Fall 2007

NEWSLETTER NO. 36         FALL 2007
THE EDWARD A. CLARK CENTER FOR AUSTRALIAN & NEW ZEALAND STUDIES
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN

   ANZSANA & AAALS TO GATHER IN AUSTIN
The Clark Center will host the 2008 joint meetings of the Australian and New Zealand Studies Assn. of North America (ANZSANA) and the American Assn. of Australian Literary Studies (AAALS) in Austin from Thursday to Saturday, Feb. 28th to March 1st. Calls for papers have been made by the associations' presidents, Rhonda Evans Case for ANZSANA and Jim Hoy for AAALS, with requests that ANZSANA proposals be sent to Greg Brown at CANZ-Georgetown gsb23@georgetown.edu by December 15. The deadline for AAALS proposals is January 15, 2008 to be sent to Jim Hoy at jhoy@emporia.edu

The meetings will take place in the attractive Doubletree Guest Suites, located four blocks from the UT-Austin campus. A bloc of 25 rooms for ANZSANA participants are available for booking until February 6, 2008, when they will be released. Contact the Doubletree at 1-800-222-8733. AAALS has made its own arrangements with the Doubletree. Additional rooms are on reserve at the Mansion at Judges’ Hill www.judgeshill.com , about 8 short blocks from the Doubletree. These will be held until January 27th. Contact Janet Knippelmier (512) 495-1800 to make reservations. Other B&B’s within 10 easily walked blocks of the Doubletree are Star of Texas Inn www.staroftexasinn.com the Austin Folk House B&B www.austinfolkhouse.com and Austin’s Inn at Pearl Street www.innpearl.com . Conference registration and hotel accommodation can be made at www.anzana.org and  www.australianliterature.org

Special guests and featured speakers will include Prof. Stuart Macintyre, this year's holder of the Harvard Chair; Prof. Cassandra Pybus, Sydney University and UT-Austin scholar-in-residence in the spring; Andrew Needs, New Zealand's Deputy High Commissioner in Canada; and Prof. Minyue Ho, Deputy Director of the Australian Studies Center at East China Normal Univ. in Shanghai.  The conference dinner on Friday evening will take place at the fetching Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, which Lady Bird established 25 years ago and is now part of UT-Austin.

 

 MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR
In 1986 Desley Deacon and I entered the resplendent office of Dr. Bill Livingston, who was then Dean of Graduate Studies at UT-Austin. We knew of Bill’s long-standing interest in Australian government and politics and of the parts he had played in bringing C. Hartley Grattan and his Collection of Southwest Pacificana, the Mertz Collection of Modern Australian Paintings, and numerous other exponents and artifacts of Australia to the University. Our question to Bill was if the time was ripe for creating a Center for Australian Studies. His instant answer was, "Let’s do it!" The three of us set to work, with Bill persuading the University’s president, Bill Cunningham, this was something that just had to happen. And so, in a nutshell, the Clark Center opened during 1988 with a gala launch by Prime Minister Bob Hawke and his Ambassador to the U.S., Rawdon Dalrymple.
During the twenty years that have since passed, Bill Livingston has been the Center’s staunchest and most effective supporter on campus and in the wider Texas community. The times Bill has intervened to help the Center have been legion, his enthusiasm for it has never flagged, and the precious time he has devoted to the Center has been lavish. Bill has truly been the Clark Center’s godfather and without him it quite simply would not exist.
At the age of 87 and after a 58-year career at UT-Austin, during which he held every important position in the University, including its presidency in 1992-93, Bill Livingston retired at the end of August this year. Still in robust health, intellect, and spirit, he and his wife Lana have moved to an Austin apartment from which Bill continues his avid interest in Clark Center and University undertakings. I wish to salute and thank in the profoundest way my warm friend Bill Livingston for all that he has done for Australian Studies, not only at UT-Austin but in the wider American and Australian communities.
John Higley
RE-VISITING AMERICAN AND AUSTRALIAN IMMIGRATION POLICIES
In the early 1990s the Clark Center conducted, in collaboration with what was then Australia’s Bureau for Immigration Research, led by John Nieuwenhuysen, a comparative study of American and Australian immigration policies. The book that resulted, Nations of Immigrants, co-edited by Prof. Gary Freeman at UT-Austin and Prof. Jim Jupp at A.N.U., was highly successful, selling out in a short time.
During 2008 the Clark Center will again work with Gary Freeman and John Nieuwenhuysen, who now heads the Institute for the Study of Global Movements at Monash University, to examine immigration policy changes since the 1990s study. Pairs of senior American and Australian scholars will compare recent flows of immigrants, their impacts on labor markets, the social cohesion of new immigrant groups, citizenship issues now posed by immigration, and the extent of policy convergence and divergence between the U.S. and Australia. A conference at which the new study's results will be prepared for book publication will take place during October 2008 at Monash University's Research Centre in Prato, Italy.

