CASS Newsletter Issue 4 - December 2010
Welcome to the Winter Edition of the College Newsletter.
In this, our fourth edition, we have news of some administrative staff changes across the College as well as an update on the progress of the CASS Staff Working Group and the Library Project. You will also find news on some of the latest achievements and successes of our academic colleagues as well as overviews of recent public events such as the Sound music festival and the Geddes-Harrower Lectures.
As always, I do hope that you enjoy the read and wish you all the best for a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.
Administrative Staff Changes |
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In other staff news, former Graduate School Administrator Jo George has filled the Assistant College Registrar post that became vacant as a result of Doug High’s departure earlier this year. Jo officially started as Assistant College Registrar at the beginning of November but will continue to work on Graduate School matters until her replacement, who is due to join us after the Christmas break, has settled into her new role in the College Office. |
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Spotlight on British political landscape |
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How devolution has shaped politics and the future of the British political landscape was debated on Friday 5th November when the Scottish Parliament hosted the Irish-Scottish Forum. Organised by the University in association with Queen's University, Belfast, the Forum brought together around 80 academic experts, civil servants, journalists and policy makers from Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Delegates gathered in Holyrood's Committee Rooms to explore and compare the consequences of devolution on matters including economic powers, relations with Westminster, and the voice of language and culture. Speakers included Henry McLeish, former First Minister of Scotland; Rhodri Morgan AM, former First Minister of Wales; Lord Alderdice, former Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly; Paul Murphy MP, former Secretary of State for Wales; Lord Sewel, former Scottish Office Minister; Austen Morgan, barrister and Belfast Agreement expert; and the writer and activist Pat Kane. In the days leading up to the event Deputy Presiding Officer Alasdair Morgan MSP, who chaired the morning's plenary session, said: "The Scottish Parliament is delighted to host this prestigious forum which brings together an impressive calibre of expertise and experience from the fields of politics, academia and civil society. I look forward to some interesting and enlightening discussion as we consider the future of devolution in the UK and reflect and compare experiences of the past eleven years." Professor Cairns Craig, Director of the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies, said: "The future relationship between Cardiff, Belfast, and Edinburgh is the big political issue facing all three devolved nations. We are delighted that the Parliament is hosting this timely and independent policy exchange." |
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Writer wins prize in prestigious literary competition |
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A colleague from the School of Language & Literature has scooped second prize in the international writing competition, The Bridport Prize, an annual competition for short stories and poetry which is one of the most prestigious open literary awards in the UK. Dr Wayne Price, Lecturer in English, has published short stories and poetry in many journals and anthologies including Stand, Poetry Wales, Gutter, New Writing Scotland and Route Publishing's Bonne Route and Book at Bedtime collections. He has been a previous award winner in both the short story (2005) and poetry (2007) categories of the Bridport Competition and has recently won major prizes in the Edwin Morgan International Poetry Competition and Poetry on the Lake. He teaches modern literature and creative writing and is currently completing a collection of short stories set in south Wales during the miners' strike. At the awards ceremony on Sunday 31st October, Wayne received his cheque for £1,000 for his story entitled 'God's Instruments'. The competition attracts thousands of entries, not just from the UK, but also from over 85 countries around the world. But it was Wayne's story that took the eye of renowned author and competition judge Zoë Heller, who said: "The winning authors were so consistently deft and alert and confident in their command of their material, that choosing them was really no choice at all: they more or less demanded to win. 'God's Instruments' - a coming-of-age story, I suppose, albeit a horribly bleak one, offers, among other things, an excellent lesson in how to use something small to convey something large and complex. Its devastating ending made my eyes smart." The Bridport Prize International Creative Writing Competition was founded by Bridport Arts Centre in 1973 and has steadily grown in stature and prestige and this year attracted thousands of entries from 85 countries worldwide. |
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Myth of ‘heroic’ Hitler dispelled in colleague’s new book |
