Victoria University Of Wellington Research Articles

Preface

35th International Symposium on Superconductivity (ISS2022)It is our pleasure to report that the Proceedings of the 35th International Symposium on Superconductivity (ISS2022) held on November 29–December 1, 2022, are now published in Journal of Physics: Conference Series (JPCS). ISS2022 was co-organized by the Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST). ISS2022 was held online owing to the continued travel restrictions by COVID-19 pandemic, but it had also in-person option at Winc-Aichi (Aichi Industry & Labour Center), Nagoya, Japan. Invited speakers, session chairs, program committee members and speakers were welcome to join in at Winc-Aichi.Total of 315 scientists, engineers, students, corporate executives and so on (132 from abroad) made advanced registrations for ISS2022, and fruitful discussions were made to promote superconductor sciences and technologies. Total of 190 papers were presented, which included 6 plenary lectures (45 min), 71 invited talks (25–30 min) and 113 contributed oral presentations (15–20 min). Among the papers presented in ISS2022, 34 manuscripts were submitted for ISS2022 Proceedings, and 33 papers were accepted for publication. The papers published in JPCS were categorized into relevant topics in the following four fields; (a) Physics and Chemistry, (b) Wires and Bulk, (c) Electronic Devices, (d) Large Scale System Applications.To ensure the high publication standard mandated by JPCS, every paper was peer reviewed by a reviewer with expertise before it was accepted for publication. As editors of the Proceedings, we would like to express our sincere appreciation to all the reviewers involved in the evaluation of the papers for their invaluable contribution.List of The Editors, Organization of ISS2022, Committees of ISS2022 are available in this Pdf.

Preface

34th International Symposium on Superconductivity (ISS2021)It is our pleasure to report that the Proceedings of the 34th International Symposium on Superconductivity (ISS2021) held on November 30–December 2, 2021, are now published in Journal of Physics: Conference Series (JPCS). ISS2021 was co-organized by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) and the Victoria University of Wellington (VUW). At first, ISS2021 was planned to be held on site in Wellington, New Zeeland. However, owing to the continued travel restrictions by COVID-19 pandemic, the symposium was held online with using the “Cisco Webex Meetings” application. Although most of presentations were smoothly made, several presentations were cancelled probably due to limited speed of a communication line, some of which were re-scheduled and presented at later dates.Total of 342 scientists, engineers, students, corporate executives and so on (107 from abroad) made advanced registrations for ISS2021, and fruitful discussions were made to promote superconductor sciences and technologies. Total of 215 papers were presented, which included 5 plenary lectures (45 min), 76 invited talks (25–30 min) and 134 contributed oral presentations (15–20 min). Among the papers presented in ISS2021, 41 manuscripts were submitted for ISS2021 Proceedings, and 39 papers were accepted for publication. The papers published in JPCS were categorized into relevant topics in the following four fields; (a) Physics and Chemistry, (b) Wires and Bulk, (c) Electronic Devices, (d) Large Scale System Applications.To ensure the high publication standard mandated by JPCS, every paper was peer reviewed by a reviewer with expertise before it was accepted for publication. As editors of the Proceedings, we would like to express our sincere appreciation to all the reviewers involved in the evaluation of the papers for their invaluable contribution. The Editors Physics and Chemistry: Atsutaka Maeda (The University of Tokyo), Hiraku Ogino (AIST)Wires and Bulk: Yoshiyuki Yoshida (AIST), Yasuhiro Iijima (Fujikura Ltd.), Yasunori Mawatari (AIST)Electronic Devices: Mutsuo Hidaka (AIST), Tsunehiro Hato (SUSTEC)Large Scale System Applications: Naoyuki Amemiya (Kyoto University), Tsuyoshi Wakuda (Hitachi Ltd.), Hiroshi Miyazaki (Kyushu University)List of Organization of ISS2021, Committees of ISS2021, International Advisory Committee are available in this Pdf.

