Sixty ASANA members, plus a number of guests, students, and community members attended the 1998 conference held in Toronto, March 5-8. The venue was Ryerson Polytechnic University, whose president, Claude Lajeunesse, and energetic staff, especially Jane Knight and Patti Franklin, provided ASANA with superb conference facilities and the warmest hospitality.
Twenty-two papers were presented by ten Canadian, five American, and six Australian scholars, plus one Kiwi (Keith Sorensen). Another nine senior scholars and experts served as discussants and chairs of the conference's six paper sessions. There were many expressions that the papers this year were of exceptionally high quality and that they addressed the constructing Australian identities theme in an unusually cohesive way.
Among conference highlights were the Thursday evening showing of "Mabo: Life of an Island Man," introduced and discussed by the film's director, Trevor Graham and by Eddie Mabo Jr. More than a hundred people viewed the film, which was followed by a pleasant welcoming reception hosted by Peter Kane Australian Consulate-General in Toronto.
Other highlights included an entertaining reading of some of her work by Marion Campbell, the current writer-in-residence at Rollins College, the participation of High Commissioner Greg Wood as discussant for the Friday morning papers, a panel of infectious Ryerson students who discussed their exchange experiences in Australia and Canada, and a warm honoring of Henry and Nan Albinski at the conference dinner on Saturday night.
All in all, this was the largest and most successful ASANA conference yet, and it testified to the association's vibrancy and growing importance.
"Making North America Safe for Australian Studies"
We North American Australianists have worked hard, creatively, often against obstacles, yet for the most part cheerfully. We have reason to take satisfaction in having advanced our cause in academic, outreach and policy related ways.
Some of that which we can count as our good fortune has been fortuitous. Being few in numbers and perhaps by temper practiced survivors, we have avoided distracting debate over the intellectual paradigms that notionally inform Australian studies. We have gained much from the information technologies that have brought us into closer communication and facilitated our scholarly endeavors.
But while we are not an endangered species, we are decidedly vulnerable. Financial resources are a necessary but by no means sufficient consideration for the good of our order. Our own resourcefulness will attract greater cooperation from Australian official and other quarters, and in so doing strengthen our reputation as well as numbers. We for instance must bridge the divide between ASANA and AAALS, where our numerous literature colleagues have established themselves. We should formally extend our purview into a natural partnership with New Zealand. We should revive the concept of launching a major, interdisciplinary journal as a vehicle for our research and as statement of our work�s validity. There is considerable talent and experience within our company. We should, therefore, actively engage the International Australian Studies Association and relevant Australian government instrumentalities to promote our own professional alliances with Australianists and Australian programs worldwide.
Since what we do definitionally fosters Australia's interests, it is legitimate to seek a helping hand from Australian sources. AEO does what it can, but its brief is only secondarily directed at Australian studies. Recurrent, bread and butter Australian government funding for centers and the like is not foreshadowed, nor is adequate support for dedicated projects. To be, and to be seen as, enterprising, we must vigorously search for partnering and cost-sharing with other academic, cultural, foundation and corporate entities. Our efforts will continue to require informed, usually face-to-face and persistent presentations across a spectrum of official and political figures in Australia. In the best sense, it is necessary to cultivate a network of friendships and collegial ties.
Most of us in Australian studies have worked with corporate communities and benefactors in Australia and in North America. We recall a scheme proffered some years ago by a private businessman, forecast to enrich Australian studies. The project proved illusory. It chilled institutional efforts to raise funds and seriously arrested ASANA's own development. While we must continue to persevere with the private sector, we need to remind ourselves that as US and Canadian governments tighten belts and preach market economics, a heavier burden falls on the corporate and foundation communities, while they in turn have moved toward priorities quite different to what they were even a decade ago. Georgetown needs to follow up its seed money with private gifts. In the cause of sustaining Australian studies in North America, we wish it well, but can be forgiven if we worry if there will be water left in the well. It is bound to bring out the terrier instinct in most of us.
A special word of caution, even to terriers. As universities bend their efforts to secure external funding, they often draw up ground-rules designed to avoid crowding at donor doorsteps by interested academic units, and emphasize large, high-profile targets. The system is not especially congenial to Australian studies, small beer waiting its turn.
