1,720,964 research outputs found
Dismissing the Staff: Domestic Servants and a Historic House in Dunedin, New Zealand
Full text linkWhilst house museums are a relatively recent phenomenon in New Zealand, they nevertheless form an integral part not only of the history of New Zealand museums but also of New Zealand culture. As such, their present organisation reflects public historical consciousness in terms of perceptions and values that we have held and continue to hold. This article focuses on Olveston, a historic house in Dunedin,[i] as a case study of popular engagement with the past, and argues that a broader analysis of early twentieth-century social structure is required—one that includes the role of domestic servants in the household. It complements and supplements recent historical scholarship on house museums which argues that a more authentic and inclusive interpretation of the social relationship between employers and their servants—including class and racial antagonism—would lead to a greater connection with visitors.[ii] Initially, I will examine the pertinent literature on house museums in general and their servants in particular, as well as questions facing historic houses, moving finally to a detailed descriptive analysis of servants in Olveston.
 
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
A New Zeal for History:: Public History in New Zealand
Full text linkPublic history is still a relatively unknown term in New Zealand, an island nation in the southwest pacific with a population of around 4.6 million people. Until the late 1980s it was rare for professional historians to practise their profession outside the academy. Most of the few who did were public servants attached to institutions such as the Department of Internal Affairs or the major museums. Expanding work opportunities in the institutional, museum and historic heritage sectors have, however, fostered an increase in the number of freelance historians, some of whom are now participating in the identification, assessment, interpretation and management of New Zealand’s historic places
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
The selection and presentation culture of the Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Christchurch, New Zealand, 1932-2002
No full textThis thesis presents an analytical framework for studying the evolution of museological culture in a post-colonial context and then applies that framework to the case of the Christchurch public art gallery, the Robert McDougall Art Gallery (RMAG), over its 70-year lifespan (1932–2002). Primarily, this requires addressing the history of the institution at crucial moments, which in turn has involved striking a satisfactory balance between this and selection and presentation cultures.
It uses a ‘binocular’ approach to look through the ‘lenses’ of both the selection and the presentation of the gallery’s collection and exhibition of art works. The first lens is concerned with the attitudes, values and symbols associated with the selection of art works for the permanent collection and temporary exhibitions. The second lens is concerned with the attitudes, values and symbols associated with the presentation of these art works to the public, including the ways in which the design and size of the gallery created presentational opportunities and constraints that were an important part of the cultural legacy inherited by each generation of the gallery’s staff to 2002.
To help analyse and explain these selection and presentation cultures, the thesis includes, first, the concept of core museological functions. Second, it deals with the ‘civic culture’, which includes the attitude of benign neglect displayed by the Christchurch City Council (CCC), and at the same time the attitude of civic pride and obligation displayed by the citizens of Christchurch who gave funds and art works to the gallery. Third, the post-colonial tensions of specifically indigenous, transplanted and autochthonous artistic and presentational styles are discussed. Styles are defined according to whether they are: indigenous, that is, traditional and modern Maori styles; traditional and modern styles transplanted to New Zealand from Britain or other countries; or autochthonous, that is, styles developed in New Zealand since its colonisation and not derived from transplanted or Maori styles – whether traditional or modern.
The thesis uses this conceptual approach to argue that the evolution of the RMAG’s museological culture went through three key phases. Part One, ‘The Pro Forma Civic Culture’, consists of three chapters that explore the influence of the civic culture and focus on the political leadership role of the Christchurch City Council from its inception in 1862 through to 1970. As the title implies, ‘Beginnings: a culture of benign neglect’, traces the beginnings of the civic culture and the development of what became the RMAG. Chapter 2, ‘New influences on the culture, establishment of the collection and first permanent staff’, considers the establishment and presentation of the collection in the light of more recent museological practice, revealing the tensions between the influence of the first permanent curator and director and a controlling city council. Their respective influences are further examined in the third chapter, ‘Gathering momentum: the turning point’, which covers the 1950s and 1960s, when New Zealand art was taking decisive steps toward a home-grown identity.
Part Two, ‘The Culture in Transition’, also contains three chapters covering the years from the late 1960s through to the mid-1980s. In this period the civic culture altered its stance from one of benign neglect to unprecedented levels of funding. These decades, too, saw a shift to modern transplanted (Western) values and attitudes, including greater professionalism. Chapter 4, ‘An educational perspective’, looks at this new direction in the evolution of the RMAG, which exercised a huge influence on the selection culture. The following chapter, ‘Professionalising and globalising the culture’, documents a dramatic move towards appreciable professionalism – a truly modern, transplanted mode of selection and presentation rather than an ad hoc or concerted attempt to introduce autochthonous or indigenous elements. From the 1970s it was also the era of the international ‘blockbuster’ shows, which attracted unprecedented numbers of visitors to the gallery. The last chapter of this section, ‘The transition in attitudes to Maori art’, addresses the question of cultural indigenous autonomy and the beginning of the end of ignoring Maori art in art galleries; it considers how the Te Maori exhibition began to change attitudes in the late 1980s.
