Chair, Department of Indonesian Studies, The University of Sydney).

Members of the organizing committee and students after the event

PUBLICATIONSChinese Studies:Gilbert C. F. Fong and Mabel Lee, tr. Gao Xingjian, City of the Dead and Song of the Night. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2015, 84pp. + Introduction vii-xxvii. (City of the Dead tr. by Gilbert C. F. Fong, pp. 1–61; Song of the Night tr. by Mabel Lee, pp. 64–84.)

Lee, Mabel, “Ah Xian: Challenging the Spatial Limitations of Sculptural Art,” Humanities Australia, 6 (2015): 27–36.

Lee, Mabel, “Gao Xingjian: Autobiography and the Portrayal of the Female Psyche,” Gao Xingjian, City of the Dead and Song of the Night. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, pp. vii–xxvii.

Lee, Mabel, “Hong Ying: Poetry as Autobiographical Moments,” Hong Ying, I Too Am Salammbo. Sydney: Vagabond Press, 2015, pp. 10–19.

Lee, Mabel, tr. Hong Ying, I Too Am Salammbo. Sydney: Vagabond Press, 2015. 161pp.

Maras, S M, Nip, J Y M 2015, The Travelling Objectivity Norm, Journalism Studies, 16(3), 326-342

McDougall, B S 2015, Infinite Variations of Writing and Desire: Love Letters in China and Europe, A History of Chinese Letters and Epistolary Culture, Brill, Leiden, 31, 546-581

Paltridge, B, Wang, W 2015, Discourse analysis, Research methods in applied linguistics: A practical resource, Bloomsbury, London, 205-223

Riegel, J K 2015, A Root Split in Two: Mengzi 3A5 Reconsidered, Asia Major: a journal of Far Eastern Studies, 28(Part I), 37-59

Riegel, J K 2015, Homicide, Same-Sex Rape, and the Pursuit of Justice in Early 19th Century China, Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 8(2), 271-290

Tsung, L T H 2015, Multiple identities and second language learning in Hong Kong, Language and Identity Across Modes of Communication, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, 1, 107-123

Wang, W 2015, Uncovering how identities of laobaixing are constructed in China’s most read magazine, Language and Identity Across Modes of Communication, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, 1, 203-223

Zhao, X 2015, Ghost and Spirits in Zaju and Noh: A Comparative Study, Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics, XXXVII(1-2), 101-131

Zhao, X 2015, Ghosts and spirits in Chinese zaju and Japanese noh: a comparative study (in press), Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics

Zhao, X 2015, “Keju zhiyu hunyin jilting guanxi de kaocha - Yi Yuan zaju Qiangtou mashang, Xiaoxiang yu and Yuqiao ji wei zhongxin” (Civil Service Examinations and Their Relation to Marriage and Family Relationships: A Case Study of Three Yuan Zaju Plays On the Horseback and over the Garden Wall, Rain on the Xiaoxiang River, and Record of a Fisherman and a Woodcutter), Keju yu Chuangbo: Zhongguo Suwenxue Yanjiu (Civil Service Examinations and Communications: Studies in Vernacular Chinese Literature), Peking University Press, Beijing, 1, 247-265

PUBLICATIONSThe Politics of Identity in Latin American Censuses contributes new and original perspectives to existing discussions about the shaping of multiculturalist ideology in Latin America, its interweaving with the cultural politics of neoliberalism and the relation between ethnic identification resurgence and economic globalization. Scrutinising national censuses across the continent, the studies included in this volume reveal clear relationships between censuses, nation-building and government projects, but also strong and determinant connections between domestic and supra-national spheres. The contributors to this volume open provocative avenues of research on Latin American societies by demonstrating how, in the realm of identity politics, supra-national institutions and normativity socialise national census bureaus in a way that largely annuls ideological differences between regional governments.

The politics of identity in Latin American censuses by Luis F. Angosto-Ferrández, Sabine Kradolfer

French Studies:Antle, M N 2015, Dada and Surrealism Faced with Colonialism, South Central Review, 32(1), 116-119

Antle, M N 2015, Du Regard au Toucher: Pour une Approche Tactile de lErotisme Surraliste, Mlusine, Les Cahiers du surralisme, Revue Mélusine L’Age d’Homme, Paris, XXXV, 51-58

Antle, M N 2015, Review - Jennifer L. Shaw. Reading Claude Cahun’s Disavowals, Contemporary French Civilization: a journal devoted to all aspects of civilization and cultural studies in france and the francophone world, 40(1), 100-102

Antle, M N, Célestin, R, DalMolin, E 2015, Editors’ Introduction: J.M.G. Le Clzio or the Challenges of the Intercultural, Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, 19(2), 123-127

Bandhauer, A, Royer, M 2015, Introduction: Star Studies and World Cinema, Stars in World Cinema: Screen Icons and Star Systems Across Cultures., I.B.Tauris, London, 1, 1-12

Bandhauer, A, Royer, M 2015, Stars in World Cinema: Screen Icons and Star Systems Across Cultures, I.B.Tauris, London

Grauby, F 2015, Le roman de la cration, crire entre mythes et pratiques, Brill/Rodopi, Amsterdam and New York

Lipovsky, C 2015, Constructing professional identity through Curricula Vitae, Language and Identity Across Modes of Communication, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, 1, 263-290

PUBLICATIONSLipovsky, C 2015, Gender specification and occupational titles: An investigation of French womens CVs, Sociolinguistic Studies, 9(1), 93-113

Rechniewski, E M 2015, The Perils of Proximity: The Geopolitical Underpinnings of Australian Views Of New Caledonia In The Nineteenth Century, Portal: journal of multidisciplinary international studies, 12(1)

Royer, M 2015, Mystre, intellectualisme, authenticit et impertinence: Isabelle Huppert en jeu, Australian Journal of French Studies, 52(2), 149-161

Royer, M 2015, Star Embodiment and the Lived Experience of Ageing in Cinema: The Case of Amour, Stars in World Cinema: Screen Icons and Star Systems Across Cultures., I.B.Tauris, London, 1, 199-212

Sitbon, C 2015, The Literary Hoax: The Art of Authorial Forgery, Deception: An Interdisciplinary Exploration, Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 1, 55-62

Stott, C A 2015, Belleville rouge, Belleville noir, Belleville rose: the complex identity of a Parisian quartier, Portal: journal of multidisciplinary international studies, 12(1), 1-16

Stott, C A 2015, Migration, Public Policy and Gentrification in Belleville, Paris, Australian and New Zealand Journal of European Studies (ANZJES), 6(2)-7(1), 36-50