AUSTRALIA’S COURTS AND LAWS STUDIED IN NORTH CAROLINA
In November 2007, Christopher R. Federici and Joy E. Hewitt, undergraduate students in the Department of Political Science at East Carolina University, successfully defended their honors theses proposals on projects related to the study of law and courts in Australia.  Federici is studying the litigation record of the Refugee Advocacy Service of South Australia, an interest group that provided legal representation to refugees in over 75 cases in the Australian federal courts, in order to determine if litigation provided a successful means of challenging the government’s refugee policy.  Hewitt is examining the media’s coverage of the High Court from 1977 through 2007, tracking changes in the quantity and nature of coverage by The Sydney Morning Herald in order to determine the extent to which it was driven by changes in the Court’s institutional role.  Their supervisor is Rhonda Evans Case, ANZSANA’s president and Asst. Professor in Political Science at ECU. Rhonda will herself travel to Australia to attend the inaugural conference of the U.S. Studies Centre, 9-11 December in Sydney.

ROY MERSKY VISITS AUSTRALIA
Prof. Roy Mersky, Director of the Tarleton Law Library at UT-Austin and advisor for several law schools in Australia, is visiting Adelaide University’s law school during December to participate in a conference examining the life and legacy of the illustrious 18th century British jurist Sir William Blackstone.

 

TWO AUSTRALIAN STUDIES LEADERS PASS AWAY
Bernard Hickey, the pioneer of Australian Studies in Italy and Europe, died in September in Lecce, Italy. Educated at the University of Queensland, Trinity College in Dublin, and Rome University, Dr. Hickey taught at the University of Venice during the 1970s, fostering and encouraging the study of Australian literature. He then became a professor at the University of Lecce from whence for many years he was the most insistent promoter of Australian Studies in Europe. In 1987 Bernard Hickey became a Member of the Order of Australia in recognition of his long service to the study of Australia overseas.
Within days of Bernard Hickey's death, Art Emerson, the Australia and New Zealand specialist at the Library of Congress, who delivered a fascinating luncheon talk at the 2007 ANZSANA/AAALS meetings in Washington, also died. Over many years Art Emerson was indefatigable in building the Library’s rich collection of Australian and New Zealand materials.

FRIENDS OF AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND CIRCLE IN AUSTIN
Urged forward by Jane Hayman, an Austin lawyer and an ebullient enthusiast for Australia and New Zealand, and as well with Dr. Pam Ryan, research associate of the Clark Center and director of Issues Deliberation America (just one of Pam’s many ventures), the Center will bring together Austin residents who have ties to Australia and New Zealand. A reception to inaugurate this circle will take place in the offices of Issues Deliberation America, 1000 Rio Grande St. in downtown Austin on Thursday evening, January 24, 2008. Information can be obtained from Jane Hayman (512) 401-3608 or the Clark Center (512) 471-9607.

Recent Clark Center Visitors
New Zealand Ambassador Roy Ferguson and his wife Dawn
Kerry Bothwell, Public Affairs Officer, NZ Embassy
John Hayton, Education Counselor, Australian Embassy
Sarah Wolf, Education Office, Australian Embassy

 

YACKER Is published in the fall & spring by The Edward A. Clark Center for Australian & New Zealand Studies,
Harry Ransom Center 3.362
The University of Texas, Austin, TX 78713-7219
Telephone: 512/471-9607 Fax : 512/471-8869 email: yacker@www.utexas.edu
Website: www.utexas.edu/depts/cas/
This Newsletter was not printed with state funds.