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An historian colleague has uncovered a wealth of new archive material and personal documents which challenge popular understanding of Adolf Hitler and the origins of the Third Reich. Dr Thomas Weber, Lecturer in History, has pieced together a dramatically different picture of the dictator from previously unseen material in his book Hitler's First War, published in September. Hitler's biographers have provided countless interpretations of his life but virtually all agree that World War I and its immediate aftermath formed his political world-view and that he was at the heart of a close-knit regiment, with many of its veterans forming the core of the National Socialist Party. Dr Weber's ground-breaking book overturns all of these beliefs and the idea that it was the experience of war that radicalised and 'made' Hitler, and led to a brutalisation of German and European society. Dr Weber took a different tack to many of his contemporaries in investigating Hitler's wartime role, scouring the archives of his regiment (the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment (RIR 16), commonly called the List Regiment), much of which was uncatalogued and had not been used as a source in previous accounts of his life. He discovered that records had survived largely intact and were housed in the Bavarian War Archive, but that those pertaining to Hitler's battle group were filed not under the List Regiment but under the higher division to which the regiment belonged and so had lain untouched for decades. The book, the findings of which have sparked worldwide interest, argues that Hitler's political future was still open after both the war and the revolution. It also posits that the war experience did not radicalise or even noticeably alter the political convictions of most Germans, that Weimar democracy stood in the tradition of pre-war home-grown political reform movements in Germany, and that a constitutional monarchy in post-First World War Germany would in the long run have produced a more stable and more democratic Germany. |
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Update on CASS Staff Working Group |
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Since the last update provided in April, the CASS Staff Working Group has met several times to discuss ways in which the issues raised in the results of last year's Investors in People assessment can be addressed and how past successes could be built upon. As a result of these discussions instances of best practice regarding induction procedures for new staff have been identified by reviewing what each of the individual Schools currently does and selecting the most effective practices which could be implemented elsewhere. Also, in collaboration with Susan MacLennan in HR, focus groups were run with representation from staff at all levels across the College which elicited discussion leading to the suggestion of several initiatives that could be undertaken to enhance the experience of all staff. A final report on the findings of the Working Group will go to the College Executive so that the various recommendations can be considered and, if appropriate, implemented thereafter. However, the Working Group will continue to meet as and when required in order to ensure that a focus on staff satisfaction is maintained. |
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Aberdeen spirit of adventure explored in public lecture series |
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What drove generations of Aberdeen academics, two of them from the same tiny Moray parish, to embark on daring explorations of Asia Minor both before and after the First World War was explored in the University's Geddes-Harrower Lecture Series from 19th October to 4th November. The 2010 Geddes-Harrower Lectures, delivered by the 2010 Geddes-Harrower Chair Charlotte Roueché, focused on the notebooks and photographs from William Moir Calder's extraordinary travels through Asia Minor from 1908 to 1960, which are held in the University's archives. Calder, who came from Edinkillie, originally travelled with the Scottish archaeologist William Mitchell Ramsay, an Aberdeen scholar who first travelled to Asia Minor in the 1880 and regularly thereafter for the following 40 years. Ramsay also inspired John Anderson, son of the minister of Edinkillie, to explore the region from the 1890s onwards. Calder travelled with the American archaeologist William Buckler and their work was explored by Charlotte, Buckler's granddaughter, in the public lectures. For Charlotte, a Professor of Late Antique and Byzantine Studies at King's College London, the lectures presented her with the chance to share findings which relate to her own family history as well as her professional research. In the lead up to the lectures she said: "The great Aberdeen pioneer was William Ramsay, who began to travel to Asia Minor in the late 1870s but the idea of travelling to the region and recording things became a strong Aberdonian tradition. "They used horses and carts to get around and it must have been a major undertaking with all that equipment. Through their travels they gained a sense of the culture of these very provincial areas, as well as photographing and recording archaeological finds. "There would have been few people undertaking this kind of work at the time so I am interested to know how so many Aberdeen academics, including two from rural Moray, came to have such a spirit of adventure and exploration." Charlotte, who dedicated her stay in Aberdeen to scouring the University archives to piece together their travels, was keen to find out more about the Calder family and its links to Edinkillie and was delighted to find that two members of her audience were descendants of Calder and were able to provide her with the sort of information she had hoped to find. She thoroughly enjoyed her stay in Aberdeen and hopes to visit again in the very near future. |
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Latin travels unearth ‘architectural treasures’ for colleague |
