scholarly journals 120 Years of Untangling the Divaricate Habit: A Review

Author(s):  
Kévin Maurin ◽  
Christopher Lusk

The evolution of divaricate plants in New Zealand has been the subject of long-running debate among botanists and ecologists. Hypotheses about this remarkable case of convergent evolution have focused mainly on two different types of selective pressures: the Plio-Pleistocene advent of cool, dry climates, or browsing by now-extinct moa. Here, we review the scientific literature relating to the New Zealand divaricates, and present a list of 81 taxa whose architectures fall on the divaricate habit spectrum. We recommend a series of standardised terms to facilitate clear communication about these species. We identify potentially informative areas of research yet to be explored, such as the genetics underlying the establishment and control of this habit. We also review work about similar plants overseas, proposing a list of 47 such species as a first step towards more comprehensive inventories; these may motivate further studies of the ecology, morphology and evolutionary history of these overseas plants which could help shed light on the evolution of their New Zealand counterparts. Finally, we compile published divergence dates between divaricate species and their non-divaricate relatives, which suggest that the divaricate habit is fairly recent (< 10 My) in most cases.

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 312-332
Author(s):  
Malcolm Abbott

Throughout much of the history of the electricity industry in Australia and New Zealand the industry has been the subject of safety regulations. Although this regulation has been a constant throughout the life of the industry the organizational approach to regulation has changed over the years. Periodically in Australia and New Zealand history these questions have been raised in a political context, although notably the structure of safety regulators does not get much attention in the standard histories of the industry. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to discuss some of the general issues that have arisen in the reform of regulation in the case of electricity safety over the longer term and how it relates overall to the development of the electricity industry.


Author(s):  
Rui P. Chaves ◽  
Michael T. Putnam

This book is about one of the most intriguing features of human communication systems: the fact that words which go together in meaning can occur arbitrarily far away from each other. The kind of long-distance dependency that this volume is concerned with has been the subject of intense linguistic and psycholinguistic research for the last half century, and offers a unique insight into the nature of grammatical structures and their interaction with cognition. The constructions in which these unbounded dependencies arise are difficult to model and come with a rather puzzling array of constraints which have defied characterization and a proper explanation. For example, there are filler-gap dependencies in which the filler phrase is a plural phrase formed from the combination of each of the extracted phrases, and there are filler-gap constructions in which the filler phrase itself contains a gap that is linked to another filler phrase. What is more, different types of filler-gap dependency can compound, in the same sentence. Conversely, not all kinds of filler-gap dependencies are equally licit; some are robustly ruled out by the grammar whereas others have a less clear status because they have graded acceptability and can be made to improve in ideal contexts and conditions. This work provides a detailed survey of these linguistic phenomena and extant accounts, while also incorporating new experimental evidence to shed light on why the phenomena are the way they are and what important research on this topic lies ahead.


1998 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 209-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe

This article explores some textual dimensions of what I argue is a crucial moment in the history of the Anglo-Saxon subject. For purposes of temporal triangulation, I would locate this moment between roughly 970 and 1035, though these dates function merely as crude, if potent, signposts: the years 970×973 mark the adoption of the Regularis concordia, the ecclesiastical agreement on the practice of a reformed (and markedly continental) monasticism, and 1035 marks the death of Cnut, the Danish king of England, whose laws encode a change in the understanding of the individual before the law. These dates bracket a rich and chaotic time in England: the apex of the project of reform, a flourishing monastic culture, efflorescence of both Latin and vernacular literatures, remarkable manuscript production, but also the renewal of the Viking wars that seemed at times to be signs of the apocalypse and that ultimately would put a Dane on the throne of England. These dates point to two powerful and continuing sets of interests in late Anglo-Saxon England, ecclesiastical and secular, monastic and royal, whose relationships were never simple. This exploration of the subject in Anglo-Saxon England as it is illuminated by the law draws on texts associated with each of these interests and argues their interconnection. Its point of departure will be the body – the way it is configured, regarded, regulated and read in late Anglo-Saxon England. It focuses in particular on the use to which the body is put in juridical discourse: both the increasing role of the body in schemes of inquiry and of punishment and the ways in which the body comes to be used to know and control the subject.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 577-592
Author(s):  
Litim Aissa

Despite the recurrent momentum of historical and intellectual studies and literature on the Algerian liberation revolution 1954-1962 as a founding event for the contemporary history of Algeria, especially the French writings, which drew a certain pattern of ideology that serves the purposes of the French colonial historical school in the first place, and perhaps the study in our hands is worthy to be a field It is a field for analysis, criticism, and comparison to go beyond the epic and ceremonial images that we find in the official readings of the topics in which politics intersect with historical legitimacy, and ideologies intersect with the civilizational principles of the Algerian revolution. And between this and that, the researcher finds himself when delving into the topics and issues related to the liberation revolution, including the subject of Frantz Fanon's contributions to this founding event of the contemporary Algerian state, in which numerous writings have attempted to present a coherent picture of this character of Martinique of origin, Algerian presence, and African influence and influence.The aim of this study is to shed light, analytically and critically, on the basic features of the contributions of this global intellectual stature to the issue of the ideological development of the Algerian revolution after 1958, and bypassing the trend of some historical and social studies that reach the point of denying the charters and reference texts of the Algerian revolution. Ahead of "the document of the first of November 1954, and the document of the Soumam conference 1956," and established a historical background according to which Fanon is a viewer of the Algerian revolution.


