Australia Courses on Literature and Politics Set for Spring 2000 Two upper division undergraduate courses on Australian topics will be taught at UT-Austin in the coming spring semester. One course will be a further edition of Dr. Don Graham's English Department course, "Australian Literature and Film." Responding to student demand, this will be the sixth consecutive semester in which Dr. Graham has offered this course. With Center support, he made a further trip to Sydney this past July to present a paper at the Association for the Study of Australian Literature and to collect further materials for his course on lieterature and film. Dr. Ross Terrill will return as a visiting professor in UT-Austin's Government Department this spring to teach a course on "Australian Socieity and Politics," as well as a graduate seminar, cross-listed with Asian Studies, on "Contemporary Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations." Dr. Terrill is currently completing a new edition of his 1988 book, The Australians for publicatin by Random House prior to the Sydney Olympics next summer. As well, a thoroughly rewritten edition of his authoritative study of Mao Zedong will be published soon by Stanford University Press. Pierce's initial exposure to Australia was made possible by a DETYA grand that enable the Clark Center to intensify its graduate-level program at UT-Austin.

Director's Report I am writing this report on the morning after Australia's republic referendum was decisively defeated: 55 per cent No, 45 per cent Yes. The evidence of widespread voter ignorance about the complex referendum issues, which emerged from the deliberative poll co-sponsored by the Clark Center two weekends ago in Canberra (see the preceeding article), make this an unsurprising, indeed predictable, outcome. The poll indicated that if voters had an opportunity to discuss and examine the issues like those voters we assembled in Canberra had done, the referendum would almost certainly have passed. But such are the workings of "referendum democracy," as political scientists sometimes term it. Lest Yacker readers get the idea that the Clark Center and the other orgnaizations that collaborated to mount the poll were trying to swaty the referendum outcome in a Yes direction, let me emphasize that this was in no sense our purpose. In planning and staging the event, all of us went to great lengths to ensure that it was an entirely neutral, academically disinterested exercise. In the course of four trips to Australia during the past twelve months, my colleagues and I, and especially Pam Ryan, who bore the lion's share of the enormous work involved, consulted exhaustively with all the main groups engaged in the republic debates. We revised the neutral 15-page briefing document that we wrote for participants some twenty times in order to meet the groups' objections, and we took all the pains we could to ensure a dispassionate and non-partisan discussions in Canberra. The poll was, I think, a resounding success. Among many positive outcomes, staging it greatly increased knowledge about Australian affairs among UT-Austin faculty. Professors Jim Fishkin and Bob Luskin, from UT's Cneter for Deliberative Polling, became immersed in the nitty-gritty of Australian politics and institutions, each of them spending more than a month in Australia during the past year. Two of our Ph.D. students who are writing dissertations on Australian politics -- Rhonda Evans Case and Jason Pierce (Jason is currently a Fulbright Fellow at ANU) -- participated in the poll as moderators of two of the 24 face-to-face discussion groups into which the 347 participants were randomly distributed. Other UT faculty, students, and staff members followed the developments closely as our efforts took shape. Those deserving thanks for invaluable help are too numerous to list here; it was a large collective effort in the best sense. Two peopld cannot go unmentioned, however. One is former prime minister Bob Hawke, who took time to meet with us on every occasion when we asked for his help and who encouraged us to persist in our effort without ever trying to influence its direction. The other is Pam Ryan. At incredible personal cost, Pam moved the idea of mounting a poll about the republic issue from a casual conversation she and I had in Austin eighteen months ago to a nationally applauded reality two weeks ago. She did this to serve the country she loves and we at the Clark Center and UT-Austin love her for all she did.                                 --John Higly

Conferences on Australian topics abound all year long . . .

ASANA Issues Call for Papers The Annual Conference of the Australian Studies Association of North America (ASANA) will take place in Ottawa, Canada, 24-26 February 2000. The organizers invite proposals for papers on any aspect of Australian studies, or comparative studies involving Australia. Proposals -- DEADLINE: 5 January 2000 -- should be sent by mail, fax, or e-mail to: Professor Kim Nossal, Department of Political Science, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4M4; Fax: 905/527-3071; email: nossalk@mcmaster.ca. The conference will be headquartered in the Lord Elgin Hotel, located at 100 Elgin Boulevard in downtown Ottawa. For reservations at the conference rate of CAD99 per night, call 1-800-267-4298 and mention ASANA. AAALS Schedules Australian Sessions at MLA Convention The American Association of Australian Literary Studies (AAALS) will sponsor two sessions at the Modern Language Association Convention, 27-30 December, in Chicago. "Australia as a Nation in the 1790s, 1890s and 1990s" will serve as the theme for the first session on 27 December, which will include papers by Robert Zeller, Richard S. Carr, and Leslie Delmenico. In the second session, scheduled for 28 December, Sydney University Professsor Brian Kieman will speak on "Australia's Postcoloniality." AAALS Plans Fifteenth Annual Conference in New York The Fifteenth Annual AAALS Conference is scheduled for 27-30 April 2000, New York City, at the New School for Social Research and at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Nicholas Birns, Conference Chair, has announced the theme, "Australian Literature: The Global and the Local" and invites proposals for papers. Deadline for proposals (200 words) is 1 March 2000. Address: Nicholas Birns, 205 East Tenth Street, New York, New York 10003. E-mail nicbirns@interport.net. Information regarding the conference is also on the AAALS website: www.australianliterature.org.