The fortunes of Australian studies are indeed intimately linked to institutional climate, whose management may be beyond our reach. The upkeep of the Texas center has basically derived from endowment money, Georgetown has begun with government resources and a special outlay from Monash, and Penn State has been underwritten by the University, although the major part of the program funds has been acquired externally. Our center�s establishment has been tiny, our operation exceptionally cost-effective, and we have worked bloody hard to mobilize major program funds. I, for a long time, felt that ours was on balance the best arrangement. We could celebrate before others the University�s direct, money-where-the-mouth-is commitment. We were administratively housed under an all-University research canopy, able to function across all thematic domains and were not beholden to any faculty.
The logic of how we functioned was sound and worked well for some time. We had, and continue to have, a host of admiring colleagues barracking for us. Perhaps we should have taken closer notice of what happened at the University of Hawaii, where an Australia/New Zealand center was set up some years ago. It was an ideal location for such a unit, and could draw on considerable expertise. After a year and half or so, the Hawaii center folded, victim to a combination of academic infighting and to its central administration�s decision to shift funds to other purposes.
For nearly two years, we at Penn State center have been preoccupied with fending off punches aimed at the value, propriety and cost of our contributions. Are so-called area studies valid? How are certain intellectual/disciplinary orthodoxies being satisfied through our work? As something of an administrative anomaly, passing freely among research, outreach and instructional support activities, did we really have a legitimate place in any cleanly defined administrative structure? Since there was no support among those directly responsible for making staffing decisions, how could the Center be perpetuated once I, a career Australianist, sooner or later retired? And, conclusively, since we were not a financially self-sustaining research unit "blessed neither with endowments nor generous, external subsidies" were we not in bookkeeper's terms inherently expendable?
The Center is, therefore, being terminated as of July 1 of this year. An Asia-Pacific Center is being formed under an entirely different administrative rubric, with Australia and New Zealand included. Good fortune to it. But the forthcoming center will, as announced, for at least a full year immerse itself in soliciting external funds, and if successful will presumably justify its continuation. It remains to be seen what time and thought will in the meantime be directed at Australian and New Zealand programs even approaching what the ANZ Center has been regularly doing. It is probably instructive that the new center will not be denominated an Asia-Pacific Studies Center, since that would have trodden on sensibilities around the traps. The new center will need to contend with voices from influential quarters that have questioned whether it makes sense to pursue serious Asia-Pacific work � let alone Australian and New Zealand studies � in Central Pennsylvania. It will need to contend with unhelpful questions such as whether the Penn State library�s outstanding Australian literary holdings might best be sold off and funds redirected to better use. Intrigue, dissembling and knock-down turf battles have hardly been conducive to a salubrious, working climate.
What happened at Penn State damages Australian studies in North America. The Penn State experience underscores the degree to which our collective enterprise relies on a hospitable university environment, and on reliable financial resources, both of which may be tenuous.
Northrop Frye characterized his fellow-Canadians as conditioned to think of themselves as citizens of a country of uncertain identity, a confusing past and a hazardous future. In translation, I don�t feel that we North American Australianists are being kept down by an uncertain identity or a confusing past. Our future may not be ominously hazardous, but there are hazards. Being Australianists in North America pretty well certifies us as optimists. The optimism we express in dealing with hazards must be nimble and proactive, not confused with the complacency of the "she'll be right" syndrome.
The ASANA Board has decided to hold next year's conference at the University of Texas in Austin. With Lisa Murphy in Washington, the Edward A. Clark Center at U.T. will organize the conference, which is scheduled for February 26-28, 1999.
The Board discussed ideas for the conference theme, with the concept of citizenship and Australia's move toward a republic getting special attention. No decision was reached, however, and members are urged to give John Higley any ideas they have. Indeed, any proposals members may have about what they would like to see in next year's Austin conference will be welcome.
As was the case this past year, a Call for Papers will be issued in the September newsletter.
As recounted elsewhere in this newsletter, the Toronto conference was a great success and, I think, a truly enjoyable occasion for all who attended. Even the infamous Toronto winter weather, much feared by those of us south of the border (not to mention Australian participants who come to our conferences from their end-of-summer breezes), was benign.
The ASANA Board and I are deeply indebted to Lisa Murphy and to the staff of Ryerson Polytechnic University for outstanding help over many months in organizing a conference that went off without a hitch. A large thanks must also go to the Australian High Commissioner, Greg Wood, and the Consul General in Toronto, Peter Kane, for their hospitality and encouragement.