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An academic colleague from the School of Divinity, History and Philosophy who travelled thousands of miles through some of South America's most isolated areas and trawled through archives stored in bin liners has seen his work come to fruition with the publication of a new book. Gauvin Bailey, Professor of Renaissance and Baroque Art, has written the first comprehensive study of the architecture and architectural sculpture of Southern Peru in the late colonial period (1660s-1820s). The Andean Hybrid Baroque draws on hundreds of primary documents and ethno-historical and anthropological literature and provides the most substantial study of colonial Peruvian architecture in decades. Gauvin now hopes that by drawing attention to some of the 'architectural treasures' of the region, they may be better protected for future generations. Gauvin has spent six years travelling to sites in Peru, Bolivia and Argentina to track down examples of the coming together of European and Inca symbolism and style in churches and other symbols of worship. His research has taken him to some of South America's most remote and inaccessible places, often on only a hunch that he would find what he was looking for upon arrival. He said: "I have invested a huge amount of time and effort in compiling the book but it has been well worth it. I did wonder at times on my travels whether I might be on a wild-goose-chase. At one stage I found myself at the Cotahuasi Canyon in Peru, which is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon and very hard to get to. It was just a guess that there would be colonial churches in the area but lo and behold I found some great examples. Through my research I have uncovered architectural treasures, pictures of which have not previously been published." Access to archives also proved difficult. "I was hunting down mostly parish archives and until you reach the village you have no idea what is there or where it might be stored. Quite often I found brown garbage bags to be the chosen method of organising archive material so my research was very time consuming but on the whole I managed to track down what I was looking for." "It has been fascinating to meet the people living in these towns and to discover the significance the churches have to their communities. I hope that the book will now bring these churches to the attention of the public as for the most part they are not protected so getting interest in them is important." The Andean Hybrid Baroque, published by the University of Notre Dame Press, was released on 15th October and was officially launched at the Peruvian Embassy in London on 11th November. |
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Music festival showcases University’s musical talent |
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The University's thriving department of music showcased the talents of both students and staff at the north-east's premier music festival, sound. Offering more than 60 performances in over 20 venues across the North East, sound opened on 20th October and ran until 14th November. The University's involvement in sound included the composition of original pieces by staff and students, as well as performances throughout the festival. The schedule of events included the opening event Red Note Ensemble, where five new pieces from staff and PG students were performed with five music students joining the ensemble to perform a Gavin Bryars composition; Sound a New Song, where the University's popular chamber choir joined with those of the universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh for the first time in a performance promoted under the auspices of the John Armitage Memorial (JAM) Trust; Electroacoustic Fair, a theme park of sound curated by Pete Stollery where the MacRobert Building was turned into a hive of interactivity with performances, workshops, demos and sonic 'rides' for everyone to take part in; and Aberdeen Sinfonietta, the festival's final event, where John McLeod conducted a programme of music, including his new guitar concerto, in which the soloist was the brilliant guitarist Ian Watt. Pete Stollery, Professor in Composition and Electroacoustic Music and Head of the School of Education, is one of the founders and driving forces behind sound and said of the festival: "sound has grown into one of the most important music events in the calendar and staff and students of the University of Aberdeen have played an important role in bringing about that success. The fact that the University is a major partner in the festival reflects the strength of musical talent in the department." |
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Most comprehensive collection of Irish poetry published |
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A senior colleague in the College saw nine years of work come to fruition with the publication of an unprecedentedly comprehensive compilation of poetry from Ireland. The Penguin Book of Irish Poetry, edited by Professor Patrick Crotty, Head of the School of Language & Literature, was published on 30th September. The book offers a rich and varied diet of poems in English from the 14th century to the present, alongside the most exhaustive account yet attempted in English translation of the far older and still vibrant tradition of poetry in Gaelic. Eighty of the 200 or so verse translations are new and include specially commissioned work by poets such as Seamus Heaney, Kathleen Jamie, Bernard O'Donoghue, Maurice Riordan and David Wheatley. The volume recounts a millennium and a half of Irish history through the art of the country's greatest poets and songwriters. The many ethnicities of Ireland are heard, whether by way of poetic reflections on the island's culture and politics from the Old Norse of the Vikings, the Old French of the Normans or the Middle English of their more lowborn followers. The Ulster Presbyterian tradition is represented by poems in Scots drawn from across three centuries, and Old Irish lyric poetry is made available through a range of translations, many of them new. At the heart of the book lie the courtly strict metre poems that dominated Gaelic culture from the 13th to the 17th centuries, while the achievement of the 18th and 19th centuries is more fully represented than ever before and the resurgence of verse making in Ireland since the 1960s given its due in a large but eclectic section near the end of the volume. Two sections demonstrate the unparalleled wealth of Irish song from Columbanus to Christy Moore. The Penguin Book of Irish Poetry, which has a Preface by the Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, was launched at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin on 29th September. |