Preface

33rd International Symposium on Superconductivity (ISS2020)It is our pleasure to report that the Proceedings of the 33rd International Symposium on Superconductivity (ISS2020) held at AIST Tsukuba, Japan with virtual meeting rooms, December 1–3, 2020, are now published in Journal of Physics: Conference Series (JPCS). ISS2020 was co-organized by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) and the Victoria University of Wellington (VUW). At first, ISS2020 was planned to be held in Wellington, New Zeeland. However, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, the venue was changed to Tsukuba, Japan, and the symposium was organized to have both real and virtual meeting rooms. Participants from abroad joined online through the virtual meeting rooms.Total of 462 scientists, engineers, students, corporate executives and so on (182 from abroad) registered for ISS2020, and fruitful discussions were made to promote superconductor sciences and technologies. Total of 206 papers were presented, which included 5 plenary lectures, 59 invited talks, 142 contributed oral presentations. The papers published in JPCS were categorized into relevant topics in the following four fields; (a) Physics and Chemistry, (b) Wires and Bulk, (c) Electronic Devices, (d) Large Scale System Applications.To ensure the high publication standard mandated by JPCS, every paper was peer reviewed by a reviewer with expertise before it was accepted for publication. As editors of the Proceedings, we would like to express our sincere appreciation to all the reviewers involved in the evaluation of the papers for their invaluable contribution.List of Organization of ISS2020, Committees of ISS2020, International Advisory Committee are available in the pdf

Indigenous frameworks for data-intensive humanities: recalibrating the past through knowledge engineering and generative modelling.

Identifying, contacting and engaging missing shareholders constitutes an enormous challenge for Māori incorporations, iwi and hapū across Aotearoa New Zealand. Without accurate data or tools to har-monise existing fragmented or conflicting data sources, issues around land succession, opportunities for economic development, and maintenance of whānau relationships are all negatively impacted. This unique three-way research collaboration between Victoria University of Wellington (VUW), Parininihi ki Waitotara Incorporation (PKW), and University of Auckland funded by the National Science Challenge | Science for Technological Innovation catalyses innovation through new digital humanities-inflected data science modelling and analytics with the kaupapa of reconnecting missing Māori shareholders for a prosperous economic, cultural, and socially revitalised future. This paper provides an overview of VUW's culturally-embedded social network approach to the project, discusses the challenges of working within an indigenous worldview, and emphasises the importance of decolonising digital humanities.