I want to note here an unhappy development for those of us who have worked hard to make ASANA what it has become. I refer to Penny Amberg's decision to return to Australia after many years of truly beyond-the-call work in the Cultural Affairs Section of the Washington Embassy. Anyone who's been involved in Australian Studies in North America during the 1990's knows that there's been hardly a single step forward that Penny didn't unstintingly promote, often at great cost in time and energy. I speak for all of us when I say that we will feel lost without her, and that we wish her every success in her new Canberra life and job.
Another change requiring mention is the decision of Henry Albinski to retire this June from Pennsylvania State University and from the directorship of the Center for Australian and New Zealand Studies there. We devoted our conference dinner in Toronto to honoring Henry, and also Nan, for the many years of work they've done for Australian Studies, including the founding and care and feeding of ASANA. I've asked Henry for permission to publish in this issue of the newsletter a shortened version of the keynote address he delivered after dinner in Toronto, and he has graciously complied. Here too, I speak for all of us in wishing Henry and Nan the very best. They will long be in our hearts and minds.
It remains to say that we at Texas are already gearing up to host next year's ASANA meeting. The Board has discussed with David Carter, president of the International Australian Studies Association, holding a joint meeting, although without disturbing the now well-established ASANA program of papers, and this is a distinct likelihood. It would bring to our gathering a significant number of European and Asian Australian Studies Assn. leaders. In Austin, we're making hotel bookings right now and thinking about how best to introduce you to the city (especially its music scene) and the Texas Hill Country. The rattlesnakes will still be hibernating when you're here (they're generally not in the hotels anyway), the Texas Legislature will be in its biennial session (which will compensate for the sleeping rattlesnakes), and if only Willie Nelson will return the call I have in to him...
The Board decided not to charge dues for 1998. Dues for 1999 will be collected as part of next year�s Conference registration. Some members have sent me a check for 1998. I will return your check or if I already deposited your check, then I will reimburse you. If you have any questions, please let me know.
I had the opportunity to view the award winning film Manganinnie based on Beth Robert�s novel with the same title. Manganinnie is a story about a Tasmanian Aboriginal woman who becomes separated from her tribe during the Black Drive in Tasmania in 1830. In her search to find people, she is found by a young girl named Joanna. Joanna follows Manganinnie into the bush where a beautiful relationship develops between two unlikely companions. Manganinnie teaches Joanna how to survive and exposes her to the mysteries of Dreamtime.
The film raises the issue of what happened to the Tasmanian Aboriginal people in the early 1800�s, and provides a unique insight into the life of the original people of Tasmania. Like most Australian films that deal with indigenous issues, this film will need to be proceeded by a solid introduction before a North American audience can truly understand the issues and the story. Manganinnie would be appropriate for an Australian studies, history or indigenous affairs course. The film is available in North America through Avalon Releasing in Toronto Canada. For more information, contact Francesca Accinelli, Manger of Distribution, at phone # 416-323-9581 or fax # 416-960-2047.
The 13th annual AAALS conference was held April 23rd-26th at the University of Missouri, St Louis. The conference was attended by over fifty people from North America, Australia and Europe. Its hard to say what was the highlight of the conference with so many fun events and interesting papers. My personal favorite was the wonderful reading by Frank Moorhouse at the beautiful Austral Gallery. The 1999 Conference will be held April 15th-18th and hosted by Carolyn Bliss (President of AAALS) just outside of Salt Lake City, Utah.
As mentioned in other sections of this newsletter, there were 22 papers given at the conference in Toronto. Many people at the conference and some who were unable to attend, expressed an interest in seeing those papers put together in some type of proceedings. I am willing to collect all of the papers and then distribute them to interested members. If you would like to contribute your paper, then please send the text to me via email or on disc. I will simply reformat the text so that the final publication is uniform. I will not edit the text. There will be a disclosure at the front of the publication stating that the papers are "unfinished" unless otherwise noted and that they have not been editted. Please note at the top of your paper, if you would like or would not like someone to use information in your paper. The deadline for submission is June 26, 1998. Please let me know if you have any questions.
The Board decided that the ASANA newsletter should be published twice a year with an edition in the spring and one in the fall. In addition to the newsletter you can expect to receive updates by email or in the mail. Also information can be found on the ASANA website(please see internet news). If you have information or an announcement that you would like to share with other ASANA members, please let Lisa know and she will send it. All the best for a pleasant summer.
Please update your contact details by sending Lisa Murphy the following information:
Name, address, institutional affiliation, telephone, fax, email, area of interest/research, and courses taught with an Australian component.
Return to ASANA homepage.