Varied Conferences Planned for 2000 In San Diego . . . The Australian Studies Section of the Western Social Sience Association will meet in San Diego, California, 26-29 April 2000. In Queensland . . . The Inaugural Conference of the International Australian Studies Association (InASA) is set for the Ipswich Campus of the University of Queensland, 5-7 July 2000. For further information contact, Leigh Dale, Department of English, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia 4072. E-mail L.Dale@mailbox.uq.edu.au. In Barcelona . . . "Changing Geographies: Australia at the Millennium" is the topic of the First University of Barcelona - La Trobe University Conference, which is planned for 2-4 February 2000, in Barcelona. For more information contact Susan Ballyn at e-mail ballyn@fil.ub.es. In Tasmania . . . ASAL 2000 (Association for the Study of Australian Literature) is scheduled for 6-9 July at the University of Tasmania in Hobart. There is no designated conference theme. Abstracts of approximately 200 words should be submitted by 10 December 1999 to Dr. Philip Mead, School of English, University of Tasmania, GPO Box 252-82, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia 7001. Abstracts must be submitted by regular mail or by fax (+61-3-6226-7631). E-mail p.mead@utas.edu.au. Past Conferences Examine Australian Topics "New World Democracies: America's Role in Australian Nationhood" was the theme of a conference held at the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, 1-4 December 1999. A few days later on 7-9 December at the University of Ottawa another conference addressed the topic: "Shaping Nations: Federalism and Society in Australia and Canada." In College Park, Maryland, on 9 November, A Fulbright-sponsored conference examined "America's Relations with Australia and New Zealand Beyond the Turn of the Century."

______Clark Center       Vistors___ Molly Ingate and Bruce McKenzie, from the International Studies Office of the University of Western Australian, visited during May to arrange a UT-UWA student exchange program, which is now in place. Dr. Allison McKinnon, Director of Research at the Hawke Institute, and Dr. Ian Davies, Pro-Vice chancellor, both at the University of South Australia, visted during November to help organize a new student exchange program between consortia of the Austin and Adelaide universities and to discuss research collaboration with the Clark Center. Dr. James Jupp, Director of the Centre for Immigration and Multicultural Studies and ANU, gave a research seminar and met with UT-Austin graduate students during November to assist them in their work on Australian immigration and ethnic relations topics. Professor Brian Kiernan, from the University of Sydney, lectured on Australian literary topics at UT-Austin during November as part of the Australian Education Office's Distinguished Australian Speakers Series.

Faculty Publications John Higley and Michael Burton. "Elites, Mass Publics, and Democratic Prospects in Postindustrial Societies." International Review of Sociology 9 (August 1999):221-37. Robert Ross. Colonial and Postcolonial Fiction -- An Anthology. New York:Galand Publishing, 1999. 457 pp. Hardback and Paperback. Includes 35 short stories by writers from Australia, Canada, Africa, New Zealand, India, West Indies, and Pakistan, with complete introductory material. "Seeking and Maintaining Balance in Rohinton Mistry's Fiction." World Literature Today 73 (Spring 1999):239-44. Biocritical articles on Peter DeVries, Shirley Hazzard, Robinson Jeffers, Sarah Kemble Knight. In Encyclopedia of American Literature. New York:Continuum Publishing, 1999. European Conference Attracts Clark Center Robert Ross represented the Clark Center at the Fifth Conference of the European Association for Studies on Australia, 28 September - 3 October, in Toulouse, France. Over one hundred scholars and writers from Europe, as well as Japan, China, the U.S., and Australia, attended this biennial, interdisciplinary meeting. Sixty papers, along with plenary lectures and readings by Australian writers--not to mention social events, filled the four days in this beautiful southern French city. Developing the conference theme of "Departures," Dr. Ross present a comparative study of two depression novels, "Departures to the Promised Land: Kylie Tennant's The Battlers and John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath." The 2001 EASA Conference is set for Lecce, Italy.

Y a c k e r is published in the spring and fall by The Edward A. Clark Center for Australian Studies Harry Ransom Center 3.362 The University of Texas Austin, TX 78713-7219 USA Telephone: 512/471-9607 Fax:512/471-8869 Email:ffcushing@mail.utexas.edu Website:www.utexas.edu/depts/cas AAALS Publications Feature Antipodes and Special Newsletter The critical section of the December 1999 Antipodes will be devoted to Australian film. Guest-edited by Dr. Adi Wimmer, University of Klagenfurt, Austria, the issue will feature a variety of articles by international critics that address film history, workdwide reception, and literary adaptations for the screen. New fiction and opetry by Australian writers and Antipodes' extensive reviews section will round out the edition that closes the journal's thirteenth year of publication. Celebrating the fifteenth year of AAALS activities, the special sixteen-page AAALS Newsletter recalls the Association's founding in 1986 and its impressive growth through the years. The issue also provides a guide to publications by AAALS members and offers specail articles on what draws North Americans to Australian literature and on the current state of Australian literary studies around the world. For a complimentary copy of the "15th Anniversary AAALS Newsletter," contact the editor, Mark Klemmens - P.O. Box 202600, Shaker Heights, OH 44120-2600; e-mailbalcones@mpdr0.cleveland.oh.ameritech.net.