The School of Arts and HumanitiesIrish Poor Law Project →
Welfare regimes under the Irish poor law 1850-1921
Directed by Professor Virginia Crossman and funded by the ESRC, the project ran from January 2007 to March 2010. It was supported by three research assistants, Dr Georgina Laragy and Dr Seán Lucey based at Oxford Brookes, and Dr Olwen Purdue based at Queen's University Belfast.
Utilising a rich variety of qualitative and quantitative data, the project investigated the character, organisation and operation of the poor law in Ireland from the end of the Great Famine to the establishment of the Irish Free State. The aim was to trace national and regional patterns in the provision and distribution of relief, and to explore the role of economic, social and political factors in the formulation and execution of national and local relief policies.
The first phase of the project was devoted to producing a database of poor law statistics for the whole of Ireland for the period 1850-1914 (detailed returns were not printed after this date). Using this data, a series of digital maps have been produced showing comparative levels of poor relief across Ireland in 1851, 1871, 1891 and 1911. The maps highlight regional and temporal trends in relief. They demonstrate that the poor law was far from uniform and that relief provision changed significantly over time. The maps are available here.
In order to contextualise the history of the Irish poor law within UK poor law history, three one-day workshops were organised at Oxford Brookes during the course of the project to bring together scholars of welfare history from the United Kingdom and Ireland. Papers from the workshops can be accessed via the project WIKI.
In the final phase of the project an international conference on poverty and welfare in Ireland was held at Queen’s University Belfast in June 2009. This incorporated a symposium sponsored by the Royal Historical Society. Papers from the symposium have been published in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (2010) and an edited collection of papers from the conference will be published by Irish Academic Press in June 2011.
For further information on the project contact Virginia Crossman: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Posted on 23 Mar 2011
Filed Under History of Welfare
Shifting Ground →
Shifting Ground seeks to bring together musicians, journalists, industry representatives and academics to explore relationships between music and publishing in all its forms. Our study days and symposia offer exciting opportunities to tap into current concerns about the effects of the internet on the dissemination of music, to explore how our experience of music is shaped by publications relating to it, and to explore more broadly the important issue of the relationship between music and commerce, both in a historical context and in the present.
Posted on 20 Jan 2011
Filed Under Popular Music Research Unit
Shit! I can DJ →
‘Shit, I can DJ!’ seeks to explore and promote experimental DJ practices
We believe in diversity and eclecticism of listening
We believe everyone can DJ
We believe even the most basic or domestic equipment can be used to DJ
We refuse to simply be consumers of musical cultural products
We are committed to being innovative creators utilising existing musical repertoires and
recordings
We are committed to exploring new performance practices incorporating, but not confined or
restricted to, DJ performance practice
Posted on 13 Jan 2011
Filed Under Popular Music Research Unit
Editions of You →
Editions of You celebrates and showcases self-publishing and self-releasing musicians and the handmade editions and releases they create. It explores the history, politics and creative processes of these forms of self publishing in the music and arts worlds; providing an opportunity to celebrate the cultural lineage of these forms whilst creating a forum for relevant contemporary musicians and artists to present their work.
Posted on 13 Jan 2011
Filed Under Popular Music Research Unit
Early Modern Research Cluster →
The Early Modern Research Cluster was formed in 2008 to promote research in the history and culture of the Renaissance. The cluster fosters cross-disciplinary links between academics working within the school of Arts and Humanities, and draws on Oxford Brookes’s strengths in the disciplines of English, History, History of Medicine, French, Music and Art History.
The cluster holds regular seminars and conferences, supports research projects undertaken both within Oxford Brookes and in partnership with other academic institutions, and hosts international visiting fellows.
Applications from prospective postgraduate students are welcome, and several MAs are presently being developed to reflect the interests of the cluster.
Posted on 11 Jan 2011
International Nineteenth-Century Research Cluster →
...Bridging centuries, cultures and continents...
About the International Nineteenth-Century Research Cluster
Oxford Brookes possesses a wide range of academic expertise in arts and humanities-based research into 19th-century topics. To facilitate cross-disciplinary projects, and to make it easier for postgraduate applicants to consider the range of staff specialisms in this area, we have formed the International Nineteenth-Century Research Cluster. As the name suggests, the cluster’s reach extends well beyond Victorian studies, both in its chronological sweep and in its attention to the history, literature, music and art of other countries and continents. The link provided for each of the names on the staff list to the right will take you to a page offering details of the individual’s research interests and publications. You will also find further links to postgraduate taught courses related to this period, and details of recent research seminars and projects.
Inaugural lecture
On Wednesday 4 May 2011, best-selling historian Judith Flanders captivated a large and enthusiastic audience at Oxford Brookes University with her inaugural lecture for the International Nineteenth-Century Research Cluster.
