17 research outputs found
Tasman Connections through Song: Engaging in Classrooms and in Community
No full textCommunity is an overarching word that encompasses people in formal and informal settings covering a broad range of activities. Engaging through sound “in community” and “as community” provides the opportunity for participants to come together making and sharing music through song. This paper focuses on voice (singing) across the Tasman within formal and informal locations. Author One draws on interview data within an “informal” space with three community choirs in regional Victoria (Australia) from her wider study Spirituality and Wellbeing: Music in the Community. The data shows that choir members use voice to connect with their local community around issues about social justice and the environment. The choir findings are reported under two overarching themes: connections to singing and wellbeing, and connections to community. Author Two uses narrative reflection as she focusses on the value of song with her generalist pre-service teacher’s in a “formal” space within the Bachelor of Education (primary) programme at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. She explores the deeper meaning, and language features such as metaphor and personification that are evident in many songs and argues that songs provide a useful context for cultural and language learning. Her narrative is discussed under two overarching themes: benefits of singing, and social and linguistic connections. Though generalisations about singing across the Tasman cannot be made to other community or educational settings, we assert that singing is a powerful medium that can foster positive growth in education and community settings
'Making its own history': New Zealand historical fiction for children,1862-2008
No full textThis thesis considers historical fiction for children and young people dealing with New Zealand history from the arrival of the first Polynesian settlers to the end of the nineteenth century. It provides both a comprehensive survey of historical novels published between 1862 and the end of 2008, and an analysis of the way the same historical events and periods have been depicted in historical novels written at different times. Individual chapters discuss books set during specific historical periods or dealing with particular events - the pre-European period, early contact, nineteenth century immigration, the New Zealand Wars, the gold rushes, and the colonial period - in chronological order of publication. Since children's literature is particularly adept at reflecting and promoting the dominant ideas of the society in which it is produced, the chronological consideration of these texts reveals contemporary attitudes to such issues as race relations, gender roles, class, war and conflict, and concepts of national identity, as well as the way historical fiction has responded to societal changes since the 1860s.
The predominant themes of historical fiction set prior to 1900 are: the arrival of settlers in New Zealand; encounters with the country's indigenous inhabitants; the taming of the often hostile landscape; the assertion of the settlers' claims to 'belong' in their new land; and the establishment of New Zealand as a nation with distinctive characteristics. There are perceptible nuances and differences in the way these themes are discussed depending on the historical moment in which individual authors are writing. Novels of the Victorian period and early twentieth century reflect the imperialistic and evangelistic ethos of the time, and present the British settlers' right to colonize the land and the ensuing dispossession of Māori as largely unproblematic. Subsequent historical novels, particularly those written since the 1960s, offer a more inclusive version of New Zealand history, although the lack of historical fiction for children by Māori writers means that Eurocentric views of history continue to dominate, and that all representations of Māori and their history are mediated through Pakeha writers.
Shifts in social attitudes have resulted in changes in the treatment of Māori in historical novels for children, and similar changes have occurred in the portrayal of gender, class, and ethnicity. The passage of time has seen increased agency and a wider variety of roles allocated to Māori, female and working class characters, as well as greater ethnic diversity. Developments in New Zealand historiography are also reflected in fiction, although at times historical fiction prefigures written histories, or provides alternative views by depicting the experience of women, children and Māori, who often did not feature in conventional histories. While many historical novels for children, especially the earlier texts, are adventure stories set in the past and are not necessarily concerned with historical verisimilitude, an increasing number attempt to present authentic recreations of historical periods, including accounts of actual people and events, based on extensive research, and reinforced with peritextual material in the form of historical notes, bibliographies, maps and photographs.
