The UB hosts the International congress 'Looking back to look forwards', an interdisciplinary and critical view in the field of Australian studies

Australian Studies Centre of the University of Barcelona.
Australian Studies Centre of the University of Barcelona.
Research
(10/12/2012)

Under the auspices of the Australian Studies Centre of the University of Barcelona and the Centre for Peace and Social Justice of the Southern Cross University, from 10th to 14th December, the International congress “Look back to look forwards” will take place in the Aula Magna of the Historic Building. The congress aims at looking with a critical eye to the past to draw lessons for the future within the widest scope of Australian studies. The congress will bring together more than one hundred experts (university lecturers, writers and artists), and it will deal with a wide variety of research lines ranging from environmental sustainability to creative writing, emphasizing cultural and postcolonial studies.

Australian Studies Centre of the University of Barcelona.
Australian Studies Centre of the University of Barcelona.
Research
10/12/2012

Under the auspices of the Australian Studies Centre of the University of Barcelona and the Centre for Peace and Social Justice of the Southern Cross University, from 10th to 14th December, the International congress “Look back to look forwards” will take place in the Aula Magna of the Historic Building. The congress aims at looking with a critical eye to the past to draw lessons for the future within the widest scope of Australian studies. The congress will bring together more than one hundred experts (university lecturers, writers and artists), and it will deal with a wide variety of research lines ranging from environmental sustainability to creative writing, emphasizing cultural and postcolonial studies.

 

The opening, on Monday 10th December at 3 p.m., will be chaired by the rector of the UB, Dídac Ramírez; the Australian ambassador in Spain, Zorica McCarthy; the dean of the Faculty of Philology of the UB, Adolfo Sotelo; the head of the School of Arts and Social Sciences of the University of Southern Cross, Mike Evans; the head of English and German Philology of the UB, Isabel Verdaguer; and the director of the Australian Studies Centre of the UB, Sue Ballyn.
 
Monday afternoon, the first film presentation of the congress will happen: the documentary Broken Circles by Peter Sotirakis, an independent filmmaker and university lecturer. It will also take place the presentation of the book Australian writers abroad: The British experience, by Anne Pender from the University of New England, and Bruce Bennett, the recently missing writer and professor of the University of New South Wales; the congress is in memory of him.
 
Within the congress, on Tuesday 11th December at 12.45 p.m. at the corridor of the Paranymph Hall, the exhibition “Backward-Forwards Sculpture Show” will be inaugurated. The exhibition that could be visited from 10 to 18 December shows eleven sculptures made by Fine Arts students and professors and some visiting artists. The opening will be chaired by the vice-rector for Arts, Culture and Heritage of the UB, Lourdes Cirlot, and the exhibitionʼs coordinator and professor of Fine Arts of the UB, Jaime de Córdoba. On Tuesday, the congress will offer some sessions, one of them devoted to identity in the globalizing literature, by Professor Yasue Arimitsu from Doshisha University, Kyoto.
 
On Wednesday 12th, the place of Spanish and Latin American studies in Australia will be analysed. The projection of the film Ashes and Snow, by George Colbert, will also happen. Thursdayʼs sessions will focus on colonial and postcolonial literature. The director of the Australian Studies Centre of the UB, Sue Ballyn, among other experts, will participate. Thursdayʼs sessions will be closed by the first part of the concert Carmina Burana, at 8 p.m. in the Paranymph Hall. The second part of the concert will close the congress and it will happen in the same place and time, but on Friday 14th December, a day that will be devoted to memories.
 
The Australian Studies Centre, co-organizer of this annual congress, started its life in 1990 as the Australian Studies Program within the English Department at the University. Gradually we gained a reputation and were given Centre status by the Humanities Division. Finally in 2007 the University recognised the status and work being done by the Centre and gave it full recognition under the name of Observatory: The Australian Studies Centre. The Centre is totally interdisciplinary in its structure and activities. The Australian Studies Centre welcomes working with researchers, students and academics in any field in Australia.

More information about the programme of the congress on: http://www.ub.edu/dpfilsa/lookingback.html