Podcasts about Pitt Rivers Museum

What happens when one of the most traditional museums in the world revolutionises the way it presents the story of the past?  The answer is not only a riot of craft and colour, but a reminder of the crucial role of textiles in framing our histories.   The Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford, in the UK, has just added 15 brand new, intensely colourful Hawaiian quilts to its collection of extraordinary artifacts. These skilfully stitched quilts were specially made for the Museum, which holds more than half a million precious objects from all over the world and from all periods of human existence.   Quilting is a craft that over two hundred years Hawaiians have made very much their own – although it was first brought to the islands by incomers. They have developed a unique style that embeds the deep beliefs and rituals of Hawaiian life and keeps them alive in the designing, making, and gifting of these beautiful quilts.   For more information about this episode and pictures of the people and places mentioned in this episode please go to https://hapticandhue.com/tales-of-textiles-series-7/.   And if you would like to find out about Friends of Haptic & Hue with an extra podcast every month hosted by Jo Andrews and Bill Taylor – here's the link: https://hapticandhue.com/join/  

This is the sound installation of the Migration Sounds project, presented in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford. Please note that the sounds are panned left and right, and this was designed to be played in a large physical space, so it is likely to sound somewhat unusual through headphones or in particular close sets of speakers. In this installation, on one side of the space listeners could hear the original field recordings, while on the opposite side they could hear the corresponding composition based on that recording.  Listeners created their own sound mix by moving around the space - their experience and perspective changed depending on their physical location. The recordings and compositions are time-synced, and change to a new location every 60-90 seconds. The installation loops every 53 minutes.The sounds take us on a journey from west to east around the world, from the west coast of the USA to New Zealand. You can read more about the sounds at this page, and the locations and artist credits are below: https://citiesandmemory.com/2024/11/pitt-rivers-sound-installation-november-2024/ Directory of sounds San Francisco, USA Recorded by Wendy Baker Reimagined by Finlay Ellis  Portland, USA Recorded by Benjamin Glas-Hochstettler Reimagined by Kid Kin  Louisville, USA Recorded by Aaron Rosenblum Reimagined by current flow Ω   New York, USA Recorded by Cities and Memory Reimagined by Bill Stevens  Hamilton, Canada Recorded by Nala Ismacil Reimagined by Simon Holmes  Zitacuaro, Mexico Recorded by Christine Renaudat Reimagined by Elissa Goodrich  Cartagena, Colombia Recorded by Christine Renaudat Reimagined by Amanda Stuart  Buenos Aires, Argentina Recorded by Christine Brebes Reimagined by Emmy Tither  Scarinish, Scotland Recorded by Simon Holmes Reimagined by Cristina Marras  Oxford, England Recorded by Rob McNeil Reimagined by Tom Thompson  Oxford, England Recorded by Nuni Jorgensen Reimagined by Ruby Singh  London, England Recorded by Cities and Memory Reimagined by Jaspal Singh Bhogal  London, England Recorded by Maria Margaronis Reimagined by Luca Piovesan  London, England Recorded by Cities and Memory Reimagined by Ale Borea  Calais, France Recorded by anonymous Reimagined by Glacis  Düren, Germany Recorded by Xenia Penko Reimagined by Amy Sterly  Bremen, Germany Recorded by Pedro Oliveira Reimagined by Cecilia Pez  Sidi Bou Said, Tunisia Recorded by Rafael Diogo Reimagined by Anna Vienna Ho  Villa del Conte, Italy Recorded by Giulia Biasibetti Reimagined by Rob Knight  Sagrado, Italy Recorded by Simon Šerc and Martina Testen Reimagined by Kim[bal]  Ljubljana, Slovenia Recorded by Görkem Özdemir Reimagined by Laura Romero Valldecabres  Ljubljana, Slovenia Recorded by Görkem Özdemir Reimagined by Flexagon  Velika Kladuša, Bosnia Herzegovina Recorded by Beat Theofried Alto Sandkühler Reimagined by Alison Beattie  Krakow, Poland Recorded by Andrii Shamanov Reimagined by Judith Mann  Mediterranean Sea between Libya and Italy Recorded by Frey Lindsay Reimagined by Odyssey Ensemble  Mediterranean Sea between Libya and Italy Recorded by Frey Lindsay Reimagined by Cities and Memory  Mediterranean Sea between Libya and Italy Recorded by Frey Lindsay Reimagined by Cristian Estrella  Chios, Greece Recorded by Maria Margaronis Reimagined by