How I was Denied Scholastic Opportunities by the British Government

This paper describes the difficulties the author had in obtaining twice a UK visa from the British Consulate in Paris. She was once refused an academic visitor visa despite an invitation to conduct research for two years at the Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge. Then, the following year, she was denied again a short visit to attend a conference at the Department of Museum Studies, Leicester University.     

Beginnings: women and geography at Northwestern in the 1960s

This brief article attempts to paint a picture of the social and intellectual atmosphere in which Susan Hanson's postgraduate education took place and then discusses her particular experiences in the Geography Department at Northwestern University. It describes the sexist characteristics of American geographical university education in the 1960s and the competitive and male-dominated environment of Northwestern. It suggests that Susan's experiences at Northwestern were an important influence on her subsequent values, skills and interests as a feminist academic.     

‘Partially provided’: geography at the University of Toronto, 1844–1935

In universities, as in everyday life, there is a fundamental need for geographical knowledge, even when no formal departments exist to provide instruction. This need was true in the University of Toronto during the decades before Griffith Taylor was appointed in 1935 to the first university Chair in geography in English‐speaking Canada. Using matriculation and annual university course examinations, university calendars and the papers of President Falconer and Professors James Mavor and Harold Innis, I trace the development of geography at the University of Toronto from the mid‐nineteenth century to the arrival of Taylor. Courses taught in selected aspects of physical and human geography in the Departments of Geology, Political Economy and History are particularly significant. Underlying this instruction, and also the desire to establish a geography department, was an acute awareness of the fundamental importance of geography to help understand a large regionally complex homeland, and a wider world.     

中大语言历史学研究所与现代中国西南民族研究

本文以中山大学语言历史学研究所的运作理念和学术实践为考察视角,试图将其放入新思潮的背景之下,由个人扩大到群体,对研究所同仁在"科学方法论"指导下开创的西南民族研究及其学术影响作出了讨论。语史所同仁利用其所倡导的田野调查实践和多学科交叉融合等方法对西南民族的调查研究,不仅开启了中国现代西南民族研究之先声,还直接催生了历史学与人类学、民俗学、民族学等诸多交叉学科的形成和新的学术流派的诞生。但是,我们也应该看到,其早期的研究实践也存在着明显的不足:一是由于民族学田野调查缺乏必要的理论指导和学科训练,致使对调查方法和研究分析工具的掌握有欠成熟;二是受研究经费的不足和战乱的影响,导致调查时间的不足,一定程度上影响了调查结论的深度和准确性。     

Pioneering Iranian Studies in Meiji Japan: Between Modern Academia and International Strategy

This article explores the relationship between academic studies concerning Iran in Meiji Japan (1868?1912) and Orientalism in Western scholarship. Many researchers who have limited their definition of Iranian studies to the professional works published since the 1930s have concluded that there is an indirect relation between Iranian studies in Japan and Orientalism. In contrast, this paper takes it in a wider sense to mean all academic studies regarding Iran. The paper focuses on two such important proto-academic fields regarding foreign countries in Meiji Japan: geography and international politics. It concludes that the pioneering Iranian studies scholars in the Meiji period were not totally immune to Orientalism on the one hand but, on the other, that their research on Iran was less closely connected to imperialism than the Western scholarship that Edward Said famously critiqued.     

中研院史语所与北大史学系的学术关系

国立中央研究院历史语言研究所和国立北京大学史学系,是现代中国史学发展史上两个极重要的学术阵地。从20世纪30年代开始,两者建立起紧密的学术关系。以傅斯年为首的史语所研究人员不仅纷纷到北大史学系兼课,而且通过对北大史学系课程进行改造,使两者在学术精神上达到一致。其结果是,一批深受史语所学术精神影响的“尖子生”被培养出来,并被选入史语所工作。北大史学系某种程度上成了史语所的人才库。另一方面,史语所的学术精神,也通过北大史学系对现代中国史学发展发生着持久性的影响。     

Wandering scholars? Academic mobility and the British World, 1850–1940

At the Allied Colonial Universities Conference, held in London in 1903, delegates from across the universities of Britain's settler empire professed the existence of a British academic community, defined not by location, but by shared culture, shared values and shared ethnicity. This article examines the extent to which these claims reflected actual patterns of academic mobility in the settler empire between 1850 and 1940. By mapping the careers of the 350 professors who served at the Universities of Sydney, Toronto, and Manchester during this period, it concludes that, between 1900 and 1930 especially, there existed a distinctly British academic world within which scholars moved frequently along different migratory axes. Though not as united, extensive and uncomplicated as that in which the 1903 Conference delegates believed, this world nonetheless shared more in common with their vision of an expansive British academic community than it did with the image of an unconnected and isolated periphery that has characterised portrayals by subsequent university historians.     

