Video Transcript – Basque Studies Promotional Video

Video Transcript

[Nere Lete-Bieter, Basque Language Professor]: Boise State is the leader in Basque Studies undergraduate teaching outside of the Basque Country.

[John Bieter, Ph.D, Basque Studies Consortium Assistant Director]: Outside of the blue turf, I’m gonna argue that this is one of the most unique things about this university.

[John Ysursa, Ph.D, Basque Studies Consortium Director]: We have a program with a minor, we’re engaged with other programs for undergraduate degrees, and we do have a dream potentially of moving into the level of masters.

[John Bieter]: If you’re looking for a unique opportunity to study a culture, and through that understand the lens of globalization, this is an unprecedented opportunity.

[John Ysursa]: Basque culture is one of the oldest cultures of Western Europe. They collectively found ways to keep, against the odds, their culture intact.

[John Bieter]: What we think we can provide here at Basque studies is one of those points that then become a comparative process. Process of comparison is where you understand yourself, and that’s really where you understand others.

[John Ysursa]: The most unique element, I think, about Basque culture’s the language.

[Nere Lete-Bieter]: Because it’s not related to any other languages spoken in Europe. The Basque people feel strong commitment to keep it alive.

[John Ysursa]: We have to keep making an effort to transmit to the next generations a sense of being Basque.

[Nere Lete-Bieter]: They become part of the soul of the Basque culture.

[John Bieter]: The Basque Soccer Friendly that we’re having, it allows us into sports and athletics at a level that we’ve never been. The proceeds from this will fund scholarships, namely sending people back and forth, visiting professors to come, more students to go there, and what we’re hoping to do is to set aside for an endowment that’ll allow this to go on for far, far beyond us.

[John Ysursa]: Basques can be a way of exploring dominant themes that are universal, not just to Basque people but the human condition.

[John Bieter]: When you see students make those kinds of connections, that once they’ve gone in depth into this one area they now have an understanding of all kinds of different areas and a way to approach it, that’s the stuff than inspires you to keep going.