Museleon  Lesvos, Greece Recorded by Maria Margaronis Reimagined by Ana Mora  Eidomeni, Greece Recorded by Maria Margaronis Reimagined by Arozian with Samantha Hannan  Kigali, Rwanda Recorded by Carlos Vargas-Silva Reimagined by figurehead  South Sinai, Egypt Recorded by Rafael Diogo Reimagined by Andy Billington  Nicosia, Cyprus Recorded by Serge Bulat Reimagined by Mark Baker  Jerusalem, Israel Recorded by Rafael Diogo Reimagined by Chris Sakellaridis  Bethlehem, Palestine Recorded by Rafael Diogo Reimagined by Deep Dive Sound  Tumanyan, Armenia Recorded by Maria Gunko Reimagined by Bill McKenna  Tehran, Iran Recorded by Saadi Daftari Reimagined by SINE  Tashkent, Uzbekistan Recorded by Vladimir Bocharov Reimagined by Arvik Torrenssen  Tashkent, Uzbekistan Recorded by Vladimir Bocharov Reimagined by Jeff Düngfelder  Tashkent, Uzbekistan Recorded by Vladimir Bocharov Reimagined by Nicolo Scolieri  Kolkata, India Recorded by Sourya Sen Reimagined by Maria Margaronis  Xiamen, China Recorded by Qianyi Alice Li Reimagined by Cristina Italiani  Makati, Philippines Recorded by Elaine Lazaro Reimagined by Christine Renaudat  Woodend, Australia Recorded by Rob McNeil Reimagined by Chris Taylor  Lower Hutt, New Zealand Recorded by Hee-Jin Kim Reimagined by Grigor Ćorić

Artist and archivist Pio Abad draws out lines between Oxford, the Americas, and the Philippines, making personal connections with historic collections, and reconstructing networks of trafficking, tattooing, and 20th century dictatorships. Pio Abad's practice is deeply informed by world histories, with a particular focus on the Philippines. Here, he was born and raised in a family of activists, at a time of conflict and corruption under the conjugal dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos (1965-1986). His detailed reconstructions of their collection - acquired under the pseudonyms of Jane Ryan and William Saunders - expose Western/Europe complicities in Asian colonial histories, from Credit Suisse to the American Republican Party, and critique how many museums collect, display, and interpret the objects they hold today. In his first UK exhibition in a decade, titled for Mark Twain's anti-imperial satire, ‘To the Person Sitting in Darkness' (1901), Pio connects both local and global histories. With works across drawing, text, and sculpture, produced in collaboration with his partner, Frances Wadworth Jones, he reengages objects found at the University of Oxford, the Pitt Rivers Museum, St John's College, and Blenheim Palace - with histories often marginalised, ignored, or forgotten. He shares why his works often focus on the body, and how two tiaras, here reproduced in bronze, connect the Romanovs of the Russian Empire, to the Royal Family in the UK, all via Christie's auction house. Pio shares why he often shows alongside other artists, like Carlos Villa, and the political practice of Pacita Abad, a textile artist and his aunt. He talks about the ‘diasporic' objects in this display, his interest in jewellery, and use of media from bronze, to ‘monumental' marble. Finally, Pio suggests how objects are not things, but travelling ‘networks of relationships', challenging binaries of East and West, and historic and contemporary experiences, and locating himself within the archives. Ashmolean NOW: Pio Abad: To Those Sitting in Darkness runs at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford until 8 September 2024, accompanied by a full exhibition catalogue. Fear of Freedom Makes Us See Ghosts, Pio's forthcoming exhibition book, is co-published by Ateneo Art Gallery and Hato Press, and available online from the end of May 2025. For other artists who've worked with objects in Oxford's museum collections, read about: - Ashmolean NOW: Flora Yukhnovich and Daniel Crews-Chubbs, at the Ashmolean Museum. - Marina Abramović: Gates and Portals, at Modern Art Oxford and the Pitt Rivers Museum. For more about the history of the Spanish Empire in the Philippines, listen to Dr. Stephanie Porras' EMPIRE LINES on an ⁠Ivory Statue of St. Michael the Archangel, Basilica of Guadalupe (17th Century)⁠. And hear Taloi Havini, another artist working with Silverlens Gallery in the Philippines, on Habitat (2017), at Mostyn Gallery for Artes Mundi 10. WITH: Pio Abad, London-based artist, concerned with the personal and political entanglements of objects. His wide-ranging body of work, encompassing drawing, painting, textiles, installation and text, mines alternative or repressed historical events and offers counternarratives that draw out threads of complicity between incidents, ideologies and people. He is also the curator of the estate of his aunt, the Filipino American artist Pacita Abad. PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic. Follow EMPIRE LINES on Instagram: ⁠instagram.com/empirelinespodcast⁠ And Twitter: ⁠twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936⁠ Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: ⁠patreon.com/empirelines

