scholarly journals Museum: The Macleays, Their Collections and the Search for Order.

2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 162
Author(s):  
Graham R Fulton

STACEY and Hay have previously collaborated on the volume Herbarium (Stacey and Hay 2004) regarding collections held in the herbarium of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney. Ashley Hay has published two books of narrative non-fiction. Her essays, short stories and journalism have appeared in various periodicals including The Bulletin where she was a literary editor. Robyn Stacey is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Communication and Arts at the University of Western Sydney. She is an acclaimed photographer, in Australia, with her photography shown in Australia and internationally. This book is about the history, collectors and collections of The Macleay Museum at The University of Sydney. Its aim is to bring the reader closer to the collectors and collections by breathing life into the characters and selected specimens in the collection; according to the dust-jacket’s hyperbole, to throw open the doors of the museum and its rich collections. The authors develop the book with their individual skills, one of writing and one of photography. The second is facilitated through its aesthetic appeal, its folio size and large photographic reproductions of strikingly coloured specimens. The whole is a coffee-table-style-book with a text that digs deeper developing the background to the personalities and collections, intertwining them with the history of early systematists/collectors, which provides the backbone of the text.

2008 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. M. LUCAS

Shortly before he died, John Lindley decided to dispose of his herbarium and botanical library. He sold his orchid herbarium to the United Kingdom government for deposit at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and then offered his library and the remainder of his herbarium to Ferdinand Mueller in Melbourne. On his behalf, Joseph Hooker had earlier unsuccessfully offered the library and remnant herbarium to the University of Sydney, using the good offices of Sir Charles Nicholson. Although neither the University of Sydney nor Mueller was able to raise the necessary funds to purchase either collection, the correspondence allows a reconstruction of a catalogue of Lindley's library, and poses some questions about Joseph Hooker's motives in attempting to dispose of Lindley's material outside the United Kingdom. The final disposal of the herbarium to Cambridge and previous analyses of the purchase of his Library for the Royal Horticultural Society are discussed. A list of the works from Lindley's library offered for sale to Australia is appended.


2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Luyk

Batten, Jack. Oscar Peterson: The Man and His Jazz. Toronto: Tundra Books, 2012. Print. This young adult non-fiction novel explores the life of the legendary Canadian jazz pianist and composer Oscar Peterson. Beginning with an account of Peterson’s 1949 breakthrough performance at Carnegie Hall as part of the influential Jazz at the Philharmonic (JATP) concert series, Batten traces the seventy year musical career of Oscar Peterson in an engaging and insightful style. This book seamlessly combines a personal and musical biography of Peterson with a history of the development of jazz from the 1920s to the time of Peterson’s death in 2007. True to the title of the book, Batten’s is indeed one about both the man and his music. From Peterson’s humble upbringing as the son of immigrants from the West Indies living in poverty in Montréal, the influence of his family on his personal and musical development is a consistent theme throughout the book. Batten does not hold back when describing the social conditions Peterson was operating under throughout his career. The racism Peterson encountered both at home and abroad, as well as the drug use prominent among jazz musicians is honestly explored, as are the personal tragedies Peterson faced, including his failed marriages and consistently poor health. Peterson’s many longtime musical collaborations are explored in great detail, with Batten highlighting the influential performing and recording achievements of his career. From his longtime relationship with the jazz promoter Norman Granz, through the many iterations of Peterson’s famous trio, Batten doesn’t leave out the details at any point. The addition of multiple photographs, quotes from Peterson’s teachers and collaborators, and a selected bibliography and discography add to the historical richness of this title. This book is recommended to the young adult reader with an interest in jazz history, and the life and accomplishments of one of Canada’s most cherished musicians.Recommended: 3 out of 4 starsReviewer: Sean LuykSean is the Music Librarian for the Rutherford Humanities and Social Sciences Library at the University of Alberta. Sean holds an MA in Music Criticism and B.Mus from McMaster University, as well as an MLIS from the University of Western Ontario.