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Research success for colleagues in Law and Social Science |
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Paul Beaumont, Professor of European Union and Private International Law, has been successful in obtaining a significant research award from the Nuffield Foundation to conduct a research project on International Surrogacy Arrangements and the need for regulation at an international level. This externally-funded project will allow Katarina Trimmings, who recently defended her PhD thesis, to continue to work with Paul on this important project. This is a great success for both Paul and Katarina, especially as the Nuffield Foundation found itself with an unusually large number of excellent applications to consider and the comments of the referees reflect the outstanding quality of the application and the exciting potential of the project. The College wishes Paul and Katarina all the very best with their research on this interesting and important topic. Meanwhile, Richard Rose, Professor of Politics and Director of the Centre for the Study of Public Policy, was given an honorary doctorate in October by the European University Institute, Florence. The honorary doctorate was awarded for his publications on comparative politics and public policy and his contribution to the development of political science in Europe. This is Professor Rose's sixth lifetime achievement award in a career that has pioneered work in comparative parties and elections, the politics of the United Kingdom as a whole, the growth of government, comparative public policy, mass response to transformation of post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and EU enlargements. Professor Rose is currently working on an ESRC funded project entitled The EU: Representing Europeans? which is bringing him into contact with the policy elite in Brussels, where he has been presenting papers and appearing on panels. |
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Former PhD student changes Chinese Law |
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A change made to a Chinese Law as a result of the recommendations of a former student of the College will see its fifth anniversary in the New Year. Alex Lau, who obtained his PhD in Law here at the University of Aberdeen in 2005, wrote to the Beijing Government that same year suggesting certain changes to the Chinese Company Law Act. Now an Associate Professor within the Department of Accountancy and Law at Hong Kong Baptist University, Professor Lau was successful in bringing his suggested changes to the attention of a key player in the legal reform. Gan Peizhong, Professor of Law and Director of the Centre of Enterprise and Company Law Research at Peking University, was invited to participate in the discussion surrounding the change in the Act and, having corresponded with Professor Lau on his proposed amendments, had the opportunity to present officially Professor Lau's recommendations at relevant meetings. These recommendations, which centred on the terminology used in the Act, were accepted by most of the leaders within the Legal System Working Committee as well as other legal experts attending the meetings and were directly implemented into the amended version of the Act. The statute took effect on 1 January 2006. |
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Sociology colleague nominated for top literary award |
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A book by a colleague from the School of Social Science was shortlisted in a prestigious book award which recognises Scottish tradition and culture. At the Saltire Society Literary Awards 2010, The Scots Imagination and Modern Memory by Professor Andrew Blaikie, Chair in Historical Sociology, was shortlisted for the National Library of Scotland Scottish Research Book of the Year. The book explores how different ways of seeing infuse relationships between place and belonging. Its argument is that all memories, whether fleeting glimpses or elaborated narratives, necessarily invoke imagined pasts. Ranging across studies of Enlightenment thought, documentary film, fiction and photography, the analysis considers whether multiple recollections and representations share a common frame of reference, or what might be termed a Scottish social imaginary. These ideas were discussed at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, where Professor Blaikie gave a talk as the Scottish Review of Books event earlier this year. The Saltire Society was founded in 1936 to encourage everything that might improve the quality of life in Scotland and restore the country to its proper place as a creative force in European civilisation. It seeks to preserve all that is best in Scottish tradition and to encourage new developments which can strengthen and enrich the country's cultural life. It has wide ranging interests including architecture, arts & crafts, civil engineering, history, literature, music, and science - and promotes excellence in many fields through a series of national awards. The Society also seeks to revive the memory of famous Scots and to make the nation conscious of its heritage. It seeks to influence decision makers in Scotland through its committees. As well as working at national level the Society has members in branches throughout Scotland, working to promote the Society's aims within their own communities. |
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Update on the University Library Project |