Stott, C A, Fielding, R 2015, Lost in Transition? Perspectives on the Transition to University Language Learning, Babel, 49(3), 14-25

Germanic Studies:Bandhauer, A 2015, I Cannot Live Without Performing: Romy Schneiders On- and Off-Screen Embodiments of the Tragic,

Stars in World Cinema: Screen Icons and Star Systems Across Cultures., I.B.Tauris, London, 1, 213-225

Bandhauer, A, Royer, M 2015, Introduction: Star Studies and World Cinema, Stars in World Cinema: Screen Icons and Star Systems Across Cultures., I.B.Tauris, London, 1, 1-12

Bandhauer, A, Royer, M 2015, Stars in World Cinema: Screen Icons and Star Systems Across Cultures, I.B.Tauris, London

Spitzmüller, J, Lay, T 2015, Erinnerungsorte: Kulturbezogenes Lernen im landeskundlichen DaF-/DaZ-Unterricht, Mehr Sprache(n) lernen mehr Sprache(n) lehren, Shaker, Aachen, 161-176

Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish Studies:Gilead, Y, Perlman, LA 2015, Lost in translation: Ida Fink’s Eugenia, Australian Journal of Jewish Studies, in press

Gross, Z, Rutland, S D 2015, Creating a safe place: SRE teaching as an act of security and identity formation in government schools in Australia, British Journal of Religious Education

Jensen, M D 2015, Noah, the Eighth Proclaimer of Righteousness: Understanding2 Peter 2.5 in Light of Genesis 4.26, Journal for the Study of the New Testament, 37(4), 458-469

Lipski, S, Rutland, S D 2015, Let My People Go: The Untold Story of Australia and the Soviet Jews 1959-89, Hybrid Publishers, Melbourne

PUBLICATIONSRutland, S D 2015, Genocide or Holocaust Education: Exploring Different Australian Approaches for Muslim School Children, As the Witnesses Fall Silent: 21st Century Holocaust Education in Curriculum, Policy and Practice, Springer, Cham, Switzerland, 1, 225-241

Rutland, S D 2015, ‘Returning to a Graveyard’: The Australian debates about March of the Living to Poland, Aftermath: Genocide, Memory and History, Monash University Publishing, Clayton, 1, 141-166

Indian Sub-continental Studies & Buddhist Studies:Clark, C 2015, Nibbana as the Fruit of Meritorious Deeds in the Apadana, Asian Horizons: Giuseppe Tucci’s Buddhist, Indian, Himalayan and Central Asian Studies, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 1, 229-240

Clark, C 2015, The Sixth Buddhist Council: Its Purpose, Presentation,and Product, Journal of Burma Studies, 19(1), 79-112

Samuel, G B 2015, The contemporary mindfulness movement and the question of non-self, Transcultural Psychiatry, 1-16

Indonesian Studies:Campbell, S L 2015, Temple Art For Sale: Traditional painting in contemporary Bali, Indonesia and the Malay World, 43(126), 226-254

Djenar, D 2015, Style and authorial identity in Indonesian teen literature: a “sociostylistic” approach, Language and Identity Across Modes of Communication, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, 1, 225-248

Djenar, D, Ewing, M 2015, Language varieties and youthful involvement in Indonesian fiction, Language and Literature, 24(2), 108-128

Djenar, D, Mahboob, A, Cruickshank, K 2015, Language and Identity Across Modes of Communication, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin

Djenar, D, Mahboob, A, Cruickshank, K E 2015, Identity and mode as a frame for understanding social meanings, Language and Identity Across Modes of Communication, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, 1-13

Ford, M T, Gillan, M 2015, The Global Union Federations in International Industrial Relations: A Critical Review, Journal of Industrial Relations, 57(3), 456-475

Ford, M T, Gillian, M, Thien, H 2015, From Cronyism to Oligarchy? Privatisation and Business Elites in Myanmar, Journal of Contemporary Asia

Ford, M T, Lyons, L 2015, Working for a Day Off: Advocating for the Rights of Migrant Women in Southeast Asia (in press), Beyond Colonialism, Development and Globalisation, Zed Books Ltd, UK

Hearman, V C E 2015, Sweet Potato Dreaming: Development, Displacement and Food Crisis in South Blitar, East Java, 1968, Global Food History, 1(1), 81-102

Martinez, J, Vickers, A H 2015, The Pearl Frontier: Indonesian Labor and Indigenous Encounters in Australia’s Northern Trading Network, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu

PUBLICATIONSSalim, D 2015, The Transnational and the Local in the Politics of Islam: The Case of West Sumatra, Indonesia, Springer, New York

Vickers, A H 2015, Book review - Producing Indonesia: The State of the Field of Indonesian Studies, Sojourn, 30(1), 261-265

Italian Studies:Alu, G M C 2015, (Forthcoming) Mythical ‘far-away-ness’: desire and idealization in Wilhelm von Gloeden’s photographs of Sicily, In the Eye of the Beholder: Travel Literature, Translation and Otherness, Peter Lang Publishing, New York

Alu, G M C 2015, Looking through Coloured Shards: Words and Images in Ornela Vorpsis Works, Enlightening Encounters: Photography in Italian Literature, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1, 254-278

Alu, G M C, Pedri, N 2015, Enlightening Encounters: Photography in Italian Literature, University of Toronto Press, Toronto

Alu, G M C, Pedri, N 2015, Photo-Literary Encounters in Italy, Enlightening Encounters: Photography in Italian Literature, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1, 3-24

Alu, G M C, Pedri, N 2015, Writing with Light: Concluding Remarks, Enlightening Encounters: Photography in Italian Literature, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1, 279-283

Canaris, D 2015, Children and myth in the thought of Giambattista Vico, Intellectual History Review, 25(2), 191-208

Piazza, R, Rubino, A 2015, Racial Laws Turned Our Lives

Positively: Agentivity and Chorality in the Identity of a Group of Italian Jewish Witnesses, Marked Identities: Narrating Lives Between Social Labels and Individual Biographies, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, UK, 1, 98-122

Rubino, A 2015, Performing identities in intergenerational conflict talk: A study of a Sicilian-Australian family, Language and Identity Across Modes of Communication, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, 1, 125-151

Santello, M 2015, Advertising to Italian English Bilinguals in Australia: Attitudes and Response to Language Selection, Applied Linguistics, 36(1), 95-120

Japanese Studies:Ansart, O 2015, L’trange voyage de Confucius au Japon, Animaviva Multilingüe, Norderstedt

Babicz, L 2015, A new chapter for TokyoSeoul relations, 50 years on?, East Asia Forum Quarterly

