Fernand de Varennes, world expert in language rights and minorities, gives a lecture in Barcelona
[02/06/2008]
Dr Fernand de Varennes is to give a lecture in Barcelona at 6.30 pm on Tuesday June 3 at Barcelona’s International Press Centre (Rambla de Catalunya, 10, 1er). In this lecture, entitled Hope and Despair: Language Rights in a Multilingual World and organised by the Linguamón-UOC Chair in Multilingualism, Professor Varennes is to analyse initiatives linked to the promotion and publicising of the world’s languages from a legal and political perspective. Varennes is also to assess the effectiveness of the treaties and agreements affecting this subject, coinciding with 2008 being the International Year of Languages.
Dr Fernand de Varennes is to give a lecture in Barcelona at 6.30 pm on Tuesday June 3 at Barcelona’s International Press Centre (Rambla de Catalunya, 10, 1er). In this lecture, entitled Hope and Despair: Language Rights in a Multilingual World and organised by the Linguamón-UOC Chair in Multilingualism, Professor Varennes is to analyse initiatives linked to the promotion and publicising of the world’s languages from a legal and political perspective. Varennes is also to assess the effectiveness of the treaties and agreements affecting this subject, coinciding with 2008 being the International Year of Languages.
The Canadian Fernand de Varennes is internationally renowned for his research in the fields of human and language rights and minority and ethnic conflicts, among others. He is currently Associate Professor at Murdoch University’s School of Law in Perth, Australia. He has worked with a great number of organisations, including the United Nations’ Working Group on the Rights of Minorities, UNESCO or the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) High Commissioner on National Minorities. He has taught on language rights in some dozen institutions around the world.
Varennes was also Director at the Asia-Pacific Centre for Human Rights and the Prevention of Ethnic Conflict and founding Editor-in-Chief of the Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law. As a world-renowned expert on language rights, he has written two seminal works in the field: Language, Minorities and Human Rights (1996) and A Guide to the Rights of Minorities and Language (2001). In 2004, Barcelona’s Linguapax Institute nominated him for its Award in recognition for his work to promote language diversity. He has also held the prestigious Tip O'Neill Peace Fellowship at INCORE in Derry, Northern Ireland.
Linguamón-UOC Chair in Multilingualism
This event forms part of a series of lectures organised this year by the Linguamón-UOC Chair in Multilingualism, which was created to promote research, training, information and documentation activities linked to multilingualism as a means for social and economic development of society. It is designed to act as a forum for reflection on and analysis of the role of languages and multilingualism in Europe and the process of society’s globalisation, and for international cooperation in academic training in the field.
Humanities and Language and Literature