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Construction projectIn the face of recent adverse weather conditions, work on the construction of the new library continues with renewed momentum. Passers-by will have noted progress on the striking façade, which now extends almost to the top of the building. The main roof is now in place, and it is hoped that the building will soon be declared watertight, permitting greater progress on the interior works. The procurement of furniture and shelving, security, signage and IT is proceeding well. The building is scheduled to open in September 2011. Significant GiftsA generous donation from the Craig Group has provided £1m to fund the top floor of the library. The David Craig Suite will house a series of flexible conference and seminar rooms and will be used for University and student events as well as being made available to the wider business community for meetings and informal evening receptions. Other significant gifts have been announced in recent weeks, with a donation of £50k from the Aberdeen-based Scottish Fishermen's Trust to support the creation of a seminar room on the second floor which recognises the vital role played by commercial fishing in the cultural and historical heritage of the North East of Scotland. The area will include an etching in a glass wall with images capturing the spirit of the Scottish fishing fleet and its heritage, which will be created from materials in the University's own archive. Two gifts have been received from The Friends of Aberdeen University Library. £200,000 has been made towards the construction of the new building. This will be recognised in the Friends of the Library Room, which will provide a dedicated space for collaborative study between students and to allow staff and volunteers to work with the University's precious historic books and archives. Another contribution from the Friends of more than £60,000 has been made towards the provision of community-focused learning activities in the new building. This second gift has been made in memory of the late Roy H. Thomson, who as an Aberdeen graduate and long-term supporter of the Library. Further informationTo find out more about the project or watch progress on the webcam, visit the website. Recent photographs can be viewed in our Flickr pages. For further information, please contact Calum Proctor, Estates (c.proctor@abdn.ac.uk) regarding the construction project, or Chris Banks, University Librarian (c.banks@abdn.ac.uk) regarding the layout and operation of the new building. |
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Research Centre Spotlight - Aberdeen Centre for Environmental Sustainability (ACES) |
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ACES is now in its third year and is a vibrant, cross-disciplinary environmental research centre involving the three University Colleges and the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute. We hope to work increasingly with people interested in environmental sustainability across CASS. There are enormous opportunities in the field of environmental sustainability that the University can exploit through linking the expertise within CASS with other disciplines across the University and the James Hutton Institute (formerly Macaulay). Some of this is going on already, of course, but ACES is here to support existing networks as well as facilitate new ones. ACES consists of a small group (16 staff and 14 PhD students) of regularly engaged people, and a larger group of affiliates who drop in and out of ACES activities as time and interest permits. We have a flat management structure that allows people to move in and out of active engagement with the group and gives everyone access to decision-making if they want to get involved in the management of ACES. We hold regular "ACES Days", for members to tell each other about their latest research and explore collaborations, part-fund ACES PhD studentships with Colleges, fund visitors to stay at ACES to develop new project ideas and fund workshops to bring larger groups to Aberdeen to develop new ideas for publication or funding. Every other year we hold an international conference (see link below for the call for papers for ACES2011), the topic of which is chosen by members of ACES. If you are interested in cross-disciplinary environmental research, we would like to hear from you. Why not join us every Friday at 10:30 for a half hour discussion over coffee and cake, or come along to one of the ACES seminars (programme to be announced shortly) to find out more? To find out what we're discussing this week, check our website (www.aces.ac.uk) or follow us on Twitter. Call for Papers: ACES 2011 Conflicts in Conservation: Strategies for Coping with a Changing World International Science and Policy Conference, Aberdeen August 22nd-24th 2011 For more information, to submit an abstract or register, visit: www.aces-2011.org |
The College has said farewell to one of its longest serving administrative staff and will do so again to another at the end of the month. Linda Trotter, the former School Administrative Officer for Social Science, retired at the end of November and Sheila Gordon, School Administrative Officer for Business, will retire at the end of December. Both Linda and Sheila will be missed by staff and students alike and the College wishes them all the very best for the future. Pam Thomson, formerly an Executive Assistant for Language & Literature, has taken up the post vacated by Linda, and Nicki Duncan, currently Graduate Coordinator for the Business School, will take up Sheila’s post after the Christmas break. It is certain that both Pam and Nicki will be warmly welcomed by their new teams and that everyone across the College will wish them all the best in their new roles.
If you have any comments or suggestions for features in future issues please contact us.