Mystery Play: Exploring Students’ Perceptions of Devising

Mystery Play: Exploring Students’ Perceptions of Devising James McKinnon (bio) Genesis: Devising and Learning “Why devise? Why now?” In the decade since Theatre Topics raised these questions, they have become more urgent, especially in the context of postsecondary drama and theatre studies. Devised performance1 regularly appears in international festivals and on prominent stages, such as the National Theatre in England, and has been integrated into secondary drama curricula in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere; several universities have even begun to offer concentrations or degrees specializing in devised performance.2 As such, university drama and theatre departments cannot ignore or marginalize devising as an alternative practice; however, it is not always clear what students actually learn from it. As a relatively new field, devising literature is often preoccupied with defining its object. Discussions of the pedagogical benefits of devising often reflect a broader tendency to define it in opposition to scripted or traditional dramaturgies. Alison Oddey’s influential Devising Theatre: A Practical and Theoretical Handbook delineates devising as “an alternative to the dominant literary tradition” (4),3 and authors since Oddey have followed her in describing devising “in terms of a response to representational theatre” and emphasizing its distinctions from the hierarchical, authoritarian, and textocentric practices of “representational” or “traditional theatre” (Perry 2011, 64).4 Devising is often portrayed as representing “artistic democracy” and offering “freedom” (Oddey 9, 4) from the “hierarchical structures of power linked to text-based theatre,” which places “the playwright and then the director at the forefront with the general objective of ‘serving the play’” (Perry 2011, 65). As a democratic process, devising is seen to promote collaborative skills, “build community, and counter individualism” (Wessels 2012, 54). Moreover, insofar as autocracy and textocentricity are as much features of traditional classrooms as of traditional theatre, Mia Perry (2011, 64–67) and others regard devising as consonant with the ideals of critical, postcritical, and feminist pedagogies. If “traditional” theatre, like Pablo Freire’s “banking” model of education, threatens to reduce student-actors to lowly drones with little to do but memorize lines and follow directions, then devising, by contrast, can liberate students from dictatorial directors and fixed texts and empower them with creative agency. As a liberatory model, devising offers students opportunities to “engage in . . . cultural production” rather than passively consuming cultural products (Schirle 99); to dispel the assumption that the teacher-director has all the answers (Ingulsrud 88); and to experience an “increased sense of ownership” and “awakening of their . . . social consciousness” (Brian 3, 7). Nevertheless, few authors investigate whether students realize these benefits, although Anne Wessels and Virginie Magnat have used the experiences of devising participants (in Magnat’s case, her own) to identify factors that cause negative outcomes.5 Crystal Brian’s otherwise inspiring analysis of a collaboration between war veterans and undergraduates working with the text of Antigone nevertheless concludes that it was “difficult” or “impossible” to evaluate “whether [devising] had any long-lasting impact on the students” (11). I argue that such evaluations are not only possible, but [End Page 181] vital. In the absence of rigorous evaluations of devised theatre as a learning activity, some authors have expressed skepticism about whether its pedagogical potential is realized in practice (Heddon and Milling 5); but most importantly, knowledge about how students experience devising can help practitioners, educators, and students define and achieve their learning objectives and align the work we do with the results we hope to achieve. This essay works toward such an assessment of devised theatre, narrowing the question “Why devise?” to “What makes, or might make, devising a valuable learning activity?” In particular, I hope to add to the growing body of literature on devising and learning a perspective that is often absent from the discussion: that of the learners. To do so, this essay investigates how eighteen undergraduate theatre majors experienced the risks and rewards of devising at Victoria University of Wellington (VUW).6 They were invited to participate in a research project documenting their process, which all of them accepted; the project was attached to THEA 301 (“Company”),7 a production course restricted to senior theatre majors at VUW. From July through October...

The Orator/O Le Tulafale (review)

