The Australian Studies Centre at the Universitat de Barcelona: Five years on

Susan Ballyn
Executive Director
susand@arrakis.es

The year 2000 saw the formal opening of the Australian Studies Centre at the Universitat de Barcelona at the 'Changing Geographies and The Millennium Congress'. This also happened to be the First Universitat de Barcelona-La Trobe University Conference. It seems a long time ago now and that we have come a long way in that time. Since its beginning, the Centre has founded the yearly Doireann McDermott lectures with invited speakers, David Malouf, Carmel Bird, Lucy Frost, and Tanya Dalziell so far. Eucalypt, the Centre journal, has also made its appearance with the issue of one volume a year. The policy of the journal is to have one issue guest edited in Australia and one in Spain thus affording a multiplicity of perspectives according to each editor's preference. This year will see the publication of volume number four which is being edited by Dr. Elisa Morera de la Vall, the Public Relations Officer for the Centre.

The strong ties between our institution and La Trobe continue to forge ahead and in 2003 La Trobe University hosted the second joint congress. 'Place, Memory, Identities: Australia , Spain and the New World '. Since then the Centre has decided to undertake a different type of congress, perhaps one could call it a 'boutique' conference, to which some twenty-eight speakers are invited. Single sessions are held throughout and there are usually only one or two plenary sessions. These congresses are going to form part of a circuit which has been set up to include so far: Terri-Anne White at the University of Western Australia, Baden Offord at Southern Cross University, with whom we now have a very successful exchange programme, Peter Read at the Australian National University, Lillit Thwaites at La Trobe University and ourselves. Barcelona set the ball rolling in 2004 with ' Landscapes of Exile', and this year Terri-Ann ran a most successful second part at New Norcia Benedictine Monastery titled 'Landscapes, Exiles, Belonging and Home'; Baden Offord is set to run the 2006 conference , 'Landscapes of Exile: "Once Perilous now Safe"' and Peter Read in 2007 will set up 'Indigenous Biography and Autobiography'. These congresses are designed to allow a core group of scholars to continue to debate certain issues while also bringing in new speakers at each event. The fact that the second conference was held at New Norcia may seem an unusual venue for some readers. The choice came out of the close ties between the Benedictine Community at Montserrat in Barcelona and New Norcia. At the Barcelona Conference we had the pleasure of welcoming Dom Christopher Power from New Norcia as our plenary speaker. Dom Power's presence at the Barcelona conference was, in fact, the first event under the auspices of the collaboration agreement signed between our University and the Montserrat Monastery.

Since its inauguration, the Centre for Australian Studies has welcomed an average of sixteen visitors a year, some just passing through, others lecturing, giving talks in areas of their expertise and others carrying out research. Our Postgraduate programme has incorporated a visiting Australian lecturer every year since the Centre was founded and we have now created a position for Ho nora ry Visiting Lecturers and Professors; this programme will be put in place at the end of this year. We have also hosted the SBS Youth Orchestra and the Melbourne Strings both of which gave wonderful concerts for the general public under the auspices of the university's general cultural programme for the community.

Part of the work that we do, which we consider to be very important, is outreach work into the community. Thus, we have taken part in specialised courses run by the Friends of UNESCO over the last three years. These courses are offered in a different area of Barcelona each year and afford the general public a total of fifteen lectures given by local experts so as to bring Australia , its history and culture, to the notice of the wider community. Similarly we have worked with disabled children in special schools, and ran a seminar for secondary teachers in the south of Spain who wanted to incorporate Australia into their English language classes as one of the various English speaking countries and their cultures to be included on their syllabi. A similar course was offered to students of English at the Modern Language School in Mataro , near Barcelona , with the same aim. Over the past two years we have collaborated closely with the Australia Spain Business Association and its Barcelona president John Rochland. Each year this Association runs an Australian Expo. The event lasts for a whole day at Casa Asia (Asia House) and involves business, educational and cultural activities. We have also run a University Extension Course for Casa Asia for students of our own University, The Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, and Universitat Rovira Virgili in Tarragona .

We are indebted to ASBA for the patronage as we are to Freixenet , importers of Australian wine into Spain , and the International University Studies Centre (IUSC), all of whom have helped to keep us afloat. But above all we are indebted to the constant support we get from the Australian Embassy in Madrid with whom we work closely and who have so often come to our aid. It would be difficult to see how we could continue without the generous support of the Embassy and its staff.

I am sure that there are many other events which I have overlooked in this short resume, but all in all, looking back over five years I think we can feel pleased with the progress we have made, both within the academic community and in terms of our external activities. I hope that we will be able to continue to grow and enable continuing contact among staff, students and artists in both countries and would like to end by thanking the sponsors who make our work possible.

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