Show Notes:00:37 and 0:41 - Big Island00:42 - Hawaii island00:45 - Hilo00:52 - Oahu01:28 - Hawaiian pattern folded into eighths demo (fast forward to approx. 2:21 min)01:47 - Echo lines03:08 - Hawaiian flag quilt03:24 - Breadfruit (ulu) traditional quilt block 03:58 - Hibiscus traditional block04:00 - Monstera traditional block04:03 - Anthurium plumeria traditional block04:11 and 4:27- Breadfruit (ulu) traditional quilt block 05:44 - Mainland05:45 - Texas09:16 - John Serrao13:36 - Texas13:40 - Batting loft19:13 - Piko20:18 - Poakalani quilt group20:28 - Serrao family20:32 and 20:43 - John Serrao20:45 - Hawaiian Quilting by Elizabeth Root20:54 - Pacific Rim Quilting21:01 - Poakalani Hawaiian Quilts YouTube Channel with Sissy's videos21:38 - Poakalani quilt group22:02 and 22:38 - Mainland23:24 - Oxford, England23:49 - Pitt Rivers Museum 23:54 - Oxford University23:57 - Poakalani quilt group24:06 - Cissy Serrao24:33 - John Serrao25:12 - New York25:50 - Boston Museum of Fine Arts26:19 - John Serraro's ulu design26:44 - Cissy Serrao27:00 - Maui rose 27:03 - Lei Pua Blossom for the Big island27:40 - John Serrao28:10 - Boston Museum of Fine Arts28:12 - Jennifer Swope (listen to episode 40 to learn more about her and her work)28:20 - Cissy Serrao28:23 and 29:55 - Boston Museum of Fine Arts31:18 - Michael Jackson31:29 - Monstera traditional block32:26 - Poakalani Quilts website32:33 - John Serrao32:35 - Cissy Serrao33:32 - I Love Hawaiian Quilts Facebook page33:56 - Poakalani Quilts website34:01 - Queen Emma Summer Palace34:10 - Hawaii Quilt GuildFollow Pat:Instagram - @HawaiianQuiltsByPatFollow Us:Amanda: @broadclothstudio https://broadclothstudio.com/Wendy: @the.weekendquilter https://the - weekendquilter.com/Quilt Buzz: @quilt.buzzhttps://quiltbuzzpodcast.com/Intro/Outro Music:Golden Hour by Vlad Gluschenko

A conversation with Tim Hwang about historical simulations, the interaction of policy and science, analogies between research ecosystems and the economy, and so much more.  Topics Historical Simulations Macroscience Macro-metrics for science Long science The interaction between science and policy Creative destruction in research “Regulation” for scientific markets Indicators for the health of a field or science as a whole “Metabolism of Science” Science rotation programs Clock speeds of Regulation vs Clock Speeds of Technology References Macroscience Substack Ada Palmer's Papal Simulation Think Tank Tycoon Universal Paperclips (Paperclip maximizer html game) Pitt Rivers Museum   Transcript [00:02:02] Ben: Wait, so tell me more about the historical LARP that you're doing. Oh, [00:02:07] Tim: yeah. So this comes from like something I've been thinking about for a really long time, which is You know in high school, I did model UN and model Congress, and you know, I really I actually, this is still on my to do list is to like look into the back history of like what it was in American history, where we're like, this is going to become an extracurricular, we're going to model the UN, like it has all the vibe of like, after World War II, the UN is a new thing, we got to teach kids about international institutions. Anyways, like, it started as a joke where I was telling my [00:02:35] friend, like, we should have, like, model administrative agency. You know, you should, like, kids should do, like, model EPA. Like, we're gonna do a rulemaking. Kids need to submit. And, like, you know, there'll be Chevron deference and you can challenge the rule. And, like, to do that whole thing. Anyways, it kind of led me down this idea that, like, our, our notion of simulation, particularly for institutions, is, like, Interestingly narrow, right? And particularly when it comes to historical simulation, where like, well we have civil war reenactors, they're kind of like a weird dying breed, but they're there, right? But we don't have like other types of historical reenactments, but like, it might be really valuable and interesting to create communities around that. And so like I was saying before we started recording, is I really want to do one that's a simulation of the Cuban Missile Crisis. But like a serious, like you would like a historical reenactment, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's like everybody would really know their characters. You know, if