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Basque Studies Program Newsletter
· Issue 56,
1997
Basque Lecture Series in South
America
Between August 4 and 18 William Douglass formed part
of an academic team sent by the Basque Government to Chile,
Argentina and Uruguay to lecture on several Basque topics.
In both Santiago and Buenos Aires the conference series
lasted for several days and included lectures by local
scholars as well.
Funded by the Basque Government, the purpose of the
lecture series was to consider issues pertinent to the
Basque experience in the America’s issues facing
contemporary Basque society and the links between the two
worlds. The event in Santiago was held at the Salón
de Honór of the University of Chile. The first day
featured lectures on Basques in Chile by Silvia Mezzano,
Marte Camus and Roberto Hernández. Subsequently,
Fernando Muru of Deusto University discussed the projection
of the Basque Country into Europe and Pedro María
Velarde of the University of the Basque Country lectured on
the economic ties between the Basque Country and Latin
America. Txema Esparta, art critic, discussed contemporary
art in the Basque Country and Hernan Urrutia, discussed
Basque Literature in the Castillian language. The lecture
series was partly facilitated by Eusko Etxea of
Santiago.
In Buenos Aires the lectures were organized by the
Laurak Bat Basque Club and held at the National Library.
They included discussions on Basque activities in Argentina
by Nora L. Siegrist, Marcelino Iriani, Inés
García - Albi, and Mikel Ezkerro. Oscar Alvarez
joined the team and lectured on the Basque clergy,
emigration and nationalism. Ane María Muñoz
Varela discussed Basque involvement in the European
Union.
In both Chile and Argentina José Manuel Azcona
of the University of Deusto, primary organizer of the tour,
lectured on the causes of Basque emigration and the
emigration experience itself. In both countries William
Douglass discussed Basque emigration to the United States,
while drawing parallels and contrasts with the situation of
Basques and their descendants in southern South
America.
Muñoz and Douglass went on to Montevideo and
gave their respective talks in that city’s public
university. The next evening they repeated the performance
in the Eusko Etxea Basque center of Durazno in central
Uruguay.
Plans are already afoot for a similar series of
lectures next year in two or more Latin American
countries.
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