Reviewed by: The Orator/O Le Tulafale Emelihter Kihleng and Teresia K. Teaiwa The Orator/O Le Tulafale. Feature film, 110 minutes, color, 2011. Written and directed by Tusi Tamasese; produced by Catherine Fitzgerald; distributed by Transmission Films Ltd (in Australasia) and the New Zealand Film Commission (global). Samoan with English subtitles. Release information available at http://theoratorfilm.co.nz/ The Orator/O Le Tulafale has been touted as the first full-length feature film to be written and directed by a Samoan and filmed in Sāmoa and in the Samoan language. Given that the screenwriter and director, Tusi Tamasese, is a University of Waikato film school graduate and earned a master's in screenwriting from the Victoria University of Wellington (VUW), and that the film was largely funded by the New Zealand Film Commission, produced by a New Zealander, and features some of New Zealand's most respected visual and sound technicians, The Orator is also being enthusiastically claimed as a New Zealand film. For a directorial debut, it is remarkable that the film has received critical acclaim at the Venice Film Festival in 2011, is scheduled for the 2012 Sundance Festival, and was nominated by New Zealand for [End Page 434] an Academy Award in the category of foreign language films. The central characters of The Orator are a farmer and a weaver. Sa'ili and his wife Va'aiga each have painful histories of being excluded or diminished by others—Sa'ili for being not only an untitled adult male in a village and society that privileges chiefs, but a little person to boot, and Va'aiga for shaming her family by having a child out of wedlock. Sa'ili has raised Va'aiga's teenage daughter Litia as his own, although Litia is ambivalent about having him as a father. The film centers on Sa'ili and Va'aiga's struggles to confront their own fears and demons—Sa'ili through acquiring a talking chief title, and Va'aiga by weaving a fine mat ('ie tōga) of atonement. Their quests are set amid scenes of majestic mountain ridges, lush taro plantations, tranquil bathing pools, and meticulously manicured rural villages. Ironically, given that the film title might lead one to expect an abundance of verbiage (a tulāfale is a talking chief), one of the distinguishing features of the film is its economy of dialogue. The silence simultaneously tills and weaves the possibilities for multiple layers of understanding through the film. Like Sa'ili the farmer and Va'aiga the weaver, The Orator is able to present gifts to those who would receive them. Through this review, we attempt, as non-Samoan Pacific Islanders—Micronesians—to reciprocate. We both saw the film, for the first time, in the early days of its screening in Wellington, New Zealand, in October 2011. Our review features our individual "takes" on the film, with Emelihter responding to The Orator's representations of place and culture, and Teresia approaching the film as a teacher in Pacific studies. As creative writers and active participants in arts communities across the region, both of us have a keen sense of a shared genealogy when it comes to an "Oceanic imaginary" (Subramani, "The Oceanic Imaginary," 2001). We close our review with reflections on what it means now to have The Orator situated in that genealogy. Reaction shot (Emelihter): "I wanted Sāmoa to be a character in the film," said Tusi Tamasese during a cast and crew Q&A held at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (Te Papa) in Wellington on 29 October 2011. This character is the one we see first: Sāmoa—fecund, quiet, dark, and thirsty. Audiences are made to listen to the whisper that comes just before the downpour, and it was then that I knew this was going to be an honest Pacific (Samoan) film. Already, I wanted to cry, and very few movies make me cry. Because I'm from Pohnpei in Micronesia, an island with rainfall of more than 300 inches a year, rain is a central part of my Pohnpeian/ Pacific understanding. Rain on a tin roof represents home to those of us...

The All-Sustaining Air: Romantic Legacies and Renewals in British, American, and Irish Poetry since 1900 by Michael O'Neill