Babicz, L 2015, February 11, 1889: The Birth of Modern Japan, Japan’s Multilayered Democracy, Lexington Books, London, 1, 21-35

Claremont, Y 2015, Towards new literary trend: Contemporary Japanese society mirrored in literature, Visions of Precarity in Japanese Popular Culture and Literature, Routledge, Abingdon, United Kingdom, 1, 152-168

PUBLICATIONSClarke, H D 2015, Language and identity in Okinawa and Amami: Past, present and future, Handbook of the Ryukyuan Languages: History, Structure, and Use, De Gruyter Mouton, Berlin, 11, 631-647

Jarkey, N R 2015, Serial Verbs in White Hmong, Brill, Leiden

Jarkey, N R 2015, The Housewife’s Companion: identity construction in a Japanese women’s magazine, Language and Identity Across Modes of Communication, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, 1, 179-201

Karlsson, M 2015, Book review - The Aesthetics of Shadow: Lighting and Japanese Cinema, Asian Studies Review, 39(1), 166-168

Karlsson, M 2015, Hirabayashi Eiko and the projection of a viable proletarian vision, Visions of Precarity in Japanese Popular Culture and Literature, Routledge, Abingdon, United Kingdom, 1, 102-116

Karlsson, M 2015, Review - Anne Allison, Precarious Japan, Japanese Studies, 35(1), 126-127

Karlsson, M 2015, Setsuko Hara: Japans Eternal Virgin and Reluctant Star of the Silver Screen, Stars in World Cinema: Screen Icons and Star Systems Across Cultures., I.B.Tauris,

London, 1, 51-66

Rosenbaum, R 2015, Graphic representation of the precariat in popular culture, Visions of Precarity in Japanese Popular Culture and Literature, Routledge, Abingdon, United Kingdom, 1, 132-151

Rosenbaum, R 2015, Towards an introduction: Japans literature of precarity, Visions of Precarity in Japanese Popular Culture and Literature, Routledge, Abingdon, United Kingdom, 1, 1-23

Suter, R M 2015, Holy Ghosts: The Christian Century in Modern Japanese Fiction, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu

Suter, R M 2015, Review of Strecher, Matthew, The Forbidden Worlds of Haruki Murakami, H-Asia, H-Net Reviews

Tokita, T 2015, The Post-3/11 Quest for True Kizuna Shi no Tsubute by Wag Ryichi and Kamisama 2011 by Kawakami Hiromi, The Asia-Pacific Journal, 13(6), 1-8

Yasumoto, S 2015, Cultural harmonization in East Asia: Adaptation of Hana yori dango / Boys Over Flowers, East Asian Journal of Popular Culture, 1(1), 113-131

PUBLICATIONSModern Greek Studies:Karalis, V 2015, Traumatised Masculinity and Male Stardom in Greek Cinema, Stars in World Cinema: Screen Icons and Star Systems Across Cultures., I.B.Tauris, London, 1, 184-198

Spanish and Latin American Studies:Angosto Ferrandez, L F 2015, Indigenous peoples, social movements and the legacy of Hugo Chvez’s governments, Latin American Perspectives: a journal on capitalism and socialism

Angosto Ferrandez, L F 2015, Venezuela reframed: Bolivarianism, indigenous peoples and socialisms of the 21st century [Forthcoming], Zed Books Ltd, USA

Angosto Ferrandez, L F, Kradolfer, S 2015, The Politics of Identity in Latin American Censuses, Routledge (Taylor and Francis), UK

De Pablos-Ortega, C 2015, Audience Perception of Characters in Pedro Almodovars Film La Flor De Mi Sectreto (The Flower of My Secret), Audiovisual Translation: Taking Stock, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1, 190-208

Del Rio Hernandez, M 2015, Shadowing Laforet: Memory and the Imaginary in the Worlds of Espido Freire and Carmen Martn Gaite, Telling Tales: Storytelling in Contemporary Spain, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle Upon Tyne, 1, 128-145

Matute, I D 2015, Mezcala construction of autonomy. Balance of challenges and proposals to neoliberalism | Mezcala:

Construccin de autonoma. balance de retos y propuestas frente al neoliberalismo, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research, 21(1), 1-18

Walsh, A L 2015, Spanish Stars, Distant Dreams: The Role of Voice in Shaping Perception, Stars in World Cinema: Screen Icons and Star Systems Across Cultures., I.B.Tauris, London, 1, 92-103

Walsh, A L 2015, Telling Tales: Storytelling in Contemporary Spain, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle Upon Tyne

Wharton, B 2015, Saving Spain, Building Spaniards: Mapping Morality in Contemporary Spanish Narrative, Telling Tales: Storytelling in Contemporary Spain, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle Upon Tyne, 1, 180-193

Buddhist Studies:Eriksen, Christine and Ditrich, Tamara. 2015. “The relevance of mindfulness practice for trauma-exposed disaster researchers.” Emotion, Space and Society (2015), pp. 1–7. (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2015.07.004)

newsSLC News: Outstanding results in Unit of Study SurveysThe School has received great results in Unit of Study Surveys for semester 1, especially for first year units.There is a good mix of first year and senior units (2 x1000 units, 1 x 2000 unit and 2x 3000 units) in the School which scored Faculty Recommendations. Congratulations to all those who received the recommendations. It’s a great achievement!

• Chinese for Background Speakers 1 (Coor-

dinator/Teacher: Wie Wang)

• European Identity in the 21st Century (Coor-

dinator/Teacher: Peter Morgan)

• Indonesian 1A (Coordinator/Teacher: Novi

Djenar)

• Introductory Arabic 1A (Coordinator/Teach-

er: Ali Aldahesh)

• Introduction to Chinese Civilisation (Coordi-

nator/Teacher: Esther Klein)

• Introductory Italian 1 (Coordinator/Teacher:

Giorgia Alu)

• Japanese 1 Coordinator/Teacher: (Seiko

Yasumoto)

• Junior French 1 (Coordinator/Teacher: Alice

Caffarel)

• Junior French 3 (Coordinator/Teacher: Clara

Sitbon)

• Junior French 5 (Coordinator/Teacher:

Carolyn Stott)

• Junior German 1 (Coordinator/Teacher:

Andrea Bandhauer)

• Junior Modern Greek 1 (Coordinator/Teach-

er: Panayota Nazou)

• Level 1 Spanish (Coordinator/Teacher:

Macarena Gordillo)

First Year Commendations: Faculty Commendations:For Q1 and Q6 in the top 25% of the School (for class size of 15 or more)

• Junior Modern Greek 1 (Coordinator/Teacher:

