Obituary: Merle Ricklefs Merle Ricklefs, who passed away in Melbourne on 29 December 2019, was the pre-eminent scholar of Javanese Islam of his generation and, more broadly, one of the leading historians of Indonesia. He also played a significant leadership role in Asian Studies in Australia as well as the development of Aboriginal tertiary education […]
Learning another language has more benefits than enhanced job prospects Australians’ lack of appetite for language learning is frequently reported to be worsening. Yet at the same time, ‘intercultural’ has become something of a buzzword. The Australian National Curriculum makes extensive reference to ‘intercultural understanding’, while employers are increasingly seeking recruits with ‘intercultural competency’. There […]
Students appear to be responding well to a novel approach to learning Hindi Over the last two years I’ve started using comics increasingly to teach first-year Hindi. Responses from students have been positive. But it has also raised the question of why we might use comics to teach languages and what we can say about […]
The architecture of Indian civilisation or a mere language? McCOMAS TAYLOR surveys the battleline over the significance of Sanskrit. Western scholarship devours Sanskrit just as a tiger eats a goat. It digests whatever its needs to develop and ejects the remains. In the end there is no goat, only the tiger grown stronger than ever. […]
An Australian institute of languages could do for language learning what the Australian Institute of Sport has done for sport, JOHN INGELSON believes. For many Australians, understanding the social and cultural dynamics of Asian countries and their peoples does not come naturally. This is understandable, given the lack of a shared cultural framework and historical […]