2002 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 124-128
Author(s):  
Kamran Asghar Bokhari

Many scholars have attempted to tackle the question of why democracy has seemingly failed to take root in the Islamic milieu, in general, and the pre dominantlyArab Middle East, in particular, while the rest of the world has witnessed the fall of"pax-authoritaria" especially in the wake of the demercratic revolution triggered by the failure of communism. Some view this resistance to the Third Wave, as being rooted in the Islamic cultural dynamics of the region, whereas others will ascribe it to the level of political development (or the lack thereof). An anthology of essays, Challenges to Democracy in the Middle East furnishes the reader with five historical casestudies that seek to explain the arrested socio politico-economic development of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, and Turkey, and the resulting undemercratic political culture that domjnates the overall political landscape of the Middle East. The first composition in this omnibus is "The Crisis of Democracy in Twentieth Century Syria and Lebanon," authored by Bill Harris, senior lecturer of political studies at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. Haris compares and contrasts the political development of Syria and Lebanon during the French mandate period and under the various regimes since then. He examines how the two competing forms of national­ism, i.e., Lebanonism and Arabism, along with sectarianism, are the main factors that have contributed to the consolidation of one-party rule in Syria, and the I 6-year internecine conflict in Lebanon. After a brief overview of the early history of both countries, the author spends a great deal oftime dis­cussing the relatively more recent political developments: Syria from 1970 onwards, and Lebanon from I 975 to the I 990s. Harris expresses deep pes­simism regarding the future of democratic politics in both countries, which in his opinion is largely due to the deep sectarian cleavages in both states. The next treatise is "Re-inventing Nationalism in B􀀥thi Iraq 1968- 1994: SupraTerritorial Identities and What Lies Below," by Amatzia Baram, professor of Middle East History at the University of Haifa. Baram surveys the Ba·th's second stint in power (1968-present) in lraq. Baram's opinion is that a shift has occurred in B􀀥thist ideology from an integrative Pan-Arab program to an Iraqi-centered Arab nationalism. She attributes this to Saddam's romance with the past, on the one hand, which is the reason for the incorporation of themes from both the ancient Mesopotamian civiliza­tion and the medieval Abbasid caliphal era, and, on the other hand, to Islam and tribalism, that inform the pragmatic concerns of the Ba'thist ideological configuration ...


2012 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-26
Author(s):  
Jean Sim

Queen's Park in Maryborough is one of many public gardens established in the nineteenth century in Queensland: in Brisbane, Ipswich, Toowoomba, Warwick, Rockhampton, Mackay, Townsville, Cairns and Cooktown. They were created primarily as places of horticultural experimentation, as well as for recreational purposes. They formed a local area network, with the Brisbane Botanic Garden and the Government Botanist, Walter Hill, at the centre – at least in the 1870s. From here, the links extended to other botanic gardens in Australia, and beyond Australia to the British colonial network managed through the Royal Botanic Gardens (RBG), Kew. It was an informal network, supplying a knowledge of basic economic botany that founded many tropical agricultural industries and also provided much-needed recreational, educational and inspirational opportunities for colonial newcomers and residents. The story of these parks, from the time when they were first set aside as public reserves by the government surveyors to the present day, is central to the history of urban planning in regional centres. This article provides a statewide overview together with a more in-depth examination of Maryborough's own historic Queen's Park.


2004 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Saunders

Sarah Kane's notorious 1995 debut, Blasted, has been widely though belatedly recognized as a defining example of experiential or ‘in-yer-face’ theatre. However, Graham Saunders here argues that the best playwrights not only innovate in use of language and dramatic form, but also rewrite the classic plays of the past. He believes that too much stress has been placed on the play's radical structure and contemporary sensibility, with the effect of obscuring the influence of Shakespearean tradition on its genesis and content. He clarifies Kane's gradually dawning awareness of the influence of Shakespeare's King Lear on her work and how elements of that tragedy were rewritten in terms of dialogue, recast thematically, and reworked in terms of theatrical image. He sees Blasted as both a response to contemporary reality and an engagement with the history of drama. Graham Saunders is Senior Lecturer in Theatre Studies at the University of the West of England, Bristol, and author of the first full-length study of Kane's work: ‘Love Me or Kill Me’: Sarah Kane and the Theatre of Extremes (Manchester University Press, 2002). An earlier version of this article was given as a paper at the ‘Crucible of Cultures: Anglophone Drama at the Dawn of a New Millennium’ conference in Brussels, May 2001. Saunders is currently working on articles about Samuel Beckett and Edward Bond.


