Message from the president
This edition of the newsletter comes at a time of great turmoil in New Caledonia. All members will be aware of the situation, and for this reason, we have not included links to media articles or news items – there are too many to list, and the situation is constantly evolving. At the time of writing, fortunately, things seem to have calmed somewhat. As I said in my recent email, we are greatly saddened by these events and our thoughts are with everyone affected, whether that be ISFAR members who have friends and family in New Caledonia, or Australians, French and New Caledonians who may still be unable to return home. We know that the respective governments have been doing everything they can with the various embassies, High Commission, and consulates, to facilitate repatriation.
Speaking of consulates, many of you will already be aware of the very good news that a Consulate General of France will open in Melbourne in September (see link to media release below). Representatives from a number of French associations were recently invited to the Honorary Consulate in Melbourne to hear from Mr Martin Juillard, Consul General of France in Sydney, and Honorary Consul Mme Myriam Boisbouvier-Wylie about the new consulate. While no information about an appointment or venue is available yet, M. Martin explained the division of administrative duties between Sydney and Melbourne and confirmed that there will be several members of staff at the new consulate.
As pointed out by both M. Martin and Mme Boisbouvier-Wylie, the opening of this new consulate reflects the importance of the French speaking community in Melbourne for the French Embassy and for France. Everyone at the information session agreed that Myriam has played an exceptional role in serving and bringing together the French-speaking community in Melbourne, and that we cannot thank her enough for everything she has done in her thirteen years as Honorary Consul. Certainly, ISFAR owes an enormous debt of gratitude to Myriam for her longstanding support as member and advocate. For those of us in Melbourne, it is very reassuring to know that she will continue to play an important role in the community as President of the new French-Australian Cultural Exchange Foundation (FACEF).
This newsletter contains reports of various recent and forthcoming ISFAR-related events, including the fast-approaching Bastille Day French Festival, in which ISFAR will participate. You will also find a profile of our new postgraduate representative on the committee, Edoardo Brunetti; and a profile and report from our new intern, Lachie Kappa – find out more about him and the ISFAR projects he has been working on behind the scenes this year! One of these is our new ISFAR LinkedIn profile – please do follow us as we will be updating this page regularly, including reposting updates from related associations. Below you will also find contributions from ISFAR members, news of some forthcoming publications, and the usual range of links to other events and media articles of interest, including some explanatory articles on the snap election in France which President Macron has just announced.
Thank you for your ongoing support for ISFAR. We look forward to seeing many of you at the Bastille Day French Festival in Melbourne, and when you have recovered from that, you have the Olympics in France and Tahiti to look forward to!
The French Australian Review
The Winter issue of The French Australian Review, Number 76, will be published soon.
This statement trips lightly off the tongue, but it is worth reflecting on what an interesting and valuable resource the back copies of The French Australian Review (and Explorations – its earlier name) represent. If you have not already done so, take a look at the French Australian Review, on the ISFAR web site, where you can access all back copies free of charge (with the exception of the last two issues). The first issue of Explorations dates back to May 1985. It was produced on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of European settlement in Victoria and celebrated a two-day meeting of the France-Victoria Connection. It contained short articles on a number of personalities in the French cultural scene as well as a critical account of Hubert de Castella’s Les Squatters australiens (1861). In establishing the journal, the editors at the time saw it more as an intermittent publication of short articles, reminiscences, documents and research notes. Over the years, the journal has evolved to have a focus on publishing refereed research articles as well as other documents and reviews relating to French-Australian connections in all their facets. Since 2009 (issue 47) we have included Bibliographical Notes, introducing readers to Australian books translated into French (and vice versa), as well as books about Australia by French writers and books about France by Australian authors.
Almost forty years on from that first issue of Explorations, Number 76 of The French Australian Review, available July–August this year, will feature a number of refereed articles by leading researchers in their fields. Barbara Santich will publish the first part of her overview of the emergence of French restaurants in nineteenth century Australia; Katrina Kell writes about the process of research that led to her novel inspired by the painting Chloé by French artist Jules Lefebvre – Chloé has hung in the Young and Jackson Hotel, Melbourne, since 1909; Katrina Proust has drawn on family memoirs to write about the story of the settlement of a French family in New Caledonia in 1898 and then in Sydney at the turn of the twentieth century.
A number of other documents are included: an interview with the curator of an exhibition Voir l’invisible: un voyage au coeur des cultures traditionelles d’Australie, which took place at the Musée d’Angoulême from June last year until January this year; a ‘French-Australian Encounter’ written by Lucy Sussex who draws on the diaries of her father, Ronald Thomas Sussex, who travelled to France from 1936 to 1938 to undertake his PhD at the Sorbonne and subsequently had a long career as a French scholar and academic; a biographical note about Olive Wright, a teacher and translator who died in New Zealand in 1975; and a research report by Rachel Orzech on Louise Hanson-Dyer and her significance in twentieth century French-Australian cultural exchange.
