Masculinity and medicine: Thomas Walsingham and the death of the Black Prince

This article examines the nature of the illness that plagued Edward the Black Prince (1330–76) for the last nine years of his life and caused his death. The prince's premature death had profound political repercussions and a discussion of his symptoms provides a lens through which to examine late medieval attitudes to a wide range of social, religious and medical issues. The prince's symptoms, especially those described by Thomas Walsingham in his Chronica maiora, suggest traditional explanations of his death are incorrect. This article offers a number of varied but connected medieval and symbolic interpretations as well as a consideration of methodologies appropriate for analysing such material     

Street music,governance, and cultural policy in San Cristóbal de Las Casas

ABSTRACT

This article takes an ethnographic perspective to explore the changing ways in which the municipal government of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, a city in southern Mexico whose economy is highly dependent on tourism, has regulated street musicians over the last five years. It focuses on permits given to street musicians which served to exert spatial and temporal control over street performance, while giving musicians no substantial rights in practice. Engaging the so-called ‘anarchist turn’ in anthropology, it shows that this policy instrument effectively sidelined non-monetary forms of exchange between musicians and their various publics, and privileged the commercial interests of restaurants and bars. Further, in practice, it pushed some street musicians onto the margins of the city’s economic life, where their performances were often more, rather than less, disruptive. Nonetheless, this situation altered significantly in the wake of social unrest in Summer 2016, which caused a precipitous drop in tourism to the city. The municipal government’s response to the ensuing economic crisis signified a belated recognition of the economic value of street musicianship.     

Remote sensing,GIS, the geospatial technologies,and Unmanned Airborne Vehicles at Aberdeen University

ABSTRACT

Aberdeen University has a long history of using aerial photography, photogrammetry, cartography, remote sensing and surveying in Geography teaching and research. The development of an MSc in Environmental Remote Sensing (ERS) in 1987 offered students a new opportunity to specialise further in this rapidly evolving area of technology. The programme has continued to thrive and the MSc in GIS celebrated its 30th Anniversary in 2017. Recently the degree has included courses on current applications of GIS and web-GIS. The introduction of UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) remote sensing broadened the appeal and competitiveness of the degree, ensuring students have access to cutting edge remote sensing technology. Alongside PhD studies, applied academic research in the Aberdeen Institute for Coastal Science and Management (AICSM), and the Unmanned Airborne Vehicle (UAV)/Unmanned Airborne System (UAS) Centre for Environmental Monitoring and Mapping (UCEMM), make widespread use of GIS and remote sensing. As the geospatial technologies continue to evolve and are integrated with drones the role of education, training and research utilising these technologies will become integral to the Geography degree. Geospatial technologies have and will continue to provide valuable tools and techniques for graduates.     

Towards ‘Embedded Non-creative Work’? Administration,digitisation and the recorded music industry

Abstract

For contemporary cultural policy, ‘non-creative’ work continues to form a conceptual blindspot: a foil to define and value creativity against. This paper develops existing categories to augment the task-focused notion of ‘embedded creativity’ with a more situated view of work’s cultural and institutional embedding. It first interrogates this ‘embeddedness’, taking a ‘cultural economy’ approach to intermediation and administrative support. Drawing on observations from an in-depth qualitative study of employees in major record labels, the second part articulates the heightened importance of ‘admin’ to recorded music industries, after ‘digital disruption’. Routine bureaucratic labour presents an atypical example, revealing much about the hidden relational and identity work that goes into constructing ‘creative industries’ as such. The intention is not to show that ‘embedded non-creative workers’ are in fact ‘creative’ but, on the contrary, to articulate the distinct contributions and value of support work in this context, questioning a persistent reliance on creative/non-creative dualisms. Policy research would benefit from enriched understanding of culture's assembly in marketable objects, reorienting understandings of ‘cultural’ labour markets and careers, and reimagining the role of traditional cultural ‘administration’ in the contemporary ‘creative economy’.