9go Reviews consonants withno compensationispresumably evil (lowmorals)' (pp. 141-42). More gently, andperhapsthe most important Confucianlesson ofall,anearlyletter toFengchi Yangadvises'Sothings areproceedinginorder, first friendship, and then politics'(p.36). ZhaomingQian hasbroughtto theforeground notonlyan essentialsourcefor Pound'sorientalthinking buta necessary chapterincross-cultural endeavour. UNIVERSITY OF KEELE IAN F.A. BELL The All-Sustaining Air: Romantic Legacies and Renewals inBritish, American, and IrishPoetrysince10oo. ByMICHAELO'NEILL. Oxford:OxfordUniversity Press. 2007.Viii+208pp. ?45. ISBN978-o-19-929928-7. The jacketillustration of MichaelO'Neill's inspiring book reveals howdangerously beautiful the oxymoronically 'all-sustaining air' is.PaulNash's 1941Battleof Britain painting,executedinwarm shadesof ochreand blue, juxtaposestheRomantic majestyof a sunset with the Modern horrors ofairborne warfare,theextravagant splendour ofnature with the narrowly focused destruction ofhumans. The swirling cloudsarecomposedoutoftheexhaust ofbattling planes;anapproaching formation intheevening sky consists, notof migrating birds, butof warplanes;thefiery sunset istroubled by theblacksmoke ofdeadlyexplosions;theaircanno longer sustaina hitplanewhichplummets toitsend inaway similar toBrueghel'sIcarusin Auden's 'Musee des Beaux Arts'. It is a scene of both barbarism and heroism, sublime beauty and infernal horror. ViewingNash's painting, one comes to theconclusionthat an interpretation is less amatter of juxtaposition, with its emphasis on comparing and contrasting, on exclusive preference forone visionoveranother.It ismore a matterofpairingand couplingpossibilities with a view toenhancedappreciation andunderstanding. This isthestrategy whichO'Neill so successfully deploysinhis Romantically inspired readings ofawide range ofpoets (including Auden,Bishop, Eliot,Fisher, Heaney, Hill,Kavanagh, Mahon,Muldoon, Spender, Stevens, Yeats). InRomanticism and theSelf-Conscious Poem (Oxford: ClarendonPress,1997) O'Neill argued that 'many poems by themajor Romantic poets are energized and subtilized by their consciousness of themselves as poems' (p.xv).Thisbook goes one stepfurther byexploring'waysinwhichRomanticpoetryboth renewsitself and iscreatively used, contested, and reworked in a rangeof twentieth-century, and some twenty-first-century poetry'(p.9). The abovesentence suggests thatthe ideaof influence isnotnecessarily ironic ordebilitating. AsO'Neill illustrates with Elizabeth Bishop: 'herirony is more thanreductive wariness;itinvolves sustaining a doubleresponsiveness, offering notjusta belatedknowingness, butalso an authen ticknowing of the Romanticsthemselves' (p. io).O'Neill himself employs'double responsiveness' byreading poetry'asliterary criticism', byallowingthe poem tobe the 'placewhere the finestand most nuanced reading of a previous poem or poetry occurs' (p. 1i). As a resultwe read