Avoiding the “F” word: feminist geography in Iran

Abstract

Little attention has been given to how feminist geography is defined, applied, and taught in non-Anglophone countries, especially in Muslim majority societies where Women’s Rights are quite different from the western world. The case of Iran among other Middle Eastern countries becomes even more isolated due to the several political, linguistic, and cultural limitations opposed on Iranian academics and international collaborations after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Women make half of Iran’s 80 million population, 63% of university graduates, almost half of informal workers, 30% of Iranian professors, 13% of high level management position holders, and under 5% of the Islamic Majlis (Iran’s Parliament). However, feminist geography, the sub-discipline that has been traditionally dedicated to the inclusion of gender as an analytical lens within Geography, is not a recognized field at any departments in Iran. This essay aims to present the current status of feminist geographic research and teaching at selected Iranian Universities. My goal is to offer a better understanding of how the local social and political context affect what constitute feminist geographic work and how geographers navigate the political and hierarchal university systems to engage in gender studies. Through informal interviews via emails and Skype with several Iranian geographers, I illustrate why Iranian geographers often avoid using “feminist” terminology in recognizing their work, even though their work is feminist.     

ARCHAEOMETRY AT SLOWPOKE‐TORONTO

This paper describes the archaeometric research conducted at the SLOWPOKE Reactor Facility of the University of Toronto (SLOWPOKE‐Toronto) during its existence from 1971 to 1998. The contributions to student teaching and research are described, and the total contribution of the facility to studies of an eclectic assortment of ancient and historic materials is addressed.     

Advice and reflections for a university teacher beginning an academic career

Although graduate programs typically prepare university students well for research activity, many have been less successful in educating for other aspects of academic careers. This article discusses Iain Hay's “Letter to a New University Teacher,” which has been used internationally to help new lecturers beginning their career. Prepared as an autoethnographic account for a recent graduate, “The Letter” distils principles held to underpin a successful academic career. Five university teachers and academic managers discuss critically the content and their applications of “The Letter” and make some suggestions for its use in continuously transforming higher education contexts.     

Internationalisation at Stellenbosch University during the international academic boycott of the apartheid era (1948–1994)

In this article, we address the international dimension of Stellenbosch University (SU) during the apartheid era, most notably during the academic boycott of South African universities between the early 1960s and the early 1990s. Based on information gathered from the documentary sources of the university and interviews with key role players at the university, the findings of the research will put some of the well-established hypotheses on South Africa’s academic isolation and an increasing localism in higher education during that period into perspective. The article will show that prior to 1990 there were different kinds of international activities going on at SU, despite the academic boycotts.     

Academic travel from Cambridge University and the formation of centres of knowledge, 1885–1954

This paper draws attention to academic travel as a key issue in the geographies of knowledge, science and higher education. Building upon recent work in science studies and geography, it is argued that academic travel reveals the wider geography of scientific work and thus of the knowledge and networks involved. By examining academic travel from Cambridge University in the period 1885 to 1954, the study clarifies its role in the development of Cambridge as a modern research university, the emergence of global knowledge centres elsewhere and the development of an Anglo-American academic hegemony in the twentieth century. Using unpublished archival data on all recorded applications for leave of absence by Cambridge University Teaching Officers, it is further explored how the global geographies of academic travel varied among different types of work, thereby exposing distinct hierarchies of spaces of knowledge production and sites of study.     

J.G. Granö and Edgar Kant: Teacher and Pupil, Colleagues and Friends

This paper is adapted from an address given at the plenary session of the conference ’From Native and Landscape Research to Urban and Regional Studies‘ held in Tartu on 23 August, 2002, to mark the birthdays of J.G. Granö (120 years.) and Edgar Kant (100 years). The Finnish geographer J.G. Granö was Professor of Geography at the University of Tartu from 1919 to 1923, a period during which that university became the birthplace of many original geographical ideas. Edgar Kant was beginning his studies at that time, and a link was forged between the two scholars which lasted until Granö's death in 1956. The nature of this interaction and its significance for the history of geographical studies are discussed.     