you're McNamara, you really know what your motivations are and your background. And literally a dream would be a weekend simulation where you have three teams. One would be the Kennedy administration. The other would be, you know, Khrushchev [00:03:35] and the Presidium. And the final one would be the, the Cuban government. Yeah. And to really just blow by blow, simulate that entire thing. You know, the players would attempt to not blow up the world, would be the idea. [00:03:46] Ben: I guess that's actually the thing to poke, in contrast to Civil War reenactment. Sure, like you know how [00:03:51] Tim: that's gonna end. Right, [00:03:52] Ben: and it, I think it, that's the difference maybe between, in my head, a simulation and a reenactment, where I could imagine a simulation going [00:04:01] Tim: differently. Sure, right. [00:04:03] Ben: Right, and, and maybe like, is the goal to make sure the same thing happened that did happen, or is the goal to like, act? faithfully to [00:04:14] Tim: the character as possible. Yeah, I think that's right, and I think both are interesting and valuable, right? But I think one of the things I'm really interested in is, you know, I want to simulate all the characters, but like, I think one of the most interesting things reading, like, the historical record is just, like, operating under deep uncertainty about what's even going on, right? Like, for a period of time, the American [00:04:35] government is not even sure what's going on in Cuba, and, like, you know, this whole question of, like, well, do we preemptively bomb Cuba? Do we, we don't even know if the, like, the warheads on the island are active. And I think I would want to create, like, similar uncertainty, because I think that's where, like, that's where the strategic vision comes in, right? That, like, you have the full pressure of, like, Maybe there's bombs on the island. Maybe there's not even bombs on the island, right? And kind of like creating that dynamic. And so I think simulation is where there's a lot, but I think Even reenactment for some of these things is sort of interesting. Like, that we talk a lot about, like, oh, the Cuban Missile Crisis. Or like, the other joke I had was like, we should do the Manhattan Project, but the Manhattan Project as, like, historical reenactment, right? And it's kind of like, you know, we have these, like, very, like off the cuff or kind of, like, stereotype visions of how these historical events occur. And they're very stylized. Yeah, exactly, right. And so the benefit of a reenactment that is really in detail Yeah. is like, oh yeah, there's this one weird moment. You know, like that, that ends up being really revealing historical examples. And so even if [00:05:35] you can't change the outcome, I think there's also a lot of value in just doing the exercise. Yeah. Yeah. The, the thought of [00:05:40] Ben: in order to drive towards this outcome that I know. Actually happened I wouldn't as the character have needed to do X. That's right That's like weird nuanced unintuitive thing, [00:05:50] Tim: right? Right and there's something I think about even building into the game Right, which is at the very beginning the Russians team can make the decision on whether or not they've even actually deployed weapons into the cube at all, yeah, right and so like I love that kind of outcome right which is basically like And I think that's great because like, a lot of this happens on the background of like, we know the history. Yeah. Right? And so I think like, having the team, the US team put under some pressure of uncertainty. Yeah. About like, oh yeah, they could have made the decision at the very beginning of this game that this is all a bluff. Doesn't mean anything. Like it's potentially really interesting and powerful, so. [00:06:22] Ben: One precedent I know for this completely different historical era, but there's a historian, Ada Palmer, who runs [00:06:30] Tim: a simulation of a people election in her class every year. That's so good. [00:06:35] And [00:06:36] Ben: it's, there, you know, like, it is not a simulation. [00:06:40] Tim: Or, [00:06:41] Ben: sorry, excuse me, it is not a reenactment. In the sense that the outcome is indeterminate. [00:06:47] Tim: Like, the students [00:06:48] Ben: can determine the outcome. But... What tends to happen is like structural factors emerge in the sense that there's always a war. Huh. The question is who's on which sides of the war? Right, right. And what do the outcomes of the war actually entail? That's right. Who [00:07:05] Tim: dies? Yeah, yeah. And I [00:07:07] Ben: find that that's it's sort of Gets at the heart