Our popular Rare Bites lunchtime talks are back! The first talk will explore two fascinating Ethiopic Coptic Christian Magic Scrolls held in Rare Books and Special Collections – Who created them and how were they used? Could these objects have played a role in personal health, relationships and/or protection? Come along and learn about these wonderful objects.
When: 19 April 2018; 1:00 -1:30pm
Where: Fisher Library Level 2 Seminar Room
Places are limited, register to reserve your seat.
This event aims to help students, early career researchers and all those engaged in China-related research to develop comprehensive and effective strategies to find relevant resources for their study, research and work.
You will have the opportunity to meet with Di Pin Ouyang, from the National Library of Australia, and Jun Guo, from the University of Sydney Library, to discover how to gain access to key and quality China-related resources. Come and discuss any difficulties you have encountered in collecting resources with Luigi Tomba, director of the China Studies Centre, who will share his experiences and offer personal advice. You will also hear from current PhD researcher Minerva Inwald, who helped the Centre compile its new online Resources Page, as she reflects on challenges and best practice for Sydney-based students accessing a range of on- and offline materials.
Where: Fisher Seminar Room 218, Level Two, Fisher Library, University of Sydney (map)
When: 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm, Thursday, 12 April 2018
Registration: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/how-to-find-china-related-resources-tickets-44396943453
Speakers:
Professor Luigi Tomba
Director, China Studies Centre, University of Sydney
Before joining the Centre in 2017, Professor Luigi Tomba was at the Australian National University for 15 years, most recently as an Associate Director of the Australian Centre on China the World. His work has always been concerned with cities and urbanisation. His most recent book, The Government Next Door: Neighborhood Politics in Urban (Cornell, 2014), was awarded the Association of Asian Studies 2016 Joseph Levenson Prize for best book on Post-1900 China.
Ms Di Pin Ouyang (歐陽迪頻)
Manager, Asian Collections, National Library of Australia
Ms Di Pin Ouyang has been working at the National Library of Australia for two decades, the last 10 years of which have been in the Asian Collections. She is now responsible for the Library’s significant Asian collecting activities for Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Burmese, Lao and Cambodian language materials.
Jun Guo
Assistant Librarian, University of Sydney
Jun Guo is an Assistant Librarian at the University Library, with over nine year’s research experience. She currently supports the Business School and the Centre for English Teaching (CET), and also provides research support for the School of Languages and Cultures Librarian and the East-Asian Collection Librarian. Jun has an MA in Applied Science (Environmental Science) from the University of Sydney and a Graduate Diploma in Translation and Interpreting (English to Mandarin) from the University of Western Sydney. She is a qualified translator, accredited by the National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters (NAATI).
Minerva Inwald
PhD candidate, Department of History, University of Sydney
Minerva is a PhD researcher in the Department of History and a 2018 Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Teaching Fellow at the University of Sydney. Her doctoral project explores the cultural history of the People’s Republic of China by examining art exhibitions held at the National Art Museum, Beijing, during the 1960s and 1970s. She has co-curated two exhibitions at the University of Sydney: Provocations: Avant-Garde Art in China in the 1980s (2017) held at Fisher Library, and Floating Time: Chinese Prints, 1954-2002 (2016) at the University Art Gallery. For the latter, she also co-authored the accompanying exhibition catalogue. In 2015, Minerva completed a postgraduate exchange program at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing.
Join us for the second talk in our Rare Bites series: “The circle of Willis and his circle of friends”: Thomas Willis Cerebri anatome cui accessit nervorum description et usus (Amstelodami, apud Gerbrandum Schagen, 1664).
When: 2 May 2018; 1-1.30pm
Where: Fisher Library, Level 2, Seminar Room
Speaker: Associate Professor Catherine Storey, School of Medicine at the University of Sydney
Cate Storey will base her talk on the 17th century text Cerebri anatome, by Thomas Willis. This little book is now just over 350 years old and while it is best known for the exquisite drawing of the arteries at the base of the brain (drawings by Willis’ colleague, Christopher Wren), it is the new concepts of disease and terminologies like “neurology” that makes it so special. The ‘circle’ however, is possibly better known today than when the book was originally published and has a history all of its own.
Catherine Storey is a Clinical Associate Professor in the School of Medicine at the University of Sydney. She was a neurologist at the Royal North Shore Hospital until retirement. She has completed an MSc in the Unit of History and Philosophy of Science, and is a member of the International Society for the History of the Neurosciences. Cate has a passion for the history of neurology and the books that have contributed to this speciality.
Places are limited, register to reserve your seat.
This exhibition celebrates the Conservatorium’s longstanding relationship with gamelan music and dance traditions of Indonesia. Gamelan music is the traditional ensemble music of Bali. It consists mainly of percussion instruments.
The study and performance of Balinese gamelan music has been an active component of Conservatorium of Music life since 1999. This exhibition highlights current research by Niall Edwards-FitzSimons on sitting dances in Aceh, the repatriation of ethnographic recordings from the early twentieth century and the influence of gamelan on composition students at the Conservatorium.
When: 2 April – 26 May 2018
Where: Conservatorium Library
Contact: admin.library@sydney.edu.au
Celebrate Women’s History Month by joining Sydney University Press and the University of Sydney Library for a Wikipedia edit-a-thon on Tuesday 20 March, 2018.
Women make up just 12% of Wikipedia contributors and are 16% of individuals profiled, which means there is a gender imbalance on the platform. To combat this, we will be editing Wikipedia together to improve the representation of Australian women. No experience needed: there will be training, cheat sheets, references and roving Wiki experts on-hand – plus snacks! Join us and help change the future of Wikipedia. Register here.
In 1923 at a meeting of the international Pan-Pacific Congress at the University of Sydney the Australian government was urged to establish a Department of Anthropology and to fund urgent anthropological research in the region to counter the devastating effects of colonisation. The University of Sydney took up the challenge, instituting the first Department of Anthropology in the Australian-Pacific region with the appointment of AR Radcliffe Brown in 1926.
Many of the first generation of men and women who were taught at Sydney worked in isolation for periods of a year to eighteen months in areas where English was not spoken, in places not inscribed on maps, and with limited contact with people outside the community they were studying. For their work they were obliged to learn map making, linguistics and medical skills alongside their anthropological training.
The University’s Archives and Macleay Museum today look after the enormous wealth of information that these anthropologists produced from their interactions with Australian Aboriginal and Pacific peoples. For this exhibition we have focussed on the work of Phyllis Kaberry, the first female professional anthropologist to emerge from the Department.
This is a joint exhibition between Rare Books and Special Collections at the University of Sydney Library, University Archives and Museums to commemorate the inscription of the Anthropological Field Research and Teaching Records, University of Sydney, 1926-1956 into the UNESCO Memory of the World Australian Register.
The exhibition is being showcased on level 3 of Fisher and Sci Tech Libraries until August 2018.
