Google earth and the archaeology of Saudi Arabia. A case study from the Jeddah area

Archaeologically, Saudi Arabia is one of the least explored parts of the Middle East. Now, thanks to Google Earth satellite imagery, a number of high-resolution ‘windows’ have been opened onto the landscape. Initial investigations already suggest large parts of the country are immensely rich in archaeological remains and most of those identified are certainly pre-Islamic and probably several thousand years old. Detailed interpretation of one ‘window’ east of Jeddah forms the basis for illustrating the richness of the heritage and how the satellite imagery can be exploited to shed important light on the character and development of the human landscape. Through this ‘window’ we set out a proposed methodology for future work and where it may lead.     

The Imperialism of Internment: Boer Prisoners of War in India and Civic Reconstruction in Southern Africa, 1899–1905

During the course of the Anglo-Boer War of 1899–1902, over 9,000 captured Boers were sent abroad to India as prisoners of war. Using hitherto unexamined sources, this article explores how, during their internment and repatriation, British officials and administrators across the empire collaborated in a concerted attempt to transform the imperial enemy into colonial collaborator. This involved a necessarily intercolonial effort to conduct a successful programme of ‘re-education’ capable of cultivating ‘white’ British virtues in preparing Boer POWs for their future rights and duties in reconstructing Southern Africa upon their repatriation. In so doing, the government of India and other colonial officials across the empire thus recapitulated their ideal of Britain’s imperial project in the Boer POW camps. Highlighting the intercoloniality of this process, India’s viceroy, Lord George Curzon, played as prominent a role as did the War Office, or South Africa’s soon-to-be pro-consul, Lord Alfred Milner. The microcosmic imperialism of Boer internment thus reveals a great deal about the nature and structure of power within the British Empire, and emphasises the value of an intercolonial or transcolonial perspective in examining the complex, global consequences of the Anglo-Boer War.     

Open Annotation and Close Reading the Victorian Text: Using Hypothes.is with Students

Observers of the digital humanities often see them as shifting literary study away from close reading. However, the digital humanities also present opportunities to refine our capabilities for close reading. These digital reading tools, often useful to scholars, may be just as helpful in the classroom. Students working on long Victorian texts often resist close reading. Ideally, they will have multiple low-pressure opportunities to practice this skill. Open annotation provides a frequent, collegial assignment to help students gain the habit of turning to specific moments in the text for their examples. Hypothes.is is an open-source project facilitating group annotation of any online text; it requires users to anchor any comment in a specific text passage while enabling privacy, conversation threads, and easy grading. This essay offers a commentary on open annotation in the classroom, growing out of the particular challenges and rewards of the course where it was used. Students’ experiences of the text were indisputably enriched by their work with Hypothes.is, but the assignment works best with careful framing and support due to students’ unfamiliarity with the technology.     

Student field experiences: designing for different instructors and variable weather

This study compares the field experience and development of sense of place (in this case, human attributed meanings and attachments to the field area) in geoscience students on three separate course sections of a six-day introductory geological mapping field trip. Students stayed in a small farm station within their 4 km² field area, worked in groups of three or four, and produced an individual final assessment. Findings from student interviews and pre-post surveys indicated that there were no significant differences in perceptions of the field trip purpose or sense of place between field trip sections, despite differences in instructor pedagogy and sense of place, as well as varied weather conditions. There were significant increases in student sense of place on all field trips, in contrast with previous work on a “roadside” (regional, multi-site) field trip where no significant change in sense of place occurred. In-field observations and instructor interviews identified key characteristics that supported similar sense of place and experiences on all trips: (1) consistent intended learning outcomes, (2) a carefully selected and immersive field area valued by instructors, and (3) an assessment connected to the landscape/field area with flexibility in its implementation, especially when faced with adverse weather conditions.     

The Boundaries of Oxford's Empire

ANDREW PORTER, ed. The Oxford History of the British Empire. III: The Nineteenth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. xxii, 774. $72.00 (CDN); JUDITH M. BROWN and WM. ROGER LOUIS, eds. The Oxford History of the British Empire: IV: The Twentieth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. xxvi, 773. $72.00 (CDN); ROBIN W. WINKS, ed. The Oxford History of the British Empire: V: Historiography. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. xxiv, 731. $79.95 (CDN).