lecture series

Speaker Biographies

Peter K. Austin, Director and Professor, Endangered Languages Academic Program, School of Oriental and African Studies

Peter K. Austin research interests cover descriptive, theoretical and applied linguistics. He has extensive fieldwork experience on Australian Aboriginal languages (northern New South Wales, northern South Australia, and north-west Western Australia) and has co-authored an internet-based bilingual dictionary of Gamilaraay (Kamilaroi), northern New South Wales, as well as seven published bilingual dictionaries of Aboriginal languages. Since 1995 he has been carrying out research on Sasak and Samawa (or Sumbawan), Austronesian languages spoken on Lombok and Sumbawa islands, eastern Indonesia. His most recent book is 1000 Languages: The Worldwide History of Living and Lost Tongues, which explores the state of languages around the world.

Pema Bhum, Director, Latse Contemporary Tibetan Cultural Library

Pema Bhum is a highly respected figure in the world of Tibetan literature. He holds an M.A. in Tibetan Literature and Language from Northwest Nationalities University in Lanzhou, Gansu Province, P.R.China, where he also taught as an associate professor of Tibetan literature from 1983 to 1988. He was a visiting assistant professor of Tibetan language at Indiana University from 1994 to 1997. He co-founded the Amnye Machen Institute, the newspaper Dmangs gtso(Democracy), and the literary magazine Ljang gzhon (Jangshon). His memoirs of the Cultural Revolution have been translated under the title Six Stars with a Crooked Neck in 2001, with a recent sequel Dran tho rdo ring ma (Stone Pillar Memoirs) in 2007.

Fernand de Varennes, Acting Dean and Associate Professor, School of Law, Murdoch University

Fernand de Varennes is recognised as one of the world's leading legal experts on language rights and has written two seminal works on this topic: Language, Minorities and Human Rights (1996) and A Guide to the Rights of Minorities and Language (2001). A laureate of the 2004 Linguapax Award and the prestigious Tip O'Neill Peace Fellowship at INCORE (Initiative on Conflict Resolution and Ethnicity) in Derry, Northern Ireland, Dr. de Varennes has worked with numerous international organisations such as the United Nations' Working Group on the Rights of Minorities, UNESCO and the OSCE's High Commissioner on National Minorities on issues in international law, human rights, minorities and ethnic conflicts.

Jia Luo, Visiting Scholar, Sociology and Equity Studies in Education, University of Toronto

Jia Luo is an experienced educator and researcher of Tibetan language issues in education in China. He taught for over a decade as an assistant professor in the Department of Tibetan Language and Culture at Northwest Nationalities University in Lanzhou, Gansu Province, P.R.China. His research interests cover Tibetan cultural development, minority language and culture in education, cultural dilemmas in modernization, indigenous knowledge in education, and more. His publications include several books on Tibetan language and cultural development in education and a chapter in the forthcoming Global Issues in Education: A Reader.

Manlha Kyi, Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong

Manlha Kyi brings with her experience in teaching, research, and development work. Her research interests include language policy, language and minority rights, and multiculturalism in education. In the 1990s, she served as an English teacher and administrator at Qinghai Nationalities University in Xining, Qinghai Province, P.R.China. She has also worked as a program officer in education projects for a non-government organization in Tibetan areas of China. She holds a Master of Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and is currently pursuing a doctorate at the University of Hong Kong.

lecture series

Speaker Biographies

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