about post-1goo poems having conversations with Romantic poems, invoking yet other poems, both Romantic and post-1goo, MLR, 104.1, 2009 191 to make their point.Inaddition O'Neill often bringsinto playthepoets'ownpoe tics,articulated in foraranging from criticalessaysto interviews, toenhancehis readings. What isground-breaking, evenslightly maverick, aboutthisapproachis theskill withwhich reductive readings areavoided.By reductive readingsImean thoseentrenched inan inimicalrelation to their subject-matter, makingassertive butbluntclaims, basedon often paranoidbinarythinking. One couldnot wish for amoreattuned, erudite guidetothese poemsthan O'Neill. His extensive bibliographical, editorial, and textual scholarship informs hisdistrust of limiting definitions ofRomanticism(s) while at thesame timeithasmade him onlytooaware ofthe necessity for reading beyondandaroundthestridently obvious. Themuch-quotedlinebyYeatsaboutKeatswithhis 'nosepressedtoa sweet-shop window',forinstance, isrecharged withnewenergy whenO'Neill drawsattention to thefactthat'thetoneofbrutal, overriding assertion concedesthat assertionis groundedinsubjective impression ("I see a schoolboy when I think ofhim",55) (p.41).Thisbookwillbe enjoyed byallreaders who considertheir engagement with poems in 'the actoffindingI Whatwill suffice' as anongoing one. VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OFWELLINGTON HEIDI THOMSON Twentieth-Century FictionbyIrish Women: NationandGender.ByHEATHERING MAN.Aldershot:Ashgate. 2007. 206pp. ?35.99. ISBN978-0-7546-3538-3. HeatherIngman uses the writings ofJulia Kristevatostudythe'destabilizing force' (p. 3) of twentieth-century fiction by Irish women-around thirty works,each meritingabout four pagesof comment. Followinga historicalintroduction, each chapter considersa particular aspectofKristevantheory: theother,thesemiotic, themother, the foreigner, and the sacred, with a final chapter applying all these to fiction from the North.ThisKristevanframework does indeedseemparticularly apt foran Irishcontext. Her 'punning redefinition ofheretics as "herethics"'(p. 115), for example, regains what was lost in translation when said with an Irish accent. However,thisframework also risks producing circular readings oftexts that seemto havebeenchosen(andmaywellhavebeenwritten) withKristevantheory in mind. 'Reading women'swritingthrough aKristevanlens [ametaphorofwhich Ing man is fond(see also p. 181)]may provideforalternative femaleidentities and suggest a way out of the stereotypes of Northern Irish women as either passive victims ofviolenceorbomb-throwing viragoes'(p. 154)-though a farlessadept guide mighthavesuccessfully steered a pathbetweenthose particular alternatives. Ingman'sstudy'hopestokeep faith withKristeva'semphasison theparticularity of theindividual woman' (p.4); however, theverynextpage confuses-forgivably, perhaps-Anna andAnne-MarieSmithand their respective books (Julia Kristeva...