The role of New Zealand historical fiction for children and young people has been not only to entertain young readers and inform them about their country's past, but to create and foster a sense of national identity
Men and a River
No full textIn mid 2011, as a then historian colleague of Louise Daley, I had been invited by the Richmond River Historical Society to write a 'Foreword' to their new edition of this classic frontier and settler text treating the exploration and settlement of the north-east region of New South Wales in colonial times. This work had first been published in 1966, and duly reprinted by the Sydney publishers, Angus and Robertson, in 1981. The ensuing edition of the book, that of 2011, was much expanded on its predecessor, with many relevant photograph plates, a fuller index, and also, a special feature, the book's editor, Robyn Braithwaite, contributing a fascinating biographical sketch of its American author, in 'The Amazing Mrs Daley' (pp. xxiii-xliv). This was an illuminating biographic portrait of the pre-Australia life of Louise Tiffany Daley. The new editor had been much assisted in the biographical writing by the descendants of Louise's first husband, but Robyn had included much less about the second husband. He was the early career historian, James Christy Bell (1889-1970), whom Louise, the Australian historian-to-be, had married in January 1932, by which time his career was much altered, being largely in banking, and then in diplomacy. (See 'The Amazing Mrs Daley', lac. cit., p. xxxi)
Postscript to 'Men and a River'
No full textIn mid-2011, as a then historian colleague of Louise Daley, I had been invited by the Richmond River Historical Society to write a 'Foreword' to their new edition of this classic frontier and settler text treating of the exploration and settlement of the north-east region of New South Wales in colonial times. This work had first been issued in 1966 by Melbourne University Press, and duly reprinted by the Sydney publishers, Angus and Robertson, in 1981. The next/ensuing edition of the book, that of 2011, was much expanded on its predecessor, with many relevant photo plates, a fuller index, and, also - a special feature - the book's editor, Robyn Braithwaite, contributing a fascinating biographical sketch of its American author, in 'The Amazing Mrs Daley' (pp. xxiii-xliv). Th is was an illuminating biographic portrait of the pre-Australia life of Louise Tiffany Daley. The new editor had been much assisted in its biographical writing by the descendants of Louise's first husband, but she, Robyn, had included much less about the second husband, the early career historian, James Christy Bell, whom Louise, the Australian historian-to-be, had married in January 1932, by which time his career was much altered, being largely in banking, and then in diplomacy. (See 'The Amazing Mrs Daley', loc. cit., p. xxxi)
Shakespeare and England's Empire, 1780-1800.
No full textThis thesis is a study of Shakespeare and imperialism in England between 1780 and 1800. Chapters investigate landscape art and empire in the Boydell gallery, death and imperial subjectivity, gender and form in appropriations of Shakespeare by women artists and writers, caricatures that reference Shakespeare during these years, the use made of Shakespeare by prominent individuals to formulate their identities in the context of empire and the debates on the Quebec Bill in London’s parliament in May 1791. The thesis is primarily concerned to explore how gothic forms and representations were integrated into the history of Britain’s relationship to its empire; to assess the use of Shakespeare in academy painting and in forms such as engraving, graphic satire, relief sculpture and in writing. The study also emphasises affect: fear of imperial identities, the danger of overseas life, terror, nostalgia, affection in connection to the nation and its spaces, the increasingly imperial reach of relations with revolutionary France during these years, and pleasurable diversion in reappropriations of the plays in varying arenas
'Thinking-through-Complicity' with Te Iwi o Ngāti Hauiti: Towards a Critical Use of Participatory Video for Research
No full textThis thesis explores some of the seductions and dangers of participatory video for research (PVR) involving Indigenous Māori and Pākehā research partners. The project within which PVR was used focused on exploring relationships between place, identity and social cohesion within ‘remote’ rural communities. It involved about 15 members of the Potaka whānau of Te Iwi o Ngāti Hauiti in the central Rangitīkei district of the North Island, Aotearoa New Zealand. A small group of iwi members, myself and an audiovisual specialist and trainer negotiated the project’s focus, process and ethics during 1998. A different group of iwi members were then trained in video production and community research methods later that year and supported to produce their own productions, and carry out video research interviews with other iwi members. The entire process of negotiation, training and collaborative research was filmed for archival and research purposes with everyone’s consent, and several collaborative publications and presentations have been produced since 1999.
The discursive space opened up by Ngāti Hauiti’s engagement with, and use of, video provides an opportunity to attend to the ‘cultural mediations’ that occurred throughout the research partnership and to inquire into the possible ‘empire building effects’ of visual technologies within participatory research more generally. The focus on PVR within a Māori context also prompts questions about the visual’s transformative potential within geographic research, and the implications of working through the use of a visual medium for rethinking disciplinary practices and knowledges, particularly when working cross-culturally.