Book reviews and a book note will be followed by the usual Bibliographical Notes.
‘A l’avant-garde de la pédagogie: la franco-australienne Augustine Soubeiran – recent presentation by Nelly Duret
The historian Nelly Duret gave an engaging and informative talk at the University of Sydney on 11 April, ‘A l’avant-garde de la pédagogie, la franco-australienne Augustine Soubeiran (1858–1926): l’héritage des pédagogues suisses.’ This in-person and online event was jointly organised by the Department of French and Francophone Studies, the Alliance française de Sydney, and ISFAR.
Nelly Duret is the author of a recent book on Soubeiran, Augustine Soubeiran: Une Cévenole et philanthrope féministe en Australie (Ampelos, 2021), now in its second edition. Her presentation explored the roots of Soubeiran’s philosophy of education in her native Cévennes, her religious and family background, and her education and experience in teaching, to bring to life the innovative pedagogical ideas and practices of this remarkable woman.
Credit: Victoria Souliman
French restaurants and wine saloons in early Melbourne
Professor Emeritus Barbara Santich AM, The University of Adelaide
Attendees of the recent Melbourne Salon were treated to a lively and informative presentation on the origins of the restaurant in eighteenth-century Paris and French wine saloons and restaurants in nineteenth-century Melbourne. We learnt that French restaurateurs made an important contribution to the early Melbourne dining scene, especially through wine saloons, an innovation made possible by the introduction in 1864 of the colonial wine licence in response to the rapid expansion of vineyards and wine production. Refreshments consisted of French rosé and olive tapenade, both representative of Provençal cuisine.
The speaker, Professor Emeritus Barbara Santich (University of Adelaide), is a renowned food historian, and coordinator of ISFAR’s French Australian Wine Project (FAW). Her research into food history and culture focuses on both France and Australia with publications including The Original Mediterranean Cuisine (Wakefield Press, 1995; new revised edition Equinox, 2018) and Bold Palates: Australia’s Gastronomic Heritage (Wakefield Press, 2012), which was shortlisted in the non-fiction category of the 2013 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards.
Her latest book, Eating in Eighteenth-Century Provence: The Evolution of a Tradition, was published in 2023 by Bloomsbury. (Bloomsbury offers a discount of 35% on this publication to Australian purchasers with the discount code GLRTW2AU on their web site.)
Barbara Santich speaking at the Melbourne Salon, May 2024
Credit: Graham Neilson
Volume in honour of Colin Nettelbeck
We are delighted to announce that the festschrift in honour of Emeritus Professor Colin Nettelbeck, entitled Franco-Australian Connections: Essays in Honour of Professor Colin Nettelbeck, will be published on 7 August 2024.
The volume, whose cover appears below, will be available from Classiques Garnier, which also contains more details and the Table of Contents.
Profile – Edoardo Brunetti, postgraduate representative on the ISFAR Committee
My name is Edoardo Brunetti and I’m a PhD candidate at RMIT University, Melbourne. My PhD research investigates the perspectives of regional language speakers in France on language policy and the broader prospects for language revitalisation. I’m interested in regional and minority languages, regionalism and nationalism, language policy and planning, and language revitalisation – particularly in French or Francophone contexts.
After having studied French throughout high school (during which I participated in an exchange program with a high school in Lille), I arrived at university and continued studying French as part of my undergraduate degree. It was at this point that I learned that French was not the only language traditionally spoken in France and discovered the world of les langues régionales, sparking a deep interest. I remember this moment quite clearly as I found it odd that these languages, with such long histories and significance for France, had never come up in my high school French classes. For my Honours thesis, I researched the post-war Breton and Occitan regionalist/nationalist movements, becoming interested in the intersection between regional languages and demands for regional autonomy. An article based on this research was published in the Summer 2022–2023 issue of The French-Australian Review. I’ve continued with the topic of regional languages for my PhD research and spent the second half of last year in France conducting interviews with Breton, Corsican and Occitan speakers.
I’ve joined the ISFAR committee this year as a postgraduate representative and am excited to connect with HDRs in the world of French studies. I’d love to hear suggestions for what ISFAR can do to engage with HDR students – if you have any ideas, feel free to contact me.
Profile – Lachie Kappa, ISFAR intern
My name is Lachie, and I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Monash University in 2022, majoring in international relations (IR). I also focused heavily on 21st century history, Indo-Pacific security, foreign policy and French studies. My French language journey began 10 years ago. Since then, I’ve only dig deeper into French history, music, arts, culture, politics, foreign policy and more!
