Bulletin

Issue: October 2006

News

New Centre for Mexican Studies

La Trobe University has launched a new Centre for Mexican Studies, building on its reputation as a leading centre for Latin American Studies in Australia.

The Centre was officially opened at the University’s inaugural Annual Mexico Symposium in September by the Mexican Ambassador, Mrs Martha Ortiz, and the Centre’s Director, Barry Carr.

Dr Carr says Mexico is a growing economic power, has the second largest population in Latin America, some 105 million, and since 1994 has been a member, with the USA and Canada, of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The new Centre, says Dr Carr, will bring a distinguished Mexican scholar or intellectual to Melbourne for about a month each year, based at the University’s main campus at Bundoora.

This year’s inaugural Visiting Mexicanist was Dr Guillermo Palacios, Director of the Center for Historical Studies at El Colegio de Mexico. A second distinguished speaker was Mexican novelist and cultural critic, Professor Margo Glantz from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Other speakers came from Victoria, New South Wales and New Zealand. The one-day symposium dealt with aspects of Mexican culture, politics, history – both pre- Columbian and post-colonial – as well as film and language.

Since its establishment in the late 1960s, La Trobe University has pioneered courses about Mexican history, society, literature and culture in Australia. More than 7,000 students have been introduced to Mexico through its teaching.

A number of distinguished La Trobe scholars have made internationally recognised contributions to academic research on Mexico, including historians Dr Inga Clendinnen, Dr Carr, and Dr Steve Niblo, and archaeologist Professor Peter Mathews.

Working with colleagues on the other side of the Pacific, the La Trobe Centre is also creating a website devoted to contemporary Mexico, its history, culture and politics for students of post-1940s Mexico.