Panayota Nazou)

• Introduction to Chinese Civilisation (Coordinator/

Teacher: Esther Klein)

• Zen and Chan buddism (Coordinator/Teacher:

Chiew Ho)

• Chinese Buddist Texts (Coordinator/Teacher:

Chiew Ho)

• Senior Italian 5 (Coordinator/Teacher:

Emmanuela Moretto)

For Q1 and Q6 in the top 50% (for class size of 15 or more). A total of 13 of out of 21 Units of Study which received the First Year Recommendation are from SLC. They are:

newsSLC Pedagogy CommitteeOn Friday June 12 the SLC Pedagogy Committee organised a successful Teaching Day, with over 40 participants in attendance. The theme was AV Online. The morning sessions were devoted to presentations by SLC colleagues of innovative use of new technologies that enhance their teaching and their students’ learning. In Session 1, Dr Carolyn Stott presented an overview of contemporary teaching issues in SLC. She addressed many of the questions raised and suggestions made at the SLC Board Meeting Teaching Group in April, including provision of training for SLC colleagues for teaching innovations in eLearning; online submission of assessment and new BB tools; improving the teaching and learning culture in SLC; addressing student retention within SLC. She challenged colleagues to experiment with new eLearning technology and teaching tools by incorporating one innovation into every UoS that we teach.

In Session 2, Dr Michelle Royer, Director of the Diploma of Languages, gave an update on the Accelerated Diploma of Languages in SLC, which

left colleagues with a much greater understanding of this exciting opportunity now available to our students. The Diploma is currently being offered in Japanese, Korean and Spanish, and will be extended to French and Chinese in 2016.

In Session 3, Dr Nerida Jarkey (Japanese Studies) demonstrated how she uses the Kaltura educational video platform in her units of study; it was particularly interesting to see how she incorporates this innovation into ICLS 2111 Essentials of Language Learning, the cultural unit taken by all students as part of the Accelerated Diploma of Languages. In Session 4, Dr Yona Gilead (Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish Studies) and Ms Samantha Haley (Japanese Studies) gave us an insight into the potential of Voiceboard for providing feedback and assessing students’ oral competency. In Session 5, Ms Clara Sitbon demonstrated how she uses the presentation software Prezi in her teaching to capture and maintain students’ attention; this provides an innovative alternative to Powerpoint.

The afternoon sessions took place in the Brennan McCallum Learning Studios, and incorporated an

online training by Rebecca Plumbe from Sydney eLearning in the use of Prezi. The final Teaching Day session focussed on maximising the use of Brennan MacCallum Learning Studios as a teaching and learning space.

SLC colleagues are encouraged to access the Powerpoint presentations from Teaching Day 2015 via the SLC Pedagogy eCommunity on Blackboard; there is a self-enrolment facility with the access code of SLC.

In order to address remaining issues raised at by the Teaching Group at the SLC April Board Meeting, the Pedagogy Committee will organise discussion groups throughout Semester 2 on topics relevant to colleagues across SLC such as assessment of oral fluency; teaching literature in a language unit; incorporation of complex theoretical concepts in the target language; active involvement of an audience in oral presentations. A second online training session for SLC is scheduled for Kaltura for July 20, timed so that colleagues can incorporate this into their Semester 2 teaching and learning activities.

newsFrench StudiesBonjour!!!!The French department has completely revamped its website and we invite you to view our program, its mission and innovations. We have been busy organizing an event on September 23rd for our students and inform them about our Major and Honours program. A raffle is also planned for this event and our students will be welcomed with macaroons!THE French Department is happy to announce: The 2015 Sonia Marks Lecture | “The Language of Narratology” by Professor Gerald J. Prince, University of Pennsylvania9 October, 2015 4.00 - 6.00pmProfessor Gerald Prince, Professor of Romance Languages at The University of Pensylvania is

a specialist of Modern French literature and the author of several books, including Métaphysique et technique dans l’œuvre romanesque de Sartre, A Grammar of Stories,

Narratology: The Form and Functioning of Narrative, A Dictionary of Narratology, Narrative as Theme, and Guide du roman de langue française (1901-1950) as well as many articles on narrative theory and on modern French literature. The General Editor of the “Stages” series for the U of Nebraska P, Prince is a member of the editorial or advisory board of over a dozen journals (including Narrative, Style, Diacritics, French Review and Roman 20/50). He is currently working on the second volume of his Guide du roman de langue française (1951-2000), regularly teaches courses on narrative poetics and on modern French fiction (from Proust and Gide to Sartre and Camus; from Sarraute and Robbe-Grillet to Ernaux and Houellebecq). In 2013 he received the Wayne C. Booth Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for the Study of Narrative.Location: Woolley Common Room, John Woolley Building (A20)

We are very happy to announce that in May Dr Carolyn Stott was one of three recipients from across the University of the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Teaching. The purpose of this prestigious award, for which each recipient is awarded $10,000, is to promote, recognize and reward excellence in learning and teaching at the University of Sydney. Dr Carolyn Stott’s successful application was based on Supporting Language

Students’ Transition to and from University, focusing on bridging the gap for first-year students from high school, and on senior students seeking a career in teaching French. The selection panel commended her for her extremely well organized and committed language pedagogy that engages students in learning French. Undoubtedly, this award speaks highly for the French academic staff commitment to teaching and pedagogical innovations.

Also thanks to the French staff’s efforts, French Studies and the Sydney Abroad Office have successfully negotiated a new short-term exchange program with the University of Geneva. The French Department is planning to offer participating students in 2016 and 2017 additional financial support through the Australian

newsGovernment Endeavour Mobility Grant Scheme.

Since February 2015, Dr Clara Sitbon and Dr Royer (Director) are developing the curriculum with language units for the new Accelerated Diploma of Language Studies in French that will be offered from January 2016. These units are being designed according to the flipped classroom concept and the blended model: learning resources are made available online for students before the classes, which will allow them to learn at their own pace and guarantees a productive and effective reinforcement in the classroom. The Accelerated Diploma innovates in terms of the inclusion of new technologies in the design of the units and the delivery of the courses. These innovations will allow students who would not have the opportunity to study languages in their curriculum to broaden their skills by learning a new language outside of the standard semesters. More information about the Accelerated Diploma of Language Studies here: sydney.edu.au/courses/Diploma-of-Language-StudiesYou can apply now or express your interest in the Diploma online.sydney.edu.au/arts/slc/departments_programs/study_languages.shtmlAs you all know the DLS is now being offered in the accelerated mode in Japanese, Korean and Spanish. Level 1 and 2 units were successfully

taught for the first time in January and February 2015 and “Essentials of Language Learning” (ICLS2011), a fully online unit offered to all students enrolled in the accelerated Diploma was taught by Dr Nerida Jarkey during the first semester. In second semester, the online cultural units will be offered for the first time in the three languages.French and Chinese will be available in 2016 in the accelerated mode and we have already received expressions of interest.Dr Michelle Royer, Director of the Diploma of Language Studies, has worked with Phil Lemalu (marketing team) to organize the updating of the promotional video. The new video will be online by the end of August for Open Day (29 August). So stay tuned!Ass/Prof Linda Tsung , Dr. Clara Sitbon and Dr Carolyn Stott are very busy designing the Chinese and French units which will be ready to be launched in January 2016.

