(issued June 2008)
WALLACE KIRSOP, Foreword
COLIN NETTELBECK, What is This Thing Called France?
In his valedictory lecture delivered on his retirement in 2005 from the A.R. Chisholm Chair of French at the University of Melbourne, Colin Nettelbeck reflects on various aspects of French culture, history and geography and how they have determined France’s destiny and characterised concepts of freedom and individual liberty in French society.
Keywords: General de Gaulle, Alexis Léger, Saint-John Perse, the European Union, freedom, cultural autonomy, secularism, islam and muslims, anti-semitism, Algerian war, post-colonialism, film culture, ‘otherness’
COLIN NETTELBECK, ISFAR: A Recollection
As one of its founders, Colin Nettelbeck recalls the circumstances of the establishment of the Institute for the Study of French-Australian Relations at Monash University in 1985 and the publication of the first issue of Explorations.
Keywords: Colin Nettelbeck, Wallace Kirsop, Dennis Davison, Anny Stuer, Monash University, ISFAR.
WALLACE KIRSOP, Surviving Volumes from the Shipboard Libraries of the Baudin Expedition
This brief note recalls the extraordinary size of the libraries carried by the Baudin expedition, the captain’s personal library consisting of no less than 1,125 items and the uncertainty surrounding the fate of these books on the conclusion of the expedition. Reference is made to the inclusion of a copy of one such book, with a proven provenance from the collection of Le Naturaliste, in an Antiquarian Book Fair held in Los Angeles in February 2006.
Keywords: Baudin expedition, Thévenot’s Relations de divers voyages curieux, antique book auction catalogues
Karlene Dimbrowsky, The Mysterious Baron of Castle Hill: The Life and Times of Chevalier Verincourt Declambe, reviewed by Edward Duyker and including the translation of Duyker’s entry about Pierre Lalouette de Vernicourt (dit De Clambe) for the Dictionnaire de Biographie mauricienne, reviewed by Edward Duyker
Colin Dyer, The French Explorers and the Aboriginal Australians 1772-1839, reviewed by Edward Duyker
Bruce Poulson, Recherche Bay: A Short History; Bob Brown, Tasmania’s Recherche Bay, reviewed by Edward Duyker
Paul de Pierres, Loyalty Sustained: The Story of the de Pierres Family in Australia and New Zealand, 1903-2003, reviewed by Edward Duyker
Henrietta Taylor, Veuve Taylor, reviewed by Edward Duyker
Mary Moody, Au revoir, reviewed by Edward Duyker
Damien Pignolet, French, reviewed by Edward Duyker
Elaine Lewis, Left Bank Waltz: the Australian Bookshop in Paris, reviewed by Patricia Clancy