The last part, ‘The Final Decades – New Tendencies and Old Legacies’, covers the final period of the RMAG’s selection and presentation culture until the permanent closing of its doors on its seventieth birthday, 16 June 2002. The two chapters in this section cover ‘The selection culture in the 1980s and 1990s’ and ‘Presentational challenges and responses in the 1980s and 1990s’. The former addresses a move from a perceived elitist to a populist culture through the introduction of several popular exhibitions and the continuation of the blockbuster shows, partly as a result of city council demand for higher attendances to minimise the visitor/cost ratio as well as to boost the local economy. It also introduces an overt commitment on the part of the gallery to biculturalism. The final chapter considers the change in balance from the selection culture predominant in Parts One and Two towards the significant dilemma of the imposed constraints on the presentation culture which a gallery of severely limited size could reasonably be expect to house. The innovative and varied responses finally led to the opening of a new gallery.
An epilogue highlights and compares the attitudes, values and symbols of the original design of the 1932 art gallery building with the new Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu opened in 2003. A surprisingly complex network of sub-themes is discernible when the two structures are contrasted.
The influences on and the cultural evolution of the gallery are based upon primary research in historical archives and through interviews with former staff of the gallery and artists, and various secondary sources relating to the Robert McDougall Art Gallery, other New Zealand public art galleries and international trends in museological culture
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Gold Rush and Gold Mining: A Technological Analysis Of Gabriel's Gully and the Blue Spur, 1861-1891
Full text linkPhilip Ross May stated in 1980 that well-informed studies of the technology of gold rushes and gold mining were long overdue but very little has been added to the historiography since then. As a result, various misconceptions and misunderstandings have entered into the New Zealand and wider gold rush historiography. A conflation of gold rushing with gold mining is sometimes evident and another misconception entrenches corporate structure with the level of capitalisation and mixes the mining of alluvial and quartz reef gold.
On May’s lines, this thesis argues that technology lies at the heart of all gold rushes and their gold mining, and seeks simply to demonstrate that the technology of gold rushes was different from the technology of gold mining. The thesis first completes a historical survey of gold rushes from sixteenth century Spanish America until Victoria in the 1850s. It then then closely evaluates the technology of the Gabriel's Gully gold rush and its extension to mining the Blue Spur deposit, both as local history and also to deepen the findings of the global review.
All gold rushes were found to use a common suite of hand tools and simple manual methods of low productivity. This manual simplicity was diagnostic as was a slow- down in gold output and modifications in methods as the rich easy gold became exhausted. To continue required either hydraulic or mechanical methods, or large coordinated labour forces, along with capital expenditure. This signified mining, which typically comprised ground sluicing, hydraulicking, deep leading, or river mining.
Unlike other rushes, the Gabriel's Gully rush used hydraulic energy in long toms and box sluices, as well as manual cradling, to wash the paydirt. Whether due to this or not, a remarkable new finding is that in its first twenty-one months, the Tuapeka district produced more gold than the first twenty-one months of the Californian rush.
Regarding mining, Blue Spur proved to be an extremely large orebody, much of it heavily cemented and capable of high gold contents. Over its long fifty-year life, as different zones were reached, alluvial, quarrying, and underground mining and stamp milling technologies were applied, and culminated in hydraulicking and the innovative hydraulic elevating developed in Gabriel's Gully. However, regardless of the mining technology in use, there was no structural change in the Blue Spur mining parties for twenty years, although each new technology required higher capitalisation. This supports Hearn’s work on the Tinkers goldfield.
This technological study has perhaps filled a gap in the local historiography, and historians of the Otago gold rushes and gold mining may be encouraged to pursue other lines of enquiry with the role of technology included in their perspective. This leads to a wider point that ongoing mining histories in New Zealand could look to the characteristics of local deposits and their required technology before generalising across different types of gold deposit nationally. The work shows also that Otago had a significant role in the global innovations in alluvial mining technology of the nineteenth century
Bosshard Galleries: The emergence of a New Zealand contemporary art dealer 1976 – 1992
Full text linkPatricia Bosshard was a highly influential figure in the New Zealand art world. The purpose of this thesis is to highlight the work of an important art dealer in New Zealand, focusing particularly on her contribution to the art in Akaroa and Dunedin. In her sixteen years as a prominent art dealer, Bosshard worked determinedly and tirelessly on behalf of the modernist New Zealand artists she represented. These included Ralph Hotere, Milan Mrkusich, Jeffrey Harris and Joanna Paul. The development of modern New Zealand art in the late twentieth century provided for a new opportunity within the art market, resulting in the creation of the contemporary New Zealand art dealer. It was in this climate that Bosshard’s relationships and interactions with artists, collectors and clients, as well as the wider arts community, demonstrate a unique perspective of the role of the art dealer in New Zealand’s art history
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