The academic program of the Jean Haritschelhar Chair in Bordeaux and Bayonne starts on Monday

Following the agreement signed in September 2016 with Bordeaux Montaigne University, the Etxepare Basque Institute launched the Jean Haritschelhar Chair, whose academic program will be inaugurated on 3 April. Under the title Le transfrontalier en question : frontières, langues, territoires, symboles (Cross-border matters: borders, languages, territories, symbols), international experts will meet in Bordeaux and Bayonne to offer a series of colloquiums and presentations.

Following the agreement signed in September 2016 with Bordeaux Montaigne University, the Etxepare Basque Institute launched the Jean Haritschelhar Chair, whose academic program will be inaugurated on 3 April. Under the title Le transfrontalier en question : frontières, langues, territoires, symboles (Cross-border matters: borders, languages, territories, symbols), international experts will meet in Bordeaux and Bayonne to offer a series of colloquiums and presentations.

The programme will address the sociolinguistic contexts that are created at borders, and the object of study will be the teaching and learning processes of the languages spoken in these places. In addition, it will address the conceptualization and subsequent analysis of the "cross-border" phenomenon, focusing on different disciplines such as linguistics, sociolinguistics, didactics, sociology or history.

The official opening will take place on 3 April in Bordeaux. The speakers will be Hélène Velasco-Graciet; Director of the University Bordeaux Montaigne; Garbiñe Iztueta, director for the Promotion and Dissemination of the Basque Language of the Etxepare Basque Institute; Sandro Landi, director of the Doctoral School of Montaigne Humanités; and Jean Casenave, director of Basque Studies. Conferences, academic debates and round tables will follow. The events will continue in Bayonne on April 4.

The programme will bring together international experts such as Valeria Villa-Perez (Professor of Jean Monnet Saint-Etienne University of Lyon), Alain Viaut (Director of the National Center for Scientific Research), Mariella Causa (Professor of the Bordeaux Montaigne University) and Joaquim Dolz-Mestre (Professor at the University of Genoa).