1962 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
William T. Stearn

SynopsisThe University of Leyden was founded in 1575 as the reward of the city's endurance of the Spanish siege in 1574. Its influence on botany in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is part of its far-reaching influence during this period on medicine, to which botany was then ancillary. In this it was the successor of Montpellier and Padua. The first university founded after the Reformation to practise and maintain religious tolerance towards its students, Leyden became the great international university of Europe, drawing students from Scandinavia, Germany, Switzerland and France, from all parts of the British Isles and the British American colonies (roughly 4,000 English-speaking students between 1600 and 1750) and even from Barbados, Jamaica and Constantinople. It offered facilities for higher education then denied, for example, to dissenters in England or else not available, as in Scandinavia. Owing to this religious tolerance in an age of intolerance and also to the personal eminence of a succession of professors, its influence spread widely. Directly and indirectly, Leyden made its greatest contribution to botany and medicine through the work and personality of Herman Boerhaave (1668–1738) and led to the founding or restoration of botanic gardens at Edinburgh, Göttingen, Uppsala and Vienna. Beginning with Clusius, its influence upon botany may be traced through Hermann and Boerhaave to Haller, Linnaeus, Lettsom and others. No other university has a more sustained and continuous record of service to botany and medicine during these two centuries than Leyden. This paper also touches upon the history of other universities.


1991 ◽  
Vol 7 (28) ◽  
pp. 303-314
Author(s):  
Margaret Eddershaw

The Citizens Theatre in Glasgow has a long and honourable tradition of serving its neighbourhood and its city, and a directorial team which remarkably combines professional distinction with loyalty to their theatre. In view of its reputation for productions of great visual brilliance, it is surprising to be reminded that, of all British repertory theatres, ‘national’ or regional, it has also the strongest continuous tradition of playing Brecht. Margaret Eddershaw, Senior Lecturer in Theatre Studies in the University of Lancaster, outlines the history of this tradition, which stretches back even beyond the present triumviral management, and proceeds to look at the most recent encounter of ‘the Cits’ with Brecht, Philip Prowse's 1990 production of Mother Courage. This was significant not only for the director's attitude to Brechtian theory, theatrical and political, in the aftermath of the previous year's events in Eastern Europe, but for its inclusion of an international ‘star’, Glenda Jackson, within the Cits' usually close-knit ensemble – its consequences also, arguably, of ‘political’ as well as theatrical interest.


2009 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 147
Author(s):  
Helen M. Cohn

This bibliography, in geographic terms, covers principally Australia, but also New Zealand, New Guinea and other islands of the Pacific Ocean near Australia, and Antarctica. It includes material on the history of the natural sciences (mathematics, physical sciences, earth sciences and biological sciences), some of the applied sciences (including medical and health sciences, agriculture, manufacturing and engineering), and human sciences (psychology, anthropology and sociology). Biographical material on practitioners in these sciences is also of interest. The sources used in compiling this bibliography include those that have proved useful in the past in finding relevant citations. The library catalogues of the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne, the National Library of Australia and the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga O Aotearoa were particularly useful sources of information. Journals that have yielded articles for previous bibliographies were checked, as were some titles that have not previously been scanned. Hence a number of citations are included that were published earlier than 2008. Assistance has been received from a number of people who sent items or information about items published in 2008 for inclusion in the bibliography. In particular, Professor Rod Home has been most helpful in forwarding relevant citations. Staff of the eScholarship Research Centre at the University of Melbourne, especially Helen Morgan, were of great assistance in the preparation of this bibliography. Readers may have access to information about relevant books, journal articles, conference papers, reports, Master's and PhD theses and reviews published in 2009. They are encouraged to send such information to the compiler at the above email address for inclusion in future bibliographies.


Lankesteriana ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Phillip Cribb

The lady’s slippers, orchids with showy and unusual flowers with considerable diversity in shape, size and colour, are amongst the most popular of all orchids in science and horticulture. Consequently, the botanical and horticultural literature on them is extensive. Artists and designers have also been intrigued by them and they feature in many illustrated botanical and horticultural books and decorative items, from tapestries to porcelain and stamps. In this article, the history of slipper orchids is illustrated by reference to illustrations of them, mostly in the collections of the Royal Botanic Gardens. Kew.


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