Twentieth-Century Fiction by Irish Women: Nation and Gender by Heather Ingman

MLR, 104.1, 2009 191 to make their point.Inaddition O'Neill often bringsinto playthepoets'ownpoe tics,articulated in foraranging from criticalessaysto interviews, toenhancehis readings. What isground-breaking, evenslightly maverick, aboutthisapproachis theskill withwhich reductive readings areavoided.By reductive readingsImean thoseentrenched inan inimicalrelation to their subject-matter, makingassertive butbluntclaims, basedon often paranoidbinarythinking. One couldnot wish for amoreattuned, erudite guidetothese poemsthan O'Neill. His extensive bibliographical, editorial, and textual scholarship informs hisdistrust of limiting definitions ofRomanticism(s) while at thesame timeithasmade him onlytooaware ofthe necessity for reading beyondandaroundthestridently obvious. Themuch-quotedlinebyYeatsaboutKeatswithhis 'nosepressedtoa sweet-shop window',forinstance, isrecharged withnewenergy whenO'Neill drawsattention to thefactthat'thetoneofbrutal, overriding assertion concedesthat assertionis groundedinsubjective impression ("I see a schoolboy when I think ofhim",55) (p.41).Thisbookwillbe enjoyed byallreaders who considertheir engagement with poems in 'the actoffindingI Whatwill suffice' as anongoing one. VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OFWELLINGTON HEIDI THOMSON Twentieth-Century FictionbyIrish Women: NationandGender.ByHEATHERING MAN.Aldershot:Ashgate. 2007. 206pp. ?35.99. ISBN978-0-7546-3538-3. HeatherIngman uses the writings ofJulia Kristevatostudythe'destabilizing force' (p. 3) of twentieth-century fiction by Irish women-around thirty works,each meritingabout four pagesof comment. Followinga historicalintroduction, each chapter considersa particular aspectofKristevantheory: theother,thesemiotic, themother, the foreigner, and the sacred, with a final chapter applying all these to fiction from the North.ThisKristevanframework does indeedseemparticularly apt foran Irishcontext. Her 'punning redefinition ofheretics as "herethics"'(p. 115), for example, regains what was lost in translation when said with an Irish accent. However,thisframework also risks producing circular readings oftexts that seemto havebeenchosen(andmaywellhavebeenwritten) withKristevantheory in mind. 'Reading women'swritingthrough aKristevanlens [ametaphorofwhich Ing man is fond(see also p. 181)]may provideforalternative femaleidentities and suggest a way out of the stereotypes of Northern Irish women as either passive victims ofviolenceorbomb-throwing viragoes'(p. 154)-though a farlessadept guide mighthavesuccessfully steered a pathbetweenthose particular alternatives. Ingman'sstudy'hopestokeep faith withKristeva'semphasison theparticularity of theindividual woman' (p.4); however, theverynextpage confuses-forgivably, perhaps-Anna andAnne-MarieSmithand their respective books (Julia Kristeva: ReadingsofExile andEstrangement (NewYork:St Martin's Press,1996) and Julia Kristeva: Speakingthe Unspeakable (London:PlutoPress,1998)). Contentanalysisis therulehere:Ingmancites Kristeva's'criticisms' (p. 175) of theVirgin Mary myth to imply, dubiously, that themerit of a fictional world or 192 Reviews character is the greater themore fully it reflects our own ideal world or charac ter.'Subjects-in-process' are therefore praisedfor being 'evolving andopen-ended' (p. 113), 'flexibleand open to change' (p. 53), 'fluidand varied' (p. 154), or even just 'fluid' (pp. 164, 170); there is lots of 'dialog from themargins': Theposition Claireultimately evolvesfor herself isaKristevan one,contestatory and vigilant, on theborders of her nation yet still indialog with it. (p. 51) [... .] theposition Martha evolves forherself is a Kristevan one, on themargins of her society yet indialog with it. (p. 161) AlthoughIngman'sstudy does not (as sheclaims) 'drawtogether works fromall decades of the twentieth century' (p. 183), its chronological scope is indeed vast. The charactersthemselves might,therefore, conceivably have ifnot a first-hand knowledge ofKristeva's works,thensomeawareness oftheir own roleinthe history of female experience. DeirdrePender,theprotagonist of 'Clairr O'Connor's lumi nous andpartly comicnovel [sic], Belonging, publishedin1991' (p.91),would be particularly well qualified to read her own life in such away: In the end she opts fora transnational solution toher life:since there are no teaching jobs in Ireland forspecialists in feminist literature,shewill spend half theyear teaching inNew York and her summers in Ireland at Field End. As we will see inchapter five,this kindof transnationalism isfavored byKristevain Nations without Nationalism[1993, but published inFrench in 1ggo]where shewrites of her own experience as a Bulgarian living inFrance. (p. 92) Thepossibility that Deirdreisnotsomuch acipher for Kristevantheory asa self-con scious exemplar of it is passed over by Ingman. In a way, her Kristevan framework works toowell: what we are supposed to admire as a 'destabilizing force' ismade stable, all toostable. LONDON THOMASMANSELL TheUnbearable Saki:The Workof H. H.Munro. BySANDIE BYRNE. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2007. Xiii+314pp. ?19.99. ISBN978-o-19-922605-4. 'Saki' was the nomdeplumeofHectorHughMunro (1870-1916),awriter ofconsi derable wit and skill whoseworks includeshortstories, politicalsatire, andnovels. His peripatetic life took himfrom Burma to Devon tothe BalkanstoStPetersburg to Londonand finally toFrance, where,havingrefused anofficer's commission, Munro...