Flanders, who has published four much-praised, best-selling interdisciplinary studies of Victorian life, used the platform to discuss differing approaches to narrative in nineteenth-century artworks, including serialised novels, plays and paintings.
A question and answer session followed, with Flanders’ analysis of painter Augustus Leopold Egg’s triptych ‘Past and Present’ giving rise to a particularly lively discussion of topics ranging from adultery to infanticide.
Members of the public had an opportunity to meet Judith Flanders at the drinks reception that followed and to mingle with staff and students from Brookes and from the University of Oxford.
Judith Flanders’ latest book is The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection, and Created Modern Crime (2011), which was serialised as Radio 4’s Book of the Week.
New MA programme in Music in Nineteenth-Century Culture
A new pathway is available from September 2011 on the MA in Music at Oxford Brookes, entitled 'Music in Nineteenth-Century Culture'.
This fascinating new pathway examines the place of music in nineteenth-century culture, situating musical works within their aesthetic, social and political contexts. You will study a wide range of musical repertories from diverse nations and examine correlations between music, literature and art. Topics to be explored include concert life and music festivals; institutions and audiences; domestic music making; gender; the notion of ‘genius’; and the representation of political concerns in musical works.
For further information, please contact Alexandra Wilson (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)) or see the MA in Music webpage.
Posted on 15 Dec 2010
Living in Safety →
The Culture of ‘Safety’ and Accident Prevention in Everyday Life in Britain, c.1900-2000
This AHRC-funded project explores some of the most fundamental aspects of twentieth-century British society: the practices and discourses of safety. Most people accept safety as natural or neutral; this research will demonstrate how it is culturally and socially constructed.
Posted on 11 Dec 2010
Filed Under History
soundtalk →
In the first of what we hope to be series of discussions with composers and sound artists exploring particular works Paul Newland talks to Dan Goren about his work situation 2. In the full interview which can be listened to or downloaded from this page Newland talks about the complete creative development from conception to performance.
Posted on 22 Oct 2010
Filed Under Art | Music | Sonic Arts
audiograft →
open scores and opening technologies
audiograft is curated and hosted by SARU and will take place in Oxford in February 2011 (17-19). It will feature performances at Modern Art Oxford, Jacqueline DuPre Concert Hall, the Holywell Music Room, sound installations on Oxford Brookes Headington Hill Campus and web-based projects like the audiograft jukebox. Featured artists at audiograft include Max Eastley, Rhodri Davies, Ray Lee, Automated Noise Ensemble, Stephen Cornford and Paul Whitty, Paul Dibley, Tim Howell, and Shit! I can DJ with Lisa Busby. Details will be available here as the program is developed.
Posted on 21 Oct 2010
Filed Under Art | Brookes University | Music | Sonic Arts
consumer waste →
Manifesto for consumer waste
consumer waste is a low impact imprint for the publication of contemporary experimental music. Jointly run by Stephen Cornford & Samuel Rodgers, it aims to document and disseminate their collaborative work as well as that of their peers and contemporaries. In an era when cultural material is most often received through digital means, the publication of physical documents has become for many musicians simply an expedient means to put their work in the hands of the pirates. We welcome this state of affairs and will restrict our releases to limited editions of 100, safe in the knowledge that should the work appeal to a wider audience, it will be downloaded by them. As such the discs will carry no official copyright. We tacitly accept that cultural production, where it simply provides yet another avenue of our consumer driven society is a morally questionable activity and have no wish to support such a system. For these reasons, the label is to be run on a strictly not-for profit basis, with all proceeds going either direct to the artist or funding the activities of the label by providing opportunities for artists to collaborate, perform, record and publish their work. The label's name derives from the 100% post-consumer waste materials that we endeavour to use in our handmade packaging.
As the project develops you will be able to find details of future releases here.
Posted on 08 Oct 2010
Filed Under Sonic Arts
[rout] & Okeanos →
This project brings together two opposing sound-worlds; the hard-edged amplified sound of [rout]; and Okeanos’ distinctive and subtle interleaving of Japanese and Western timbres. SARU instigated the project and invited eight composers with Japanese or British roots to develop new works through a series of laboratories and work-in-progress sessions. Importantly composers have had the opportunity to spend time exploring the unique timbral possibilities presented by the Sho, Koto, Shakuhachi and Shamisen as they combine with Live Electronics, Signal Processing, Computer Applications including MaxMSP and PureData, the amplified instruments of [rout], and the Western Classical instruments of Okeanos. So if you ever wondered how a sho sounded when played through a Phase Shifter and combined with amplified double-bass played through a PureData patch; or how a bass-clarinet and sho sound when played together in unison – you’re going to find out.