What particularly attracted me to ISFAR was the French Australian Review and Melbourne Salon cultural events. Since becoming an intern at ISFAR in January, I have had the privilege of immersing myself even more in the world of French-Australian relations!
No task at ISFAR has been the same. Firstly, I submitted a piece that featured in the March edition of the ISFAR quarterly newsletter, focusing on the launches of the French Australian Cultural Exchange Foundation (FACEF), French-Australian Centre for Energy Transition (FACET), and Military Access Agreement between Australia and France. This allowed me to dive straight into researching the initiatives that are progressing around us, which will promote France and Australia’s relationship, and contribute to a promising and collaborative future.
Since then, I have also worked with the team to promote ISFAR’s outreach in the French-Australian community, to be able to engage with more like-minded cultural organisations, institutes, businesses, university clubs (and more) country-wide. The internship has also been an eye-opening experience, providing the opportunity to gain insights into the workings of an established research and cultural institute. For example, I have helped with cataloguing, and by contributing to the process whereby Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) will be applied to the journal articles in the French Australian Review.
Lastly, there’s no better way to top off an (already amazing) internship, than to get special access to the social media! Most recently, I’ve helped launch an ISFAR LinkedIn profile, which will aim to connect ISFAR with businesses, organisations and institutes that are passionate about advancing French-Australian relations. Be sure to follow us on LinkedIn to stay tuned for more updates! @Institute for the Study of French-Australian Relations (ISFAR)
I look forward to contributing to ISFAR as much as possible and being able to look back on a rewarding internship. I aim to use the skills I’ve acquired at ISFAR by applying them to a career in public and cultural diplomacy, and ultimately, to play my part in the French-Australian relationship!
News from our members
Sarah Vallee reports that the Australian-French Association for Research and Innovation (AFRAN) organised a Café scientifique on the topic of AI & Governments, last April, in partnership with the Alliance française of Canberra. The panel discussion covered the Australian approach to AI, the newly adopted European Union AI Act, as well as digital inequalities and public-private partnerships in implementing ethical AI. The audience showed particular interest in the role of AI in education. See this blog post summarising the discussion.
Sarah has recently joined the AFRAN Team as the AI Community Lead. If you’re interested in AI topics and have a project in mind, feel free to reach out to Sarah.
From left to right: Dr Rim El Kadi, Dr Zena Assaad, Sarah Vallee, Dr Ahmed Imran at the Café scientifique
Credit: Alliance française of Canberra, Marketing team
New French Consulate General to open in Melbourne
As noted in the above message from the president, earlier this year the French Ambassador HE Mr Pierre-André Imbert announced that the French Government is to open a new Consulate General in Melbourne in September 2024. This media release from the French Embassy in Canberra provides information about the new Consulate General.
New publication
We are pleased to announce the publication of a new book What have the French ever done for us? French contributions to Australia’s cultural life (Wakefield Press). The book, edited by John West-Sooby, contains essays by noted specialists on a range of topics, such as language, diplomacy, art, music, cinema, literature… and, of course food and wine.
What have the French done for the cultural life of Australia, and more globally? That is the question addressed by the essays in this volume, penned by eminent experts in their fields. The notion that France is synonymous with ‘culture’ seems deeply entrenched in our collective imaginary. But what does that really mean? By shining a light on a range of French cultural phenomena and examining their legacy, in Australia and beyond, this volume seeks to foster a more nuanced understanding of France’s cultural impact. In so doing, it aims to go beyond the clichés – in short, to help separate the myth from the reality.
The book can be ordered from Wakefield Press at a cost of $39.95.
Bastille Day French Festival Melbourne – 13 and 14 July 2024
Get ready to swap your beanie for a beret and rendezvous at the iconic Queen Victoria Market Sheds C & D on Saturday 13 and Sunday 14 July for the annual Bastille Day French Festival.
Everyone’s favourite celebration of all things French and Francophone in Melbourne is back in 2024 and we can’t wait to transport you to a classic wintry French town square and celebrate the French National Day across a range of activities. There is something for everyone at this year’s Festival – from a French Winter Market packed with local French-Australian businesses and mouth-watering French and Francophone cuisine, to dazzling artists and performers, to a cultural program filled with Les Lumières talks, Walking Tours and interactive masterclasses – all right in the heart of Melbourne!
We will also have our Online Program in full swing so if you can’t join us in person, don’t worry, join us online for a range of live crosses to France, in conversations, musical delights and more! Rendezvous in person or online and join in the joie de vivre.
The Bastille Day Festival draws together Melbourne’s French community, Francophones and francophiles, and provides an opportunity for Melbourne’s French Associations to connect with each other and the wider community.
For more information and updates, head to Bastille Day Melbourne.
À bientôt au Festival!