The French Department is planning a major international scholarly conference: “ Marguerite Duras and the Arts”Call for papers - Deadline: 1st September 2015 to: michelle.royer@sydney.edu.auDr Michelle Royer is convening this international Conference of “Marguerite Duras and the Arts” to be held at the University of Sydney on 30th June and 1st July

sydney.edu.au/arts/conference/duras/index.shtmlBy the time this conference takes place in 2016, 20 years will have passed since the death of Marguerite Duras. However this gathering will not be a commemoration. On the contrary, it will aim at opening new research perspectives on Duras’ relationships with the arts and will be an opportunity to explore parallels, influences, cross-fertilisation and exchanges between Duras’ work and the arts of the 20th and 21st century. Duras had always refused a narrow and compartmentalised definition of literature and cinema and although her work has often been associated with other art forms: painting, photography, music, poetry, the relationships between Duras’ work and the arts are still largely unexplored.This conference will provide the opportunity for researchers to reflect on the interactions between

newsDuras and the arts of the 20th and 21st centurty, to re-frame her work in the context of the artistic production of her era and to explore her influence on literature, theater and cinema, in France and across the world.

ResearchThe French department continues to engage in collaborative and cross-disciplinary research. For example, The Department of Arabic Language and Cultures, the Department of French Studies in the School of Languages and Cultures, and the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney are collaborating for the event: Sydney Ideas with the topic “What is veiling?”More information: sydney.edu.au/arts/french/about/events/index.shtml?id=3734

Professor Martine Antle is also collaborating on a cross disciplinary cluster research project and exhibit at SCA Galleries on the relationship between documentary practices in contemporary art and culture, and the further production of meaning through theoretical inquiry. It brings together shared research interests of the ‘Art & the Document’ research cluster at SCA, and the ‘Photographic Cultures’ research group at the University of Sydney. It is conceived as a gallery- based research project in which artists and scholars use the gallery site in an experimental way to generate new and innovative research outcomes. This project aligns with the research

goals of SCA by its commitment to create a rigorous and generative platform for the intersection of innovative creative and critical inquiry, and cross-disciplinary discourse. It also aims to extend this with peers from outside the faculty and university.

In June, Dr. Caroline Lipovsky conducted field research in the Parisian neighborhood of Belleville for her project in landscape linguistics. This project aims at reaching a better understanding of the ways in which Belleville’s varied ethnic groups appropriate the public space to establish their presence, and how immigrated communities use public and commercial signs as identity markers in the French linguistic landscape.

One Asian business on rue de Belleville © Andy Siitonen and Liz Saarelainen

newsWhile on her research trip in July in France, Dr Michelle Royer undertook research and writing for a chapter titled “Rencontres sensorielles” to be published in the prestigious Cerisy Publications (PUR) “MARGUERITE DURAS: Passages, Croisements, rencontres” edited by Florence de Chalonge. She carried out research in the BIFI and IMEC on Duras cinema and painting for a conference paper to be presented at “Duras and the arts” international conference next year (see above) a reassessment of Duras’cinema for a publication under review by IB Tauris.

She met with artist Thu Van Tran who has agreed to participate in the Conference “Duras and the Arts” in June-July 2016 and present an exhibition based on “Duras Song” previously curated at the Pompidou Centre in Paris for the centenary of Marguerite Duras’birth.

She contacted several high profile potential participants including with Joëlle Pagès-Pindon, author and editor of the major publications on Marguerite Duras who will also be participating in the “Duras and the Arts” conference.

Dr Royer has been a participant in a series of scholarly and cultural events in the town of Duras (Dordogne) : photographic exhibitions, readings and visiting of key site linked with Marguerite Duras’ life and work.

During the winter break, whilst developing the units for the accelerated diploma, Dr. Clara Sitbon also worked on two research projects. The first one is focused around translation practices and fake translations in post-war French crime fiction, and is undertaken with colleagues in French Studies at the University of Newcastle for a broader project entitled “Detective Fiction on The Move”. She traveled to Paris to examine archives and original texts at the Bibliothèque des Littératures Policières (Crime Fiction Library) located in Rue Cardinal Lemoine, in Paris’s fifth arrondissement.

She also spoke at a conference at Oxford, entitled « Deception: Probing the Boundaries ». This conference is the annual gathering of a research cluster organized around Inter-Disciplinary.Net, and

whose aim is to study the phenomenon of deception through an inter-disciplinary lens that ranges from literature, political science, philosophy, to history and arts. Clara’s presentation examined the social and political resonance of literary hoaxes through fabricated autobiographies and fake testimonials. This conference will lead to an edited book on the many faces of deception.

While on SDO and SSP in Europe, Associate Professor Bronwyn Winter participated in a number of conferences:

• the Women in French conference in Leeds in May, where she presented a paper on ‘Au Bazar du genre’, one of the inaugural temporary exhibitions at the Musée des Civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée (MuCEM) in Marseille – a special journal issue or book including papers from the conference is planned;

news• the European Feminist Research Conference

in Rovaniemi, Finland, on the theme of ‘sex and capital’ (3-6 June), where she spoke on issues raised by gay men’s claim to access to parenting through the use of a surrogate;

• the International Studies Association Human Rights Conference in the Hague (8-10 June), where conference participants also visited the International Criminal Court – the theme of this year’s conference was ‘Human rights and justice’ and Associate Professor Winter spoke on justice for LGBTI populations and the crosscultural and political challenges in achieving it; and

• the European Conference on Politics and Gender (a section of the European Consortium for Political Research) in Uppsala, Sweden (11-13 June), where she participated in a panel coordinated by colleagues from Sciences Po Paris (Laboratoire CEVIPOF) and the Political Science Dept at the University of Ottawa on the state and gay marriage. A collective book project on this theme is under preparation.

