Italians are flocking to Australian Indigenous courses at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and the university has recruited a Brisbane academic to teach the growing numbers.
University of Queensland anthropologist Dr Franca Tamisari will teach two courses on Australian Indigenous studies and give a series of lectures at the Venice International University.
“I’ll get 60 to 70 students per course,” Dr Tamisari, from the School of Social Science said.
“They are very interested. There is very little information so the students are very keen to find out.”
Dr Tamisari said indigenous studies was popular in Venice because Australia was popular in Italy yet the information on Australian indigenous cultures and history was only exotic and romantic.
Her two-year secondment is funded under the Italian Government’s Return of the Brains decree designed to bring Italian academics back to its universities.
University of Venice staff approached her to apply for the fellowship and she was selected by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR) in Rome.
Dr Tamisari said she would continue her research into Aboriginal songs, paintings and dance from Northeast Arnhem Land and her multi-media research work on the maintenance and transformation of traditions in Sicilian communities of North Queensland.
She will also return to Australia mid-way through her appointment to carry out fieldwork in Northeast Arnehm land and in Tully.
She is studying rituals and religious feasts to show the cultural similarities and differences between Tully and its Italian sister city Piedmonte Etneo, a little village in Sicily.
Her last trip to Venice was for temporary teaching in 2001 and 2002 and she still has family in the city after finishing secondary school there.
She said she was proud she won one of the 38 MIUR positions offered in all fields and hoped it would build links between UQ and the University of Venice.
She leaves for Venice on December 27.
Media: contact Dr Tamisari on (phone: 07 3365 3286, email: f.tamisari@uq.edu.au) or Miguel Holland at UQ Communications (phone: 3365 2619, email:
m.holland@uq.edu.au)