24th George Rudé Seminar in French History and Culture
Macquarie University, Sydney 11–13 July 2024
Registration is open for the 24th George Rudé Seminar, to be held in-person and on zoom from Thursday 11 July to Saturday 13 July 2024 at Macquarie University. Held every second year in Australia or New Zealand, the Seminar brings together specialists in French history and culture from across the world in recognition of the contribution made by George Rudé to the study of French history and culture in Australasia and internationally.
Keynote speakers:
Associate Professor Julie Kalman (Monash University): ‘The Asterix Series as National Myth in Post-war France’
Dr Adrian Muckle (Victoria University of Wellington): ‘Kanak Voices in the History of France’s “Native Code” in New Caledonia: the “indigènes” in the “indigénat”’
Most of the papers will be delivered in person, with a few sessions online. Zoom access to all the keynote presentations and sessions will be provided to remote attendees, barring technical issues beyond the conference organisers’ control.
Register via the web site. View the Seminar program. Please note this is a draft program and updates will be made in the coming weeks. Please email all inquiries to FoA.GeorgeRudeSeminar2024@mq.edu.au
ISFAR is part sponsoring the Keynote lecture to be given by Adrian Muckle on Thursday 11 July, 1.45–3pm (AEST). ISFAR members will have free zoom access to this lecture and to the ISFAR panel with Pauline Georgelin and Liz Rechniewski on Friday 12 July, 3.45–4.45pm (AEST). Pauline Georgelin, ‘Showcasing France at the Melbourne International Exhibition of 1880–1881’; Elizabeth Rechniewski, ‘Presenting and Representing Aboriginal Art and Culture in France’.
Register your interest by sending an email to Elizabeth Rechniewski.
Exhibitions and events
The National Gallery of Australia in Canberra is holding a major exhibition Gaugin’s World: Tōna Iho, Tōna AO from Saturday 29 Jun to Mon 7 October 2024. The exhibition offers a rare opportunity to experience the art of Paul Gauguin and features some of his most recognised masterpieces, many of which were created in the Pacific region. The NGV will explore Gauguin’s life, art and controversial legacy through talks, public programs, a podcast series and films.
Another exhibition not to miss is Paris: Impressions of Life 1880–1925 at Bendigo Art Gallery. See an SBS interview with Anne-Laure Sol, curator (in French) about the exhibition.
Experience the romance of Paris in Bendigo this Autumn with Bonjour Bendigo – an exciting program of events and experiences. In celebration of Bendigo Art Gallery’s international exhibition, Paris: Impressions of Life 1880–1925, Bendigo is transforming into the city of love and light. Revel in French food, art, culture and much more with the exciting Bonjour Bendigo program. Plan your weekend in Bendigo by checking out what else is coming up!
Recent articles and media
In March, Professor Véronique Duché published a very informative and amusing article on the Australian Academy of the Humanities website on the many ways in which the French language continues to influence modern English.
The Conversation published an article (in French) by Benjamin Blandin, ‘Que pèse la France en Indo-Pacifique’, in which he critically analyses France’s Indo-Pacific strategy.
Julien Robin wrote an article in The Conversation entitled ‘Snap elections in France: a political scientist lays out what’s at stake’, in which he explains what the surprise dissolution means for French politics.
Also in The Conversation, providing us with a hypothesis on what may follow the French elections is Alexandre Frambéry-Iacobone of the Université de Bordeaux. In this article, and originally published in French, he considers what is at stake, reminds us of the history of these relationships and concludes that these elections are even more significant than those for the presidency.
Contact us at ISFAR
ISFAR: isfarinc@gmail.com
The French Australian Review: french.australian.review@gmail.com
ISFAR Research Committee co-chairs: alexis.bergantz@rmit.edu.au;elizabeth.rechniewski@sydney.edu.au
Join ISFAR or renew your ISFAR membership. Membership includes subscription to The French Australian Review journal.
Follow us
Facebook: www.facebook.com/FrenchAustralianRelations
Twitter: https://twitter.com/theISFAR
Useful links
Alliance Française de Melbourne www.afmelbourne.com.au
Association of French Teachers in Victoria (AFTV) www.aftv.vic.edu.au
Australian-French Association for Research and Innovation (AFRAN) www.afran.org.au
Australian French Association for Science and Technology https://afas.org.au
Australian Historical Association www.theaha.org.au
Bastille Day French Festival Melbourne www.bastilledaymelbourne.com
Bleu Blanc Rouge (Consular newsletter) www.bbrvic.com/en
French Assist Melbourne www.frenchassistmelbourne.org.au
French Australian Chamber of Commerce www.facci.com.au
ISFAR resources
ISFAR provides resources to researchers in the field of French-Australian studies, with the support of the authors or contributors who give their approval to publish this material. Access all ISFAR resources www.isfar.org.au/resources.