Peter Berger’s Early Work on Baha’i Studies

At the very beginning of his academic career, Peter Berger made an important contribution to the sociological study of the Babi and Baha’i religions. This article provides an overview of (1) Berger’s early ideas in the sociology of religion; (2) his overall analysis of the Babi and Baha’i movements; (3) his account of the contemporary Iranian Baha’i community; and (4) his impressions of the American Baha’i community of the time. A brief discussion of the continuing value of Berger’s Babi‐Baha’i study in the Sociology of Religion and in Baha’i Studies is also offered.     

The Limits of Sasanian History: Between Iranian,Islamic and Late Antique Studies

This essay discusses the position of Sasanian Studies from its inception in the late nineteenth century, to its reinvigoration at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The work also discusses the development of the field of Sasanian history and civilization vis-à-vis the three fields of Iranian, Islamic and Late Antique Studies. It is posited that Sasanians have benefited from cross-disciplinary and new historical frameworks that go beyond the traditional field of Iranian Studies, which was never as interested in the history of the period.     

傅斯年的大学理念及大学研究所构想

傅斯年高等教育思想中最有价值者,当数其对德国讲座制度的阐释及对大学设置研究所之构想。大学不仅仅是知识传授的中心,更是学术研究的中心,大学教育应当以学术教育为中心,其理想的大学应当是德国研究型的大学。故傅斯年反对在大学中实行年级制,主张实施选课制度。除了实行选课制度和讲座制度之外,傅斯年主张大学应该创办研究所。大学研究所与专业研究所有着明显的不同:前者为大学师生共同研究的性质,是大学教授指导学生共同研究的学术机构,包含着研学相长之意;后者则是专业研究员进行专门研究的机构,无需学生参与。傅斯年的大学研究院设想,基本上是接受和效仿德国讲座制度和研究所制度而来的,与当时教育部仿效美国大学体制而设立研究生院的规定,存在着明显的差异。傅斯年主张大学以讲座制度为基础自然形成专科研究所,进而建成研究型大学。这种认识,直到他主持台湾大学时仍然没有改变。     

清华国学研究院的学术建制及治学精神

清华国学研究院(1925-1929),是在"整理国故"运动中涌现的一个著名学术机构。与同时期其他国学机构相比,清华国学研究院既有援引西学,重建现代学术体系的一面;又有继承儒家教育理想与治学路径,结合西方知识工具,致力于阐发传统学术之特质的一面。因此,清华国学研究院的学术建制,学术社群的治学精神,皆有其鲜明的特性。     

Ethnic Minorities and the Politics of Identity in Iran

The present review essay is of a novel format: two authors working in the same field introduce each other's works, and then pose a number of questions to each other. The aim is to facilitate dialogue between scholars occupied with similar issues, theories, methods or problems, and to share their discussions with others. Here, Alam Saleh, Lecturer in Middle Eastern Politics, University of Exeter, and Rasmus Christian Elling, Assistant Professor of Iranian Studies, University of Copenhagen, introduce each other's recent books on ethnic minorities, identity and nationalism in post-revolution Iran. These introductions are then followed by questions and answers in relation to the topics covered by the books.     

Abstract Cultural Landscapes

Fred B. Kniffen's career as an educator and scholar spanned more than 60 years (1929-1993). The Department of Geography and Anthropology at Louisiana State University, countless undergraduate and graduate students who had the good fortune to study under his thoughtful guidance, and American academic geography all bear an indelible imprint of Kniffen's eclectic interests, academic leadership, meticulous scholarship and innovative teaching. To generations of students, Kniffen was an exemplary role model and kindly "father figure." His students were encouraged to work in the field. As graduate advisor, he ensured that students were well versed in the history and philosophy of the discipline, as well as possessing a broad understanding of both physical geography and cultural anthropology. As an educator, perhaps his most lasting contribution was the work ethic and genuine love and enthusiasm for geography that he imparted to students.     

Pulling Together in Lowell: The University and the Regional Development Process

Universities are increasingly involved in regional economic development and innovation. In the long-established industrial city of Lowell, Massachusetts, in the US north-east, firms, community groups, and various centres, institutes, and academic departments at the University of Massachusetts have been engaged in systematic activities designed to revitalize neighbourhoods and improve industry performance. This paper examines these relationships and assesses changes made at the University since 1990 as it seeks to implement an enhanced regional development mission. An iterative process has begun at Lowell that involves faculty from diverse disciplines and off-campus constituencies. Internal relationships among faculty and between faculty and administrators are being altered, while external relationships are being reconstituted to make certain that the campus listens better and engages the community in collaborative activities in the best land-grant university tradition.