2010 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 519 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Finn

This article investigates the development of the law governing of appeals in criminal cases in New Zealand, and the substantial though neglected history of agitation for recourse for the wrongly convicted. It uses as a lens the story of John James Meikle, a farmer convicted of sheep stealing in 1887, who later successfully prosecuted the principal prosecution witness for perjury, successfully petitioned Parliament for compensation, was the subject of a Royal Commission into his conviction and, uniquely, was declared innocent by an Act of Parliament in 1908. Meikle's case was one of several highly publicised cases in the period 1880-1910 which demonstrated serious shortcomings in the law and led to parliamentary and public calls for reform. By 1910, calls for enactment of legislation on the lines of the Court of Criminal Appeal (established 1907) received wide supporting in parliament and from the judiciary. The article concludes by looking at the reasons why, despite this level of consensus, reform legislation was delayed until 1945. 


Genealogy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
Hugh Campbell ◽  
William Kainana Cuthers

The British invasion of the Māori region of the Waikato in 1863 was one of the most pivotal moments in the colonisation of Aotearoa New Zealand. It has been the subject of multiple authoritative histories and sits at the centre of historical discussions of sovereignty, colonial politics and the dire consequences of colonisation. This article approaches this complex historical moment through the personal histories of a Māori/Pākehā homestead located at the political and geographic epicentre of the invasion. This mixed whanau/family provides the opportunity to explore a more kinship-based ontology of the invisible lines of influence that influenced particular actions before and during the invasion. It does so by mobilising two genealogical approaches, one by author Hugh Campbell which explores the British/Pākehā individuals involved in this family and uses formal documentation and wider historical writing to explain key dynamics—but also to expose a particular limitation of reliance on Western ontologies and formal documentation alone to explain histories of colonisation. In parallel to this approach, the other author—William Kainana Cuthers—uses both formal/Western and a Māori/Pasifika relational ontology of enquiry, and in doing so, allows both authors to open up a set of key insights into this pivotal moment in the history of Aotearoa New Zealand and into the micro-dynamics of colonisation.


Author(s):  
Haileigh Robertson

In 1667, ‘The History of Saltpetre and Gunpowder’ by Thomas Henshaw was published in Thomas Sprat's The History of the Royal Society . Three years later, Henshaw's work was subject to a scathing review by the notorious anti-Royal Society pamphleteer, Henry Stubbe. I argue that, for Stubbe, Henshaw was not merely a passive representative of the Royal Society through which he could direct his ire, but gunpowder, the subject of Henshaw's research, was important. Both Henshaw and Stubbe employed gunpowder deliberately and strategically. In this article I explore the reasons behind the Royal Society deciding to publish a ‘Baconian history’ of gunpowder. First I argue that the high status of gunpowder was used as a justification for experimental pursuits, and it provided a direct connection to the Society's forebear Francis Bacon. But Stubbe, who was already a critic of the Royal Society, happened to have knowledge that made him uniquely placed to write animadversions against Henshaw's paper. Secondly, gunpowder can shed light on the Baconian histories and the challenges faced by Baconian scholars in putting this project into practice.


2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 285-302
Author(s):  
Terry Locke

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to combine conceptual and documentary research. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on a range of New Zealand curriculum documents and on the history of English subject in the New Zealand context, it maps aspects of the contestation that has accompanied the development of various versions of the subject over time. It also explores ways in which the subject has always drawn on a range of primary disciplinary discourses through a process of recontextualization (Bernstein, 2000). Findings – Based on this analysis, it problematizes the conventional location of literary study within the English curriculum, arguing that this arrangement disadvantages English as an additional language (EAL) students with an interest in literature. As another plank in the argument, it argues that literary study is itself currently disadvantaged by being linked to narrowly conceived notions of textual practice and the pervasive power of high-stake assessment technologies in constructing content and pedagogy. Originality/value – A solution to both problems is offered, arguing a case for relocating literary study in an expanded Arts curriculum. The paper then goes on to draw on the concept of disciplinary literacy, to argue a case for the “reinvention” of the English teacher as a cross-disciplinary resource teaching a re-framed subject renamed “Disciplinary Rhetorics”. It concludes by discussing the implications of these two re-envisionments for English teacher identities and the construction of their professional content and pedagogical knowledge.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-82
Author(s):  
Natalia Szejko
Keyword(s):  

The purpose of this article is to shed light on the subject of freedom and its search in the novel Ordesa by Manuel Vilas. The book is composed of micro scenes and stories which are complemented with photos, and the totality evokes the sensation of sadness and nostalgy. The author combines the memories of his childhood, the history of his family and the history of Spain. The narration in the novel also transmits the sensation of abandonment, desperation and depression. The article analyzes Ordesa from the perspective of the psychological catharsis in which the narration of the pain leads to relief, applying the theories of Aristoteles, M. Bernays, S. Freud and J. Brauer as well as psychotherapeutic use of catharsis.


2009 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annie Potts

AbstractThe history of brushtail possums in New Zealand is bleak. The colonists who forcibly transported possums from their native Australia to New Zealand in the nineteenth century valued them as economic assets, quickly establishing a profitable fur industry. Over the past 80 or so years, however, New Zealand has increasingly scapegoated possums for the unanticipated negative impact their presence has had on the native environment and wildlife. Now this marsupial—blamed and despised—suffers the most miserable of reputations and is extensively targeted as the nation's number one pest. This paper examines anti-possum rhetoric in New Zealand, identifying the operation of several distinct—yet related—discourses negatively situating the possum as (a) an unwanted foreign invader and a threat to what makes New Zealand unique; (b) the subject of revenge and punishment (ergo the deserving recipient of exploitation and commodification); and (c) recognizably “cute, but...” merely a pest and therefore unworthy of compassion. This paper argues that the demonization of possums in New Zealand is overdetermined, extreme, and unhelpfully entangled in notions of patriotism and nationalism.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document