In Paris in June/July, Associate Professor Winter worked on an article for a special issue of Contemporary French Civilisation on ‘The impossible subject of Charlie Hebdo’, and met with with colleague Dr Lucia Sorbera from the Dept

of Arabic Studies, with whom she is preparing a co-edited special issue of Global Discourse on the theme of ‘legitimacy’, scheduled for publication in early 2016.

Italian StudiesOn 1-4 July 2015, the Department co-hosted The 8th Biennial Conference of the Australasian Centre for Italian Studies (see feature article).

Invited Presentations Dr Francesco Borghesi• Death by kiss: A Mystical Approach to

Renaissance Philosophy, Workshop on “Varieties of Ecstasy: Philosophical and Religious Traditions from Antiquity to the Renaissance”, Monash University, 26 and 27 July 2015.

• Peace and Concord as Ideals in Late Medieval Italy, The University of Melbourne, 27 July 2015.

Dr Maria Cristina Mauceri:• Rivisitazioni teatrali del canone in un contesto

interculturale, Università di Roma “La Sapienza”, 20 May 2015.

Emeritus Professor Nerida Newbigin • Lecture on Dante, Poet of Certainty to mark

the 750th Anniversary of the poet’s birth, Dante

Alighieri Society, Sydney, 12 June 2015.

Francesco Possemato (doctoral candidate): • Preliminary observations on teachers’ pre-

sequence closing third device in an Italian L2 classroom, Monthly Meeting of the Conversation Analysis In Sydney (CAIS) Group, held at the University of Sydney as part of the Australasian Institute of EthnoMethodology and Conversation Analysis (AIEMCA), 17 August 2015.

Research seminars in Italian studies, Semester 2, 2015This semester the Department has put together a rich program, partly in conjunction with other Departments and institutions.

Barbara Spadaro (University of Bristol) Dwelling Memories, Shifting Repertoires: Images of Jewish Homes in Italian Narratives from Libya (with the Department of Arabic Language and Culture and the International and Comparative Literary Studies Program), Monday 17 August.

Paolo Capuzzo (University of Bologna) Politics and Representation: the Southern Question Revisited, Thursday 27 August.

In conversation with the writer Simonetta Agnello Hornby (with the Italian Institute of Culture,

newsSydney), Friday 28 August.

Sarah Zappulla Muscarà (University of Catania), L’itinerario drammaturgico di Luigi Pirandello, Wednesday 21 October.

Emma Barron (University of Sydney), Popular magazines and education 1950-60: the cultural advice columns, Thursday 8 October.

Cristiana Palmieri (University of Sydney), Under the spell: the motivations of adult Australians to learn Italian in Sydney, Thursday 22 October.

Other newsThis semester the Department is offering a new Unit of Study called “Made in Italy: Italian at work”, taught by Dott. Antonella Beconi and A/Professor Antonia Rubino in collaboration with a wide range of Italian companies and institutions operating in Sydney and more broadly in Australia. As part of the course, representatives from the various companies and institutions are giving talks to the students, and students will go on a two day work placement. The course is proceeding well and we look forward to increasing and consolidating the relationship between our students and the Italian working realities in Sydney.

The Department continues its collaboration with SBS Italian Radio through the program titled “La lingua più bella del mondo” (The most beautiful language), with

interviews to our students about their passion for Italian.Follow the link below to listen to the latest interview:www.google.com.au/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=google+la+lingua+pi%C3%B9+bella+del+mondo+SBS

Our initiative has now been extended to other participants, such as students of Italian from other Universities and from the Italian Institute of Culture in Sydney.

Congratulations to Dr Marco Santello who completed his PhD in our Department in January 2014 (thesis title: “Response to Language Choice in Advertising Targeting Italian Bilinguals: The Role of Language Dominance and Language Attitudes”), and has obtained a lectureship in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Leeds, UK.

Congratulations to Emma Barlow (PhD candidate in our Department) who obtained the Boulton Groom Postgraduate Travelling Scholarship, which will fund her academic year at Oxford University furthering her studies on medieval literature.

Chinese Studies22 June, Public lecture: Chinese Opera as an Intangible Cultural HeritageThis lecture was jointly organised by the Department and Confucius Institute So far, five Chinese theatre genres, namely, Kun opera, Peking Opera, Yue (Cantonese) opera, Tibetan

opera, and shadow puppetry, have been listed by the UNESCO as Representations of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) of Humanity, and a hundred and fifty eight traditional Chinese theatrical forms inscribed in three batches by Chinese government on the National ICH list. Great achievements have been made in the ICH protection in China, particularly of Kun Opera, Peking Opera, and Yue Opera, under the Ethnic and Folk Culture Protection Programme implemented in 2005 and complemented later on by ICH-related new policies, laws and regulations. Financial, material, and policy support from central and local governments has yielded good results in the production, promotion and performance of the three genres of traditional Chinese opera, the construction and restoration of theatres and troupes, the establishment of training programmes and professional schools, and the initiation of large-scale academic research on them. In contrast, however, Tibetan opera and shadow puppetry, both of which are

newsJapanese StudiesWinter School 2015The winter school session of Japanese 1 was a novelty this year that proved extremely interesting. It was the first time that the newly developed (for the Diploma of Languages-accelerated pathway) blended learning curriculum (30% online 70% face-to-face) was utilised on a large (60+) cohort of students. By all accounts it was a great success, and students’ reactions to the survey were extraordinarily positive. Survey statements like “online activities helped me learn”, “classroom activities helped me learn”, “good balance between online & classroom activities”, “my teacher engaged me in active learning”, “the assessments in this unit have helped me learn” all received more than 90% support. Many students added comments such as; “well-structured to keep me on track”, “schedule is very clear”, “I knew exactly what was required of me each day”. With daily online quizzes, students needed to stay on top of the latest vocabulary and grammar. This resulted in enthusiastic and confident participation by the students in the classroom activities. The teachers were able to spend class time on more meaningful activities as the “rote learning” tasks were all covered in these online quizzes.

Of course the on-line component (available also on mobile devices) had been a challenge to set up and to monitor – there were 36 online tasks over the 10

days, as well as the “flipped classroom” activities to prepare for class. The Voice Board tool was crucial in this respect. The timely and detailed individual feedback given to students through Voice Board was certainly time-consuming but it was received positively: when asked whether they felt voice board was beneficial to their learning, students responded with a resounding 100% “yes”. Here also individual comments such as “voice board helped improve my own pronunciation”, “a way to really learn correct intonation”, “individual, personal feedback was really beneficial”, “really helped me to improve”, “loved that it was personal and private feedback to me”, etc. made it all worthwhile.