In the thesis, I first review the evolution and attendant challenges associated with both the use of participation and video within research contexts. I trace their similar origins in modernist attempts to ‘know’ and ‘empower’ marginalised others, and highlight the ongoing marginalisation of Indigenous perspectives within mainstream debates. I then engage with conceptualisations of complicity and develop an analytical framework that expands on current discursive and ideological discussions to also attend to its material, embodied and spatial dimensions.
Using this framework and a complementary autoethnographic and ‘hyper-self-reflexive’ approach, I track aspects of my own power, complicity and desire within my research practice in the PVR project during the period 1998-2001. This approach involves the development of a particular reading position to focus on critical incidents of my research practice and a means of grappling productively with the polyvalent nature of my audiovisual and other information sources. I discuss these critical incidents within three processes associated with the research: facilitation, production and reception, attending to the complex and multifaceted interplay of audiovisual texts, their producers and their audiences throughout.
Such a thesis is expedient given that powerful and often uncritical rhetoric that besets participatory research and development is fast taking hold within geography. It is also timely given the proliferation of affordable and accessible audiovisual technology and its increasing use within geography and other social sciences. As geographers respond to calls to embrace more visual, tactile and other methods, this thesis offers possibilities for the repoliticisation of participatory discourse within social geography, through a more considered engagement with participatory action research, Indigenous research practices and audiovisual media such as video. I offer cautionary insights into the ‘power-full’ effects of these ways of working
Contextualizing narrative theory: reading the politics of formal innovation in contemporary women's fiction
No full textTo ignore the strategies and structures through which stories are told, this thesis contends, is to neglect a vital dimension of their politics. Narratology provides productive analytical tools to illuminate the complex and varied mechanics of narrative form, yet it also bears the traces of its structuralist origins. Its value is therefore contingent upon its continuing reformulation as an expansive, pluralist and contextualized critical discipline. Participating in this expansion, this
thesis evidences the pertinence and vitality of some narratological models and the limitations of others. It opens up alternative critical possibilities by drawing upon insights within contemporary critical theory, from poststructuralist philosophy to transcultural feminism to
sociolinguistics. Above all, my interventions proceed from close readings of innovative fiction by women writers hitherto all but unrepresented in, and therefore potentially subversive of, existing models: Nicole Brossard, Daphne Marlatt, Hiromi Goto, Ali Smith, Jackie Kay, Erna Brodber, Dionne Brand, Aritha van Herk.
The first chapter formulates an in-between critical space where feminist and postmodernist theories of narrative intersect. It re-examines metafiction through the lens of auto(bio)graphical practice and feminist poststructuralist theories of self, and introduces the notions of folds and
echoes to describe specific structural innovations. Chapter Two examines unconventional uses of second-person address and reconsiders existing narratological approaches in their light, focusing on the `push and pull of narrative' that the `you' form enacts. Chapter Three addresses the insufficient attention paid to multiply narrated novels, theorizing them as `narrative communities' and introducing terms to describe different internal relations between narrators, relations that can often be read as determinedly 'democratic'. The final chapter contests the
hegemony of temporal models of narrativity by formulating a 'spatial poetics' that accounts both for how spatial structures can be agents of narrative change and for the complexity of textual constructions of space, which frequently exceed static definitions of 'setting'.
Running throughout is a reconception of narrative as located not with the figure of the narrator, but in relations of intersubjectivity. The narratological criticism formulated here works towards a situated ethics of reading responsive to the politics of writing: it is engaged, relational, and ever in process
Cultural and gender politics in a neglected archive of Jamaican women's poetry : Una Marson and her Creole contemporaries
No full textThis thesis considers the gender and cultural politics of selected Jamaican
women's poetry published during the first half of the twentieth century and
seeks to establish that an approach to this poetry sensitive to these issues will
illuminate aspects of their work previously neglected by canonical and colonial
modes of interpretation. The central interest of this thesis is the poetry of Una
Marson, a black woman poet whose work has been critically neglected and
devalued to date. My project is to read Marson's work in some detail, and to
explore to what extent her poetry, which often works within colonial models and
with conventional notions of feminine fulfilment, employs received aesthetic
and ideological paradigms both strategically and subversively. In the belief
that critics of Jamaican women's writing should be as attentive to the gender
and cultural politics of their ways of reading, as of the texts they wish to read,
the first chapter of this thesis engages in a sustained analysis of theoretical
positions and attempts to map out the various problems and possibilities
which critical discourses present in relation to this material. The second
chapter examines the various social and literary contexts in which Jamaican
poetry was produced and received during this period, and the third chapter
looks in more detail at contemporary notions of aesthetic and cultural forms.