Posted on 26 Oct 2009
Filed Under Music | Sonic Arts
Staging the Henrician Court →
Project Webspace: www.stagingthehenriciancourt.org
During his reign, Henry VIII displayed his power to court, country and continent through the conspicuous display of his magnificence, using clothing, coins, plays, poems and proclamations to construct and disseminate his image, and prove himself a worthy rival for the powerful princes of Europe.
In contrast to his father, Henry lavished money on creating extravagant spectacles of his supremacy, inspiring awe not only in his own subjects but also ambassadors and visitors to the court, and exhibiting his majesty in events further afield such as the dazzling Field of the Cloth of Gold (1520). Under Henry, the Revels Office expanded and its offices became formalised, and members of the Royal Household such as the Master of the Horse, Yeoman of the Revels, the Keeper of the Great Wardrobe, the Master of the Chapel and Serjeant-Painter collaborated on events which combined feats of arms, theatre and banqueting into a single entertainment. The Henrician court’s production of drama ranged from jousts, tilts and tourneys to mummings, disguisings, pageants, plays, dialogues and interludes. It is in this context that John Heywood, a player of the virginals at Henry’s court, was able to write and produce interludes for the early Tudor revels, including The Play of the Weather, which may have been performed at Greenwich, Christmas 1532, prior to its publication in 1533.
Posted on 23 Jul 2009
LOST & FOUND →
LOST & FOUND is an ongoing project exploring a variety of approaches to the use of found, salvaged, revealed and rediscovered materials including texts, sounds, scores, images, objects, instruments and contexts in the creative arts. The project is taking place through lectures, dialogues, performances, work-in-progress, readings & discussion. A symposium was held in June 2008 featuring contributions from Angharad Davies (performer); Michael Finnissy (composer-performer; University of Southampton); Geoff Hannan (composer); David Lillington (writer-curator); Paul Newland (composer; Oxford Brookes University; Trinity-Laban); Redell Olsen (poet-writer; Royal Holloway); Tim Parkinson (composer-performer); James Saunders (composer-performer; Bath Spa University); Tomoko Takahashi (artist) and Paul Whitty (composer; Oxford Brookes University).
Posted on 09 Feb 2009
Filed Under Art | Music | Sonic Arts
WIRED: Agitated, restless; fitted with one or more concealed listening devices… →
WIRED is an ongoing collaborative project with harpsichordist Jane Chapman resulting in the creation of a series of new works for harpsichord in a variety of combinations with live electronics, contact microphones, and MAX-MSP alongside analogue and digital signal processors. The initial results of these encounters were INV I-III by Paul Dibley and ...um by Paul Whitty. These works were disseminated via OCM and SPNM. In June 2007 a symposium was hosted by SARU at which visiting composers Sam Hayden (University of Sussex), Paul Newland (Trinity-Laban), Roger Redgate (Goldsmiths College), Sohrab Uduman (Keele University) and Mike Vaughan (Keele University) explored a variety of approaches to the instrument. The works resulting from the symposium were premiered at The Spitz in July 2007. Recordings of the works have been released by NMC.
Posted on 09 Feb 2009
Filed Under Art | Music | Sonic Arts
The Working Group on the History of Race and Eugenics (HRE) →
The study of eugenics and race is currently undergoing a remarkable transformation - one defined by society's need to engage with scientific advances and the ethical dilemmas they raise on the one hand, and the investigation of hitherto neglected case studies on the other. The inclusion and juxtaposition of national and international histories of race and eugenics lies at the heart of this international collaboration that strives to not only yield original and timely research on these neglected national case studies, but to redefine and diversify the overarching debates on these particularly turbulent periods of modern history.
Posted on 07 Feb 2009
Filed Under History
Sound Diaries →
About Sound Diaries
The Sound Diaries initiative is focused around sound-recordings and sound-texts and the ways in which we can use sound as a document of our lives. It is hoped that you will join in with the project contributing your views, sound-recordings, sound-texts, project ideas and perspectives on the notion of Sound Diaries.
What is a Sound Diary? Why create a Sound Diary? What period does it cover: minutes, hours, days, weeks, years? How much of that period will it capture? How do Sound Diaries relate to written diaries, or photo albums? What is a sonic snapshot? These are some of the issues that will be addressed during the Sound Diaries project - do get involved!
Posted on 27 Nov 2008
Filed Under Music | Sonic Arts
Quality in Academic and Educational Publishing: A Terminal Decline? →
A quality audit of academic and educational publishing
Many experienced people in the academic and educational publishing sectors claim that there have been progressive erosions of important aspects of quality in the industry. These may affect, among other things, the value of the product, the credibility of publishers and ultimately the future of the industry itself.
Most of these concerns are associated with the effects of rapid change on functions such as editorial, production and design. More general fears include the loss of experienced staff, de-skilling, the perceived dominance of cost and throughput over all else, the effects of large-scale outsourcing, and claims that ‘real’ quality has been replaced by lip service to quality.