The intensive pace was certainly challenging for students; but thanks to those online quizzes which commenced on Day 2, those who were not ready to cope realised it quickly and discontinued within the first few days. The remaining 60 students performed well beyond our expectations and the results reflected this with many students receiving extremely high grades and not one student failing!

I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to the casual staff who developed this extremely sophisticated program, Samantha Haley and Hirokazu Mashimo. Samantha Haley, under my benign and very hands-off supervision, did an extraordinary job in teaching the unit, monitoring closely all online tasks and mentoring two other teachers, Masako Kubo and Akiko Hiratsuka. Educational designer Charles Humblet was

his usual outstanding self in creating the daily schedule with Samantha, with both Charles and Jubin Dedaniya providing any necessary support throughout the course. This was an extraordinary team effort. Kudos to all!

Dr Olivier Ansart

Modern Greek and Byzantine StudiesDepartmental News29 Jun - Professor Vrasidas Karalis speaks with Kim Landers on The World Today about the Greek debt crisis.www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2015/s4263689.htm

6 Jul - Professor Vrasidas Karalis answering questions on the Greek Debt Crisiswww.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4250966.htm

newsAsian StudiesGillian Green award recipientsEstablished in 2013 through a donation to the Asian Studies Program by Gillian Green, the Doctoral Fieldwork in Southeast Asia Scholarship supports fieldwork on archaeology, art and visual culture in SEAsia, supporting doctoral students undertaking fieldwork in the region, and its associated costs, that relates directly to their research. This year, the scholarship was awarded to: Steven Dodds and Natali Pearson. Steven Dodds received an award of $2,500.00 to pursue his project on ”The The king is disappeared, long live the king.” Natali Pearson received funding for $500.00 to conduct research on her project on “The ethics of cultural heritage in Indonesia”.

Indonesian StudiesLatest NewsDr Novi Djenar received a commendation from the Dean of FASS for her teaching in first year beginners Indonesian. Dr Djenar was also interviewed by Femina Magazine Indonesia for an article profiling Indonesian women teaching Indonesian Studies overseas.

Dr Vannessa Hearman hosted a visit by her research collaborator and historian Dr Baskara Wardaya from Sanata Dharma University in Yogyakarta. They are researching the history of Indonesia in the Cold War. The visit was funded by the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre. During his visit Dr Wardaya presented a seminar,

attended by some 60 people, on accountability for the 1965-66 violence in Indonesia. The department received a visit also from a delegation from Udayana University in Bali.

Dr Hearman and Professor Adrian Vickers participated in the Indonesia Council Open Conference, a biennial conference dedicated to Indonesian studies, at Deakin University in Geelong from 2-3 July.

Professor Vickers delivered the Herb Feith Memorial Lecture in Melbourne in July, titled ‘the problem with Indonesian art history’. The lecture was in honour of the renowned Indonesianist scholar and political scientist Herb Feith. He also presented at the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Conference at Universitas Airlangga, Surabaya which took place on 7-9th August and was interviewed by regional daily Jawa Pos on his career as a historian of Indonesia.

Professor Michele Ford led an interdisciplinary field school to the island of Batam, Indonesia to study rural-urban migration, funded by the New Colombo Plan program of the Australian government and organized by the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre (SSEAC). She also travelled to Timor-Leste to conduct fieldwork for her ARC Future Fellowship project. Professor Ford is currently in Europe, conducting interviews for a second ARC project and presenting at forums at Oxford University and the University of Oslo.

Ms Elisabeth Kramer with the SSEAC led a field school to Singapore on housing policy. Ms Kramer also travelled

to Indonesia to conduct research on drug policy issues.

Germanic StudiesLatest News3 Jun - Professor Emeritus Anthony Stephens from the Department of Germanic Studies talks with ABC Radio National’s Tom Morton about the great German poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 – 1926) and his sojourn in the little town of Ronda in the mountains of Andalusia.To read: www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/earshot/rilke-in-ronda/6514226To listen: www.abc.net.au/radio/programitem/pgQk7AXOzV?play=true

newsIndian and Buddhist StudiesDepartmental NewsMark Allon (Indian Studies) and Chiew Hui Ho (Chinese Studies) raised $47,800 from members of the Dharma Drum Buddhist community in Australia for the purpose of establishing and funding the Master Sheng-yen Visiting Lecture in Chinese Buddhism within the School. The funding will bring a prominent international scholar to the university each year to deliver a public lecture on any aspect of Chinese Buddhism. This will expose students, staff and the general public to current research in this field and will help profile and promote the study of Chinese Buddhism and Buddhist Studies at the University of Sydney. The funding may also be used to support the activities of postgraduate research students who are researching Chinese Buddhism. We would like to thank Ms Agnes Chow for her role in organizing the funding.

Mark Allon was elected to the Board of the International Association of Buddhist Studies as a Director at Large.

The work of members of the Department (Mark Allon, Tamara Ditrich, Chris Clark, and Ian McCrabb), the Department of Archaeology (conservator Dr Wendy Reade and archaeologist Bob Hudson), Nan Tien Institute, Wollongong (Tamara Ditrich and Royce Wiles) and the Department of Archaeology Mandalay at the Kuthodaw Pagoda in Mandalay, Myanmar, featured in two issues of the Mandalay Burmese language newspaper, the Yadanapon, 7.7.15 (p. 1) and 14.7.15 (p. 5) and

in a Democratic Voice of Burma news channel article: www.dvb.no/dvb-video/fight-to-save-worlds-biggest-book/55390. The project, which is being funding by a 3 year grant from the Chuo Academic Research Institute of Rissho Kosei-kai (CARI/RKK), Japan, involves the cleaning, conservation, photographing and study the 19th century recension of the Pali Buddhist canon carved on 729 marble stelae at the Kuthodaw Pagoda in Mandalay.

Congratulations to Supranee Panitchayapong and Chris Clark on being awarded their Doctor of Philosophy: Dr Panitchayapong for her thesis An edition and study of the Saḷāyatanasaṃyutta of the Pāli Saṃyutta-Nikāya in the Pāli Canon and Dr Clark for his thesis A study of the Apadāna, including an edition and annotated translation of the second, third and fourth chapters. Chris Clark also received the Department’s Khyentse Foundation Award for Excellence in Buddhist Studies. Both students were supervised by Mark Allon.

Conference and seminar presentations:The following conference or seminar papers were presented by staff, honoraries, and students:

• Mark Allon: “Sanskritisation and the Diction of Canonical Buddhist sūtra Texts.” 16th World Sanskrit Conference of the International Association of Sanskrit Studies (IASS), Silpakorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, 28 June–2 July 2015.