The fourth and fifth chapters are structured aromd close textual readings
which explore the variety and complexity of Marson's, and her Creole
contemporaries', poetic engagement with the issues of cultural and gender
identities. The thesis concludes that Marson's poetry questions dominant
notions both of identity and of aesthetics, and consequently that her poetry
offers an example of Jamaican literary expression which moves beyond the
nationalization of consciousness which has come to mark the literary
achievement of this period
History of cervical cancer and the role of the human papillomavirus, 1960–2000
No full textThe history, largely untold, of the development of cervical cytology, of effective screening and its ultimate success in reducing cervical cancer incidence and mortality, and the viral cause of cervical cancer, took place within a complex social background of changing attitudes to women’s health and sexual behaviour.
Dr Georges Papanicolaou’s screening method (the Pap smear) started in the US in the 1940s. It was widely used in the UK a decade later and a national programme of cervical screening was established in 1988. The association of sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV) with cervical cancer was less readily accepted. The detection of HPV16 in cervical cancers at the end of the 1970s was aided by the explosion of laboratory, clinical, and public health research on new screening tests and procedures. These made possible the successful development, licensing and use of preventive vaccines against the major oncogenic HPV types, HPV16 and -18.
The Witness Seminar was attended by virologists, cytologists, gynaecologists, epidemiologists and others and addressed the development of cytology as a pathological discipline. They discussed who became cytologists and screeners; the evolution of screening in the UK and elsewhere; the impacts of colposcopy and of HPV; and the discovery of virus-like particles and the development of the HPV vaccine.
The meeting was chaired by Professor Glenn McCluggage and the topic was suggested by Professor David Jenkins. Contributors include: Professor Valerie Beral, Professor Saveria Campo, Professor Jocelyn Chamberlain, Professor Dulcie Coleman, Dr Lionel Crawford, Professor Heather Cubie, Professor Jack Cuzick, Dr Ian Duncan, Dr Winifred Gray, Dr Amanda Herbert, Professor David Jenkins, Dr Elizabeth Mackenzie, Dr Joan Macnab, Professor Anthony Miller, Professor Julian Peto, Dr Catherine Pike, Professor Peter Sasieni, Professor Albert Singer, Dr John Smith, Professor Margaret Stanley, Mrs Marilyn Symonds, Dr Anne Szarewski, Professor Leslie Walker, Mr Patrick Walker, Dr Margaret Wolfendale and Professor Ciaran Woodman. Two appendices with reminiscences from Professor Leopold Koss, Dr Arthur Spriggs and Dr O A N (Nasseem) Husain complete the volume
Isaac Cruikshank and the Notion of British Liberty
No full textThis is a history of communication, specifically those communications found in past (imagined) communities which augmented, shaped and renegotiated shared culture. This culture, perceptible during the late Georgian era in public forms such as books, pamphlets, prints, performance, architecture, paintings and a wide range of ephemeral material, positions itself inextricably within the visual imagination. This then is also a history of visual communicative cultures, of the various shapes and forms that occupied the ocular registers of past peoples. Graphic satire was one of these contemporary visual forms and it is therefore a task of this thesis to place this printed single-sheet medium within the lives and cultural perception of late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century Britons; specifically, due to where these satires were published, Londoners. Like all historical sources, graphic satires present specific challenges. They were publicly facing compositions designed to shock and provoke; outwardly packed with sex, titillation, violence and prurient curiosity, framed by lewd, deliciously vicious and bawdy narratives, and set against the dirt and grime of London's streets.
Hence satirical prints were as much an aspect of rude culture as visual culture, yet this does not mean they had nothing serious or important to say. Indeed one of the major thematic agendas of graphic satire in this period concerned notions of British liberty. It is therefore the central task of this thesis to unpick how and why this medium represented libertarian values in the way it did
