“Objects book” progress
Manuscript ready for sending to Conal.
In February 2013 CROCC held its inaugural conference on “colonial objects”. This was a successful event attracting academics, librarians, archivists, heritage professionals, and others. It was always our intention to publish a collection of essays coming out of the conference presentations. The editors, Annabel Cooper, Lachy Paterson and Angela Wanhalla still have some loose ends to tie up (ably assisted by their RA, Katie Cooper) but are happy to report that our draft is almost ready. It has now been sent to Conal McCarthy at VUW to read and add a final reflective essay. Then it will be off to Otago University Press to perform their magic. Expect it in the bookshops in 2015. A big thank you to all involved.
New Zealand’s Victorians Uncool?
The New Zealand Herald has just published its list of the “Coolest 50 Kiwis Ever“. The paper admits that its list is subjective. It has a reasonable percentage of women and Māori but, like many of these kinds of lists, individuals from the present and near present predominate, and coolness is seen to fade as time passes. What is quite incredible is that it appears that no one cool flourished in the nineteenth century. This is of course the “coolest Kiwis ever”, and New Zealanders in the nineteenth century probably didn’t consider themselves as “kiwi”, or think that “coolness” related to anything other than temperature. Yes, New Zealand’s population was much fewer in the nineteenth century, but surely there were one or two individuals in the colonial period who were well known, widely admired, and who captured the public imagination (while still retaining the classic New Zealand humility) or perhaps even a few gay blades and gals whose ascetic stood out from the crowd.
Ali Clark – Friends of the Hocken Talk
Dr Ali Clark will be talking on “Preparing for the Sesquicentenial”, on writing the history of the University of Otago for its 150th anniversary. Ali is presenting as part of the Friends of the Hocken Talk series, in the Seminar Room at the Hocken Collections (90 Anzac Ave, Dunedin) on 16 April. There will be coffee and chat at 5.30pm with the talk commencing at 6.00pm.
Annual Local History Lecture
Seán Brosnahan, curator at Toitū Otago Settlers Museum, will be speaking about ‘Becoming Toitū: telling the Otago story in a museum setting’. His lecture takes place today, 10 April, at 5:30pm in Moot Court, Richardson Building, University of Otago. All welcome!