Romanticism and the Materiality of Nature by Onno Oerlemans (review)

YES, 34, 2004 YES, 34, 2004 fraughtwith pitfalls.In response, Burwickoffersus the possibilityof a more inclusive , comprehensivedefinition of 'imitation'within a Romantic context, one which includes the mind's own workings: 'The rise of individualism, a major factor in the political turmoil of the age, was also manifest in the literaryexploration of the individual consciousness and the individual experience. The paradox, of course, was that the very self-assessmentcrucial to the social changes then taking place would be appraisedby criticsof subsequentgenerations as self-indulgentescapism' (p.Io). By widening the scope of Romantic mimesis from 'what' the mind beholds, to 'how' it beholds, Burwick opens up a groundbreaking,comparative discussion of how the post-KantianGermanphilosopherswere influentialin the constructionof a BritishRomantic aesthetic. The first three chapters examine the ideas of I'art pour I'art(goingback to the cross-culturalfirstuse of the phrase in 1804),idemetalter(difference as an essential markerof the artist'stransformingactivity),and palingenesis of mind as art respectively.Burwick'sdirectengagementwith the firsttexts in which Schleiermacher, Schelling, Hegel, Coleridge, and De Quincey articulated their thoughtsis particularlyrefreshing,and it drawsattentionto the dangersof reductive readingin laterinterpretations.The finalthree chaptersofferfurtherexplorationsof the persistentpresence of mimesis as a major issue in Romantic texts. Chapter 4 focuseson ekphrasis,on how the mimetic processitselfcan be the object of mimesis, illustratedby an exceptionallypenetratingreading of De Quincey's 'Dream Fugue' in TheEnglish Mail Coach. Chapter 5 casts new light on Coleridge and Wordsworth by an emphasis on how 'optical reflection [...] is a model for visual perception as well as an analogue of mental reflection'(p. 148).The final chapter explores 'three novels of the romantic period which develop their irony through a structuralbifurcation that exposes the mimetic pretense of the storytelling'(exemplifiedin Charles BrockdenBrown'sArthur Mervyn, E. T. A. Hoffmann'sKater Murr,andJames Hogg's Confessions ofa JustifiedSinner). However troubled, tormented, or neurotic the Romantics' engagement with the whole idea of mimesis might have been at times, they did make a convincing aestheticout of the mimeticpredicament.Burwickputs it splendidly:'Ifoccasionally in a perverse pique or an ironic gesture they attempted to shatter one mirror or the other, it was only with the result that every splinter remained to catch new reflections'(p. i5). A warmly recommended study. VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OFWELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND HEIDITHOMSON Romanticismand the Materiality of Nature. By ONNO OERLEMANS. Toronto, Buffalo, NY, and London: University of Toronto Press. 2002. vii + 253 pp. $45; f28. ISBN: 0-8020-4863-3. Given the title and the topic of this book, the assertion that 'romanticism is an important origin for environmentalist thought' should probably come as no surprise. That does not make it accurate. Possibly, indeed probably, for some readers Romantic literatureis the origin of their 'stronginterest'in descriptionsof the externalworld and even perhapstheir 'environmentalistthought', but let us not make the mistake of thinking such interest sprang into being in the Romantic period. More than enough has been writtenabout medieval landscapesand Renaissance forests to correct such misapprehension.What ecocriticism does, and here Onno Oerlemans's book is on sounder ground, is to offer a newer, more rigorous fraughtwith pitfalls.In response, Burwickoffersus the possibilityof a more inclusive , comprehensivedefinition of 'imitation'within a Romantic context, one which includes the mind's own workings: 'The rise of individualism, a major factor in the political turmoil of the age, was also manifest in the literaryexploration of the individual consciousness and the individual experience. The paradox, of course, was that the very self-assessmentcrucial to the social changes then taking place would be appraisedby criticsof subsequentgenerations as self-indulgentescapism' (p.Io). By widening the scope of Romantic mimesis from 'what' the mind beholds, to 'how' it beholds, Burwick opens up a groundbreaking,comparative discussion of how the post-KantianGermanphilosopherswere influentialin the constructionof a BritishRomantic aesthetic. The first three chapters examine the ideas of I'art pour I'art(goingback to the cross-culturalfirstuse of the phrase in 1804),idemetalter(difference as an essential markerof the artist'stransformingactivity),and palingenesis of mind as art respectively.Burwick'sdirectengagementwith the firsttexts in which Schleiermacher, Schelling, Hegel, Coleridge, and De Quincey articulated their thoughtsis particularlyrefreshing,and it drawsattentionto the dangersof reductive readingin laterinterpretations.The finalthree chaptersofferfurtherexplorationsof the persistentpresence of mimesis as a major issue in Romantic texts. Chapter...

Quality Assurance and Audit in New Zealand Universities: A Review and Case Study

Along with other institutions of higher education, the New Zealand universities are responding to pressures for increased accountability by developing policies and procedures for the maintenance of quality assurance and control. This paper reviews these developments, with a particular focus on the role of the New Zealand Universities Academic Audit Unit (AAU). In the period February to August 1996, the first full academic audit was undertaken by the AAU at Victoria University of Wellington (VUW). Taking this as a case study, the paper examines some of the issues surrounding quality assurance and audit in higher education and presents a critical review of current directions.

Post occupancy evaluation in New Zealand

The paper describes the development of a POE (post occupancy evaluation) programme for evaluating government buildings in New Zealand. The programme is being developed by a research team at the School of Architecture, VUW (Victoria University of Wellington), under a research contract from the New Zealand MWD (Ministry of Works and Development). The aim of the programme is to enable MWD and its client departments to assess the effectiveness of their buildings and of their delivery, operations and maintenance processes as part of their inhouse activities. The MWD regard the programme as a long term commitment. The VUW research team has therefore concerned itself with developing a flexible programme incorporating a robust evaluation process which can be used by non-expert personnel (in terms of POE experience) on a wide range of buildings. Such an evaluation process is now proposed and its initial testing is complete. This paper outlines that process and discusses the current status of the POE programme.