The 2017 John Dunmore Medal has been awarded to Dr William Jennings, a Senior Lecturer in French at the University of Waikato, Hamilton.
Announcing the award, the Federation of Alliances Françaises of New Zealand acknowledged Dr Jennings research and publications.
“Dr Jennings has made an important contribution to knowledge of nineteenth-century French expansion in the Pacific.
“He has drawn particularly on the correspondence of the first French Marist missionaries in New Zealand and Oceania.
“He has contributed to the on-line Oceanian Archive, and assisted and encouraged students and other researchers to translate into English the writings of early Marist missionaries (1836-54).”
The John Dunmore Medal is awarded annually in recognition of major contributions to knowledge and better understanding of the part played by the French people and French culture in the scientific, economic, historical and cultural development of the Pacific.
Among Dr Jennings publications are:
- Jennings, W. J. (2014). The first Marist missionaries and French colonial policy in the pacific (1836-42). In J. Zizek, & K. Carpenter (Eds.), French History and Civilization: Papers from the George Rude Seminar Vol. 5 (pp. 112-122). Conference held at Auckland, New Zealand. Retrieved from http://www.h-france.net/
- Jennings, W. (2013). The Marist missionaries’ first encounters with inhabitants of the Pacific. Australian Journal of French Studies, 50(1), 115-127. doi:10.3828/ajfs.2013.8 Open Access version: hdl:10289/7689