• Mark Allon and Wendy Reade (Department of Archaeology): “The Conservation, Photographing, and Study of the Kuthodaw Pagoda Marble-stelae

Recension of the Pali Buddhist Canon in Mandalay, Myanmar.”Australia Myanmar Institute conference Myanmar and the Sustainable Development Goals: Informed by the Past, Looking to the Future, Yangon University, Myanmar, 10–13 July 2015.

• Mark Allon: “Buddhist Art of Gandhāra.” The Spread of Buddhist Art series, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 22 July 2015.

• Tamara Ditrich: “Iterative Compounds in the Ṛgveda Revisited.” 16th World Sanskrit Conference of the International Association of Sanskrit Studies (IASS), Silpakorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, 28 June–2 July 2015.

• Ian McCrabb (PhD student): “READ – Entity Relationship Model for Philological Workbench.” DH2015 - International Conference of the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO), University of Western Sydney, 29 June–3 July 2015.

• Stephanie Majcher (PhD student): “Re-envisioning Sanskrit: Approaching Texts through Language and Embodiment.” Australasian Association of Buddhist Studies seminar series, University of Sydney, 17 June 2015.

• Stephanie Majcher (PhD student): “Language and Embodiment in the Ṛgveda Āraṇyakas.” 16th World Sanskrit Conference of the International Association of Sanskrit Studies (IASS), Silpakorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, 28 June–2 July 2015.

news

My name is Nesrine Basheer and I recently joined the School of Languages and Cultures as an associate lecturer in the Arabic Department, a position I am truly excited about. I come from Cairo, Egypt. With the busy Sydney traffic and the between-classes rush on Eastern Avenue, Cairo feels closer every day!

My passion for languages is reflected in my training and professional experience. I earned a BA in English Language and Literature from Ain Shams University, Egypt. I then received a Cambridge Certificate in Teaching English to Adults (CELTA) in 2002 and taught English at the British Council and Amideast, Cairo. In 2006, I re-discovered my love for Arabic, my native language, and transferred my teaching skills to Arabic as a foreign language (TAFL) classrooms. In 2009, I earned a Graduate Diploma in TAFL from the American University in Cairo. In the same year, I received a Fulbright Scholarship to do my MA in the United States. In 2011, I earned an MA in Applied Linguistics from Teachers College, Columbia University. During my stay in New

York City, I taught Arabic at Teachers College, the United Nations, and The City University of New York. I decided to continue my postgraduate studies and joined the PhD program in Arabic Linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin where I am still enrolled. In my thesis, I examine discourse cohesion in the writing of native and non-native speakers of Arabic.

Joining the Arabic Department at the University of Sydney has already been a rewarding experience. This semester, we have a total of 60 students distributed almost equally over two beginner, one intermediate, and one advanced classes. Students are highly motivated, a much-needed quality especially when it comes to a rich language such as Arabic. During the first week of classes, we had an open conversation with the students about why Arabic is known to be challenging and why a communicative language classroom is the best environment for learning a diglossic language. Students showed the desire to be involved in their own learning process and have been working hard to meet the increased classroom and homework demand this semester.

On a personal, yet professional level, I am enjoying being part of a team that shares the same vision and offers me the freedom and trust to implement such a vision in the Arabic language classes at the University of Sydney. Above all, I have loved observing my students getting absorbed in a heated political debate or a family dilemma role play and forgetting they were speaking Arabic.

Arabic Languages and CulturesDepartmental News22 July - Eleanor Hall interviews Professor Hamdy Hassan from Cairo University on ABC’s The World Today. www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2015/s4278631.htm

5 Aug - Nesrine Basheer explains how we teach Arabic language, and how this pedagogical style is in line with the most updated trends in Egypt and the United States. www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/arabic/ar/content/tdrys-llg-lrby-fy-jm-sydny?language=ar

Events30 Jul - Sydney Ideas | Transformation of Islamic Discourse in the Arab World and Africa: Boko Haram versus the State. Professor Hamdy Hassan, Cairo University.

6 Aug - Bankstown Poetry Slam.

10 Aug - Sydney Ideas | How does boycott, divestment and sanctions support dialogue on the road to peace in Israel and Palestine?

17 Aug - Research Seminar Series | Dwelling Memories, Shifting Reportoires: Images of Jewish Homes in Italian Narratives from Libya. Barbara Spadaro, University of Bristol.

18 Aug - SURCLA Seminar Series | “If only fitting in was as easy as I thought”: The experience of Mexicans adjusting to life in Australia. Fabiola Barba Ponce, Macquarie University.

23 Aug - Pop Culture, Migration & Revolution: Transnational Responses to Injustice. This unique and critical event brings together some of the most exciting

Introducing Nesrine Basheer

Nesrine Basheer. Image: Danielle Seesink

newsartists and activists from Australia’s alternative hip hop, poetry and art scene to perform and share conversation with one of Egypt’s most renowned Academics, Professor Randa Abou Bakr from Cairo University.

24 Aug - Sydney Ideas | The Intellectual and Revolution: on Egypt’s new strand of intellectuals. Professor Randa Abou Bakr, English and comparative literature at Cairo University.

26 Aug - Arabic Film Festival | Cairo 678. Mohammad Diab, Egypt, 2010.

31 Aug - Sydney Ideas | What is Veiling? Professor Sahar Amer, University of Sydney; Professor Martine Antle, University of Sydney; Dr James Leibold, La Trobe University.

Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish StudiesDepartmental NewsThis Yearbook has been compiled and published in honour of Professor Suzanne Rutland OAM on the occasion of her retirement as a full-time academic at The University of Sydney after more than 30 years of dedicated service.sydney.edu.au/arts/hebrew_biblical_jewish_studies/downloads/suzanne_rutland_yearbook_2015.pdf

Spanish and Latin American StudiesEvents15 Sep - SURCLA | Liberal Multiculturalism and Indigenous Autonomist Demands in Latin America. Alejandra Gaitán-Barrera, Griffith University.

The following departments and programs are located in the School of Languages and Cultures

Arabic & Islamic Studies Asian Studies Program Buddhist Studies Program Chinese Studies European Studies Program French Studies Germanic Studies Hebrew, Biblical & Jewish Studies Indian Subcontinental Studies Indonesian Studies International & Comparative Literary Studies Program Italian Studies Japanese Studies Korean Studies Modern Greek Studies Spanish & Latin American Studies

Language and Culture is an online magazine published four times a year

EditorDavid Allen

Original design conceptSerene Tay

LayoutDavid Allen

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September 2015