北外澳研中心近日启动“北外澳研大讲堂”（BFSU Distinguished Lecture Series in Australian Studies）项目。澳研大讲堂将定期邀请国内外资深澳大利亚研究学者或知名人士就澳大利亚政治、外交、经济、历史、社会、文化、教育、文学、艺术等领域进行公开演讲。
2018年春季学期邀请到的演讲者有迪肯大学David Walker教授、澳大利亚著名剧作家David Williamson和格里菲斯大学Colin Mackerras教授。
1.Inventing Traditions: The Australia/US relationship: ‘One Hundred Years of Mateship’?
Speaker: Professor David Walker, Alfred Deakin Professor, Deakin University
Abstract: The phrase ‘One Hundred Years of Mateship’ was created this year in Washington to affirm the depth and strength of the bond between the US and Australia. It anchors the relationship in history as something permanent and destined to last. The term ‘mateship’ has a special place in Australian English and typically describes special fraternal connections and loyalties. Mates are forever. The lecture will review the history of the Australia/US relationship over the last one hundred years and will ask how well this newly minted phrase reflects historical realities.
Bio: David Walker is Professor Emeritus at Deakin University and Honorary Professorial Fellow at the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne. After serving his term as the inaugural BHP Chair of Australian Studies at Peking University, he joined BFSU as a Visiting Professor. He holds a similar position at Renm University. He has written extensively on Australian responses to Asia from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. David Walker is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and the Australian Academy of the Humanities.
5月15日19:00-20:30，4th Floor Conference Hall, BFSU Library 北京外国语大学图书馆四层学术报告厅
2.Speaking English as your first language – The plus’s and minus’s for an Australian Dramatist
Speaker: Mr. David Williamson
Abstract:
Growing up with English as a mother tongue is a mixed blessing. In this talk I will discuss what this has meant for me as an Australian dramatist.
Drama is perhaps the art form that is most strongly rooted in its own culture. In the way the language is spoken – it’s idioms and vernacular. Because Australian English is a distinct branch of English this means that often words have a different meaning and the metaphors, which express so much meaning in drama are different and unique to Australia and not fully understood elsewhere. This in turn means that while my work is instantly understood and has instant resonance to my Australian audiences, it’s not necessarily accessible in the same way to a different nation of English speakers.
This is in contrast to the solid understanding we have of American and English culture, as we see heaps of their drama but they see little of ours.
As well as idiom and metaphoric content our national attitudes, manners, and customs differ from those of say America and England. This, together with the fact that the nature of the Australian cultural landscape is little known to the larger English speaking cultures, has meant that my plays have sometimes caused disquiet and even shock when performed abroad, for reasons I will outline.
More pleasing however is that discerning critics have recognized that under the surface differences the same human nature we all share is clearly in evidence. Our emotions may be expressed differently but our emotional needs are much the same in all cultures. Drama can show us the peculiarities and obsessions of a particular culture but also, thankfully the universality of the human experience.
My prime aim has been to depict my own culture to my own audiences. In this sense I’ve always regarded myself as a storyteller to my tribe, but overseas productions have been fascinating and insightful in ways I’ll explore in this talk.
Bio:
David Williamson is widely recognised as Australia’s most successful playwright and over the last forty five years his plays have been performed throughout Australia and produced in Britain, United States, Canada and many European and Asian countries. His playTravelling Northhad a successful production in Vietnam andThe Clubran for a lengthy season in Beijing, where its depiction of back room committee politicking obviously struck a chord with the Chinese.
A number of his stage works have been adapted for the screen, includingThe Removalists, Don’s Party, The Club. Travelling North. Emerald City, Sanctuary andBrilliant Lies,and six of them have been made into quality Telemovies in Poland.
David Williamson has won the Australian Film Institute film script award five times, forPetersen(1974),Don’s Party(1976),Gallipoli(1981)Travelling North( 1987) andBalibo(2009) and has won twelve Australian Writers’ Guild AWGIE Awards. He also wrote the screenplay forPharlap(1981) ,The Year of Living Dangerously,(1983) receiving a nomination for best screenplay from the Writer’s Guild of America. He wrote the screenplay for Showtime’sOn the Beachwhich won the Australian AFI award for best miniseries and was nominated for the Golden Globe awards in the U.S. He also wrote the screenplay for the HBO miniseriesA Dangerous Life,about the fall of the Marcos regime in the Philippines which made the critics top ten list of the year in both New York and Los Angeles.
Altogether he has written twelve screenplays and five miniseries, includingThe Four Minute Milefor the BBC andThe Last Bastionabout General McArthur’s arrival in Australia in WW 11, which was sold all over the world.
In 1983 he became an Officer of the Order of Australia. (A.O)
He has been awarded four honorary doctorates from the Universities of Sydney, Monash, Swinburne and Brisbane.
In 1997 the National Trust named him one of our National Living Treasures.
In 2005 he was awarded the J.C. Williamson lifetime achievement award at the Annual Helpmann awards, and became inducted as a National Living Treasure.
In 2011 he was given the lifetime achievement award by the Sydney Critics Circle.
In 2015 he was awarded the N.S.W Premier’s Literary Awards special achievement award.
He lives on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast with his writer wife, Kristin Williamson.
Time: 15:00-16:30, 2 June 2018,
Venue: Conference Room 111, School of English and International Studies, BFSU
北京外国语大学英语学院111会议室
3.China in My Eyes, 1964-2018
Speaker: Professor Colin Mackerras, Griffith University
Abstract: As a frequent resident and visitor to China over the more than half a century from 1964 to 2018 I have seen multiple changes but also continuities. In essence I have seen China grow over those years from a struggling, poor, and highly restrictive but patriotic society to a much more confident, developed, prosperous and much freer but still struggling and patriotic one.
With some illustrations, this lecture will elaborate on “China in my eyes” under several headings, including:
My own China experience, e.g. what brought me to China, in what capacities I have been here and my long-term association with the Beijing Foreign Studies University;
The economic changes, material progress and incomparably greater prosperity.
The developing society and changing lifestyle, with more personal responsibility and freedom.
Cultural change and growth, especially in the performing arts.
China still faces enormous problems. However, I consider it an enormous privilege to have been witness, as an outsider, to China’s rise, which has been more or less unprecedented in world history in its speed and wide range. In my eyes, China’s rise has also been overwhelmingly beneficial both to the people of China and to the world more generally.
Bio: Professor Colin Mackerras is a Sinologist who has published widely about China, including its theatre, ethnic minorities and history, and about Australia-China relations and Western images of China. He has worked as a foreign expert 外国专家 many times in China, the first time from 1964 to 1966 at the Beijing Foreign Language Institute (now Beijing Foreign Studies University). He was also a professor at Griffith University from 1974 to 2004 and professor emeritus since then. In 2014 he won a Chinese friendship award 友谊奖 and in a speech to the Australian Parliament in November that year President Xi Jinping called him a “bridge” between the Australian and Chinese peoples. In June 2007 he was appointed an Officer in the Order of Australia.
Time: 19:00-20:30, 28 June 2018
Venue: 5th Floor Conference Hall, BFSU Library 北外图书馆5层报告厅
