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The Etxepare Basque Institute and the University of Bordeaux Montaigne have signed an agreement to create the Jean Haritschelhar Chair to support Basque studies.  The Chair honors former president of Euskaltzaindia and will begin in 2017.  The program will concentrate on literature and linguistics, as well as Iberian Studies, paying special attention to cross-border and international relations. 

Bordeaux, France.   The University of Bordeaux Montainge, the first to create an area for Basque Studies in France, will now also have a Jean Haritschelhar Chair beginning in 2017, supported in collaboration with the Etxepare Basque Institute.  Both entities have recently signed an agreement to support Basque studies at said university that will support Basque areas that were the focus of Jean Haritschelhar’s research.

Next year there will be an open conference organized and an international seminar at the École Doctorale, and as a nod to crossing borders, the professor will also teach classes at the University of the Basque Country as well as at the IKER Research Center in Baiona.

Tireless Worker

During the agreement signing ceremony, Mari Jose Olaziregi talked about former Basque Academy's president Jean Haritshelhar, (Baigorri 1923-Biarritz, 2013), who she knew personally (they worked together as members of Euskaltzaindia’s Literary Research Commission), remembered Haritschelhar’s academic aptitudes, diplomacy, and generosity.

“For 38 years he served in different management positions at Euskaltzaindia, and his list of publications lists more than 400 entries, including various research project,” Olaziregi said.  “He was a tireless worker, and with this Chair we will try to honor his legacy and continue down some of the same paths that he had taken.”

Multilingualism

The chair will include a group of experts in charge of the academic program, consisting of Frédérick Boutoulle , Director of International Relations at the University Bordeaux Montaigne, Professors Jean Casenave and Aurelia Arcocha (UBM),the director of IKER, Ricardo Etxepare, and Mari Jose Olaziregi herself (EEI/UPV).

The group has agreed on the program of the first Chair that will take place on both sides of the border beginning spring of 2017, and will address the issue of multilingualism.

Eight Chairs in Six Years

According to the Etxepare Institute, the Jean Haritschelhar Chair is the eighth that it has created since 2011.  The others include: Bernardo Atxaga Chair (CUNY, New York), Koldo Mitxelena Chair (University of Chicago), Eduardo Chillida Chair (Goethe University, Frankfurt), Manuel Irujo Chair (University of Liverpool), Jon Bilbao Chair (University of Nevada, Reno), Eloise Garmendia Bieter Chair (Boise State University) and the William A. Douglass Chair (University of Massachusetts Amherst).

This network of chairs “aims for Basque researchers to teach classes in graduate studies and conduct research at prestigious universities, following the strategy of internationalization and implementation of Basque Studies that has been the mark of the Institute for the last five years thanks to Mari Jose Olaziregi.”