The quality issue is particularly acute for academic and educational publishers because their very existence depends on the understanding and careful management of quality. All quality costs time and money, but it is at the heart of what these publishers offer and cannot simply be discarded as a soft cost.
There are pressing realities crowding in on academic and education publishing, including the need for ever tighter cost controls to keep these types of publishing viable, and the dramatic rise of alternative means of dissemination, both formal and informal. Factors such as wholesale outsourcing and the demand for high throughputs and rapid processing all add to the pressure.
Posted on 26 Nov 2008
Filed Under Publishing
Museum Publishing: Books, catalogues and their exhibitions →
Research with the National Gallery and the Wellcome Collection, London
Books and catalogues help museums share with visitors the scholarship that supports exhibitions. These resources 'frame' the curator's ideas and themes presented in the show and contribute the information and messages that visitors use to understand the exhibition.
Posted on 04 Nov 2008
Filed Under Publishing
The Early Modern Parish Church and the Religious Landscape →
Project dates: June 2007-May 2010
Even in today's largely secular society parish churches are still readily identifiable (and often popular) landmarks within the rural and urban environment. Their towers and spires serve as markers identifying religious sites within the wider landscape. This was even more so during the early modern period when the parish church was frequently the only stone building and often the tallest and most substantial structure within any given community. Parish churches formed the bedrock of the local landscape, responsible for the 'cure of souls' but also being a centre for social activities within their own specific geographical area or parish. The parish church was only one centre within the religious landscape, which itself was full of signs of the holy, such as wells, shrines, crosses and pilgrimage sites.
Posted on 03 Mar 2008
Filed Under History | Institute for Historical and Cultural Research
Victims of Human Experiments under National Socialism →
This is an AHRC funded project running from 1 October 2007 to 30 September 2010.
Although coercive human experiments are among the most notorious features of Nazism, there is no overview as to their extent, or guide to the fragmented literature and sources. Estimates of the overall numbers of experiments vary greatly. Recent historical opinion that the number of victims was relatively few is contradicted by the unexpectedly high number of compensation claimants by victims of experiments over the past five years.
This project funded by the Arts and Humanities Council aims to provide a biographical analysis of the persons who were experimented on or otherwise abused for medical research in national Socialist Germany and in territories under German occupation 1938-1945. The basic task is to identify how many victims and perpetrators there were, and develop biographical profiles, by comprehensive trawls through war crimes and Holocaust archives. The analysis will establish a structural history of the unethical experiments in terms of when and why they occurred.
Currently the project database contains biographical data for nearly 4000 victims of medical experiments under National Socialism.
Posted on 28 Nov 2007
Filed Under History of Medicine
Religion and the Public Sphere →
Religion and the Public Sphere developed as a sub-theme from Religion and Society and involves researchers from History, History of Art, Law, Business, Theology, Philosophy and English Studies and Sociology. The group’s choice of Religion and the Public Sphere as its theme reflects well a shared interest, from diverse perspectives, in how religion is and has been negotiated and mitigated in the public realmPosted on 16 Oct 2006
Filed Under Institute for Historical and Cultural Research
Beyond Text →
Focussing on one of the IHCR’s themes for the year, this group is exploring the potential for multidisciplinary and collaborative work within Brookes University and externally and encouraging creative thinking in terms of interdiscipinary links in the area of visual, embodied, creative and nontextual research.Posted on 16 Oct 2006
Filed Under Institute for Historical and Cultural Research
The Cultural Representation of Grandparents, Past and Present →
Swinging sixty-year old, unpaid child-carer, silver surfer, fount of family wisdom, spending the family inheritance on the Costa del Sol, gullible and in need of protection, senile
These clichéd allusions might be said to represent the seven ages of grandparenting depicted by the national media today. Many of those who are becoming grandparents in their fifties and sixties may remember their own grandparents but often as rather elderly figures, rather than as sprightly retirees. Literature designed for children variously depicts grandparents as football-playing tearaways and dumpy, silver-haired comfort figures. Guides to good parenting abound but in Britain at least far fewer publications appear devoted to good grandparenting.
Posted on 16 Oct 2006
Filed Under Institute for Historical and Cultural Research
Making the Church Holy →
The Fabric of the Sacraments, 800-1800
Across Europe, the parish church has stood for centuries at the centre of local communities; it was the focal point of its religious life, the rituals performed there marked the stages of life from the cradle to the grave. Nonetheless the church itself artistically and architecturally stood apart from the parish community. It was often the largest and only stone-built building in a village; it was legally distinct being subject to canon law, as well as being consecrated for the celebration of religious rites. The buildings associated with the ‘cure of souls’ were sacred sites or holy places, where humanity interacted with the divine.
Posted on 24 Feb 2006
Filed Under History
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