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Catalan Studies at Monash

What is Catalan?

Catalan is a Romance language spoken by approximately 10 million people across four European states: Spain, France, Andorra, where it is the only offical language, and Italy. Most Catalan speakers are bilingual as Catalan co-exists with three major European languages: Castilian (Spanish), French, and Italian. Like other Romance languages, Catalan derives from Latin and as such it shares many characteristics with French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. Students with a thorough grounding in one or more of these languages will, with dedication, have little trouble in obtaining a good working knowledge of Catalan in a relatively short period of time.

Catalan is spoken in the following areas:

Catalan has been spoken since the Middle Ages, when it was the language of Catalonia's extensive seaborn empire which included parts of what is now southern France, Corsica, almost half of modern day continental Italy, Sardinia, Sicily, as well as substantial parts of Greece. As a minority language within Spain, France and Italy, it has been threatened by laws and practices which sought to reduce its use and promote the state language. Despite the decline in the use of Catalan and the repressive practices, the language underwent a cultural renaissance in the nineteenth century such that, unlike many regional languages, Catalan is not limited to rural areas, but is a vibrant language of the middle and upper classes, particularly in Catalonia itself. Thus, unlike many minority languages, Catalan is a language of prestige of all social classes, and it is the language of social mobility for the hundreds of thousands of monolingual Castilian speakers who have migrated to Catalonia since the 1950s.

With the return to democracy in 1975 the Catalan-speaking regions within Spain have regained a limited degree of political and administrative autonomy which they had been denied since 1939. For almost forty years Catalan language and culture was brutally suppressed by the Franco regime which tried to impose on all of Spain the Castilian (Spanish) language and an homogenous Castilian-centred culture. Following Franco's death, the Catalan language was granted co-official status (with Castilian) in the Catalan-speaking regions which has resulted in a dynamic resurgence in the use and social relevance of the language in education, the media, administration, and in cultural production. This has occurred not only in Catalonia itself, but also in the autonomous communities of Valencia and the Balearic Islands which share a common language and historical, literary and cultural tradition.

Catalan Studies

Catalan Studies are an exciting field of academic research, particularly in the areas of linguistic normalisation, bilingualism, sociolinguistics, second-language acquisition, cultural maintenance and reconstruction, postcolonialism, regionalism and nationalism, ethnicity and multiculturalism. In particular, the successful development in the maintenance and promotion of Catalan linguistic and cultural identities puts Catalan Studies at the forefront of European studies of stateless nations.

Catalan has a long and distinguished literary tradition from the Middle Ages, with writers such as Ausis March, the greatest lyric poet in the Iberian Peninsula before Garcilaso de la Vega, until the current day, with writers such as Merc Rodoreda, whose La plaa del Diamant [The Time of the Doves] was described by the Colombian Nobel Prize-winning author, Gabriel Garca Mrquez, as the best novel of the Spanish postwar period. Other important contemporary writers include Carme Riera, Jess Moncada, Pere Gimferrer, Maria-Antnia Oliver, Quim Monz and Sergi Belbel.

Monash University offers Higher Degrees by research (PhD and Masters only) in Catalan literary and cultural studies. The Spanish and Latin American Studies Program has the only professional Catalanist with a PhD in Australia, Dr Stewart King. An internationally recognised scholar and member of the North American Catalan Society, Dr King has published articles on Catalan postcolonial studies, multiculturalism, women's writing and crime fictions. His book Escribir la catalanidad. Lengua e identidades culturales en la narrativa contempornea de Catalua (London: Tamesis, 2005) explores cultural identities in narrative from Catalonia written in Catalan and Castilian. For a comprehensive list of Dr King's publications,please visit his homepage . If you are interested in undertaking a PhD or Masters program in Catalan Studies, please contact Dr King directly on Stewart.King@arts.monash.edu.au or 9905-2118.

Although the Catalan language itself is not yet formally taught within the Spanish and Latin American Studies Program, several units contain substantial Catalan Studies modules, including SPN3770 Contesting Cultures and Identities in Modern Spain and SPN3730 Dictatorship and Democracy in Contemporary Spanish Fiction.

The Sir Louis Matheson Library and the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistic Library at the Clayton campus contain many self-study Catalan courses, which can be used in the "Student space for language learning" (Room S322). There are also several "teach yourself" Catalan language courses available via the web links provided below.

Melbourne is also home to a very active Catalan community which meets every Sunday at the Casal Catal (Catalan club), 247-251 Flinders Lane, Melbourne 3000. Visitors are welcome to come along to practice their Catalan or to find out more about Catalan culture. For further details please visit the Casal Catal de Victria website:
http://www.ccvictoria.cat/

Grants to study Catalan overseas

There are several Catalan cultural organisations which offer grants to students to undertake Catalan language courses in Catalonia. If you are interested in applying for one of these grants, please contact Dr King.

Web links

Catalan Culture

Catalan Studies

Learning Catalan

Catalan media services

Government

Other sites of interest

Spanish and
Latin American Studies

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