Mapping Water in Dominica


Book Description

Open access edition: DOI 10.6069/ 9780295748733 Dominica, a place once described as “Nature’s Island,” was rich in biodiversity and seemingly abundant water, but in the eighteenth century a brief, failed attempt by colonial administrators to replace cultivation of varied plant species with sugarcane caused widespread ecological and social disruption. Illustrating how deeply intertwined plantation slavery was with the environmental devastation it caused, Mapping Water in Dominica situates the social lives of eighteenth-century enslaved laborers in the natural history of two Dominican enclaves. Mark Hauser draws on archaeological and archival history from Dominica to reconstruct the changing ways that enslaved people interacted with water and exposes crucial pieces of Dominica’s colonial history that have been omitted from official documents. The archaeological record—which preserves traces of slave households, waterways, boiling houses, mills, and vessels for storing water—reveals changes in political authority and in how social relations were mediated through the environment. Plantation monoculture, which depended on both slavery and an abundant supply of water, worked through the environment to create predicaments around scarcity, mobility, and belonging whose resolution was a matter of life and death. In following the vestiges of these struggles, this investigation documents a valuable example of an environmental challenge centered around insufficient water. Mapping Water in Dominica is available in an open access edition through the Sustainable History Monograph Pilot, thanks to the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Northwestern University Libraries.




New Museology


Book Description

With essays by Charles Saumarez Smith, Ludmilla Jordanova, Paul Greenhalgh, Colin Sorensen, Nick Merriman, Stephen Bann, Philip Wright, Norman Palmer and Peter Vergo. "A lively and controversial symposium ... thought-provoking"—The Sunday Times (Paperbacks of the Year, 1989) "The essays are all distinguished by their topicality and lucidity."—MuseumNews "A welcome addition to the library of Museology"—Art Monthly "The New Museology is essential reading for all those seeking to understand the current debate in museum ideologies."—International Journal of Museum Management and Scholarship




18th and 19th Century Porcelain Analysis


Book Description

This book addresses the contributions made by analytical chemistry to the characterisation of 18th and early 19th Century English and Welsh porcelains commencing with the earliest reports of Sir Arthur Church and of Herbert Eccles and Bernard Rackham using chemical digestion techniques and concluding with the most recent instrumental experiments, which together span more than a hundred years of study. From the earliest experiments which required necessarily the sacrifice of significant portions of each specimen, which may already have been damaged , to the latest experiments which needed only microsampling or the non-destructive interrogation of valuable perfect specimens a comprehensive survey is undertaken of more than twenty manufactories of quality porcelains. The correlation is made between the quantitative elemental oxide determinations of the scanning electron microscopic diffraction and Xray fluorescence data and the qualitative molecular spectroscopic Raman data to demonstrate their complementarity and use in the holistic forensic assessment of the origin of the fired procelains ; this will form the groundwork for the adoption of analytical techniques for the attribution of unknown or questionable procelains to their potential source factories . The book will also examine the perception of what constitutes a porcelain and its definitions and examines the assignment of porcelains to types which currently employs the definitions of hard paste , soft paste , hybrid , magnesian and bone china from the conclusions derived from the analytical data and a consideration of the raw materials employed in their manufacturing processes. During the discussion of this analytical evidence several themes and protocols have been established for its utilisation in the potential identification of porcelains and several case studies undertaken for this purpose are cited. The book will be of interest to analytical scientists , to museum ceramics curators and to ceramics historians.




The Tiger in the House


Book Description




Managing University Museums


Book Description

This publication focuses on the role of university museums, their organisation, management, governance and finance. Most university museum collections have been assembled for the purposes of teaching and research rather than for public display ...




Abandoned in Place


Book Description

Stenciled on many of the deactivated facilities at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the evocative phrase “abandoned in place” indicates the structures that have been deserted. Some structures, too solid for any known method of demolition, stand empty and unused in the wake of the early period of US space exploration. Now Roland Miller’s color photographs document the NASA, Air Force, and Army facilities across the nation that once played a crucial role in the space race. Rapidly succumbing to the elements and demolition, most of the blockhouses, launch towers, tunnels, test stands, and control rooms featured in Abandoned in Place are located at secure military or NASA facilities with little or no public access. Some have been repurposed, but over half of the facilities photographed no longer exist. The haunting images collected here impart artistic insight while preserving an important period in history.




The Nomadic Object


Book Description

At the turn of the sixteenth century, the notion of world was dramatically being reshaped, leaving no aspect of human experience untouched. The Nomadic Object: The Challenge of World for Early Modern Religious Art examines how sacred art and artefacts responded to the demands of a world stage in the age of reform. Essays by leading scholars explore how religious objects resulting from cross-cultural contact defied national and confessional categories and were re-contextualised in a global framework via their collection, exchange, production, management, and circulation. In dialogue with current discourses, papers address issues of idolatry, translation, materiality, value, and the agency of networks. The Nomadic Object demonstrates the significance of religious systems, from overseas logistics to philosophical underpinnings, for a global art history. Contributors are: Akira Akiyama, James Clifton, Jeffrey L. Collins, Ralph Dekoninck, Dagmar Eichberger, Beate Fricke, Christine Göttler, Christiane Hille, Margit Kern, Dipti Khera, Yoriko Kobayashi-Sato, Urte Krass, Evonne Levy, Meredith Martin, Walter S. Melion, Mia M. Mochizuki, Jeanette Favrot Peterson, Rose Marie San Juan, Denise-Marie Teece, Tristan Weddigen, and Ines G. Županov.