of the, the great [00:07:12] Tim: man theory versus the structural forces theory. That's right. Yeah. Like how much can these like structural forces actually be changed? Yeah. And I think that's one of the most interesting parts of the design that I'm thinking about right now is kind of like, what are the things that you want to randomize to impose different types of like structural factors that could have been in that event? Right? Yeah. So like one of the really big parts of the debate at XCOM in the [00:07:35] early phases of the Cuban Missile Crisis is You know, McNamara, who's like, right, he runs the Department of Defense at the time. His point is basically like, look, whether or not you have bombs in Cuba or you have bombs like in Russia, the situation has not changed from a military standpoint. Like you can fire an ICBM. It has exactly the same implications for the U. S. And so his, his basically his argument in the opening phases of the Cuban Missile Crisis is. Yeah. Which is actually pretty interesting, right? Because that's true. But like, Kennedy can't just go to the American people and say, well, we've already had missiles pointed at us. Some more missiles off, you know, the coast of Florida is not going to make a difference. Yeah. And so like that deep politics, and particularly the politics of the Kennedy administration being seen as like weak on communism. Yeah. Is like a huge pressure on all the activity that's going on. And so it's almost kind of interesting thinking about the Cuban Missile Crisis, not as like You know us about to blow up the world because of a truly strategic situation but more because of like the local politics make it so difficult to create like You know situations where both sides can back down [00:08:35] successfully. Basically. Yeah [00:08:36] Ben: The the one other thing that my mind goes to actually to your point about it model UN in schools. Huh, right is Okay, what if? You use this as a pilot, and then you get people to do these [00:08:49] Tim: simulations at [00:08:50] Ben: scale. Huh. And that's actually how we start doing historical counterfactuals. Huh. Where you look at, okay, you know, a thousand schools all did a simulation of the Cuban Missile Crisis. In those, you know, 700 of them blew [00:09:05] Tim: up the world. Right, right. [00:09:07] Ben: And it's, it actually, I think it's, That's the closest [00:09:10] Tim: thing you can get to like running the tape again. Yeah. I think that's right. And yeah, so I think it's, I think it's a really underused medium in a lot of ways. And I think particularly as like you know, we just talk, talk like pedagogically, like it's interesting that like, it seems to me that there was a moment in American pedagogical history where like, this is a good way of teaching kids. Like, different types of institutions. And like, but it [00:09:35] hasn't really matured since that point, right? Of course, we live in all sorts of interesting institutions now. And, and under all sorts of different systems that we might really want to simulate. Yeah. And so, yeah, this kind of, at least a whole idea that there's lots of things you could teach if you, we like kind of opened up this way of kind of like, Thinking about kind of like educating for about institutions. Right? So [00:09:54] Ben: that is so cool. Yeah, I'm going to completely, [00:09:59] Tim: Change. Sure. Of course. [00:10:01] Ben: So I guess. And the answer could be no, but is, is there connections between this and your sort of newly launched macroscience [00:10:10] Tim: project? There is and there isn't. Yeah, you know, I think like the whole bid of macroscience which is this project that I'm doing as part of my IFP fellowship. Yeah. Is really the notion that like, okay, we have all these sort of like interesting results that have come out of metascience. That kind of give us like, kind of like the beginnings of a shape of like, okay, this is how science might work and how we might like get progress to happen. And you know, we've got [00:10:35] like a bunch of really compelling hypotheses. Yeah. And I guess my bit has been like, I kind of look at that and I squint and I'm like, we're, we're actually like kind of in the early days of like macro econ, but for science, right? Which is like, okay, well now we have some sense of like the dynamics of how the science thing works. What are the levers that we can start, like, pushing and pulling, and like, what are the dials we could be turning up and turning down? And, and, you know, I think there is this kind of transition that happens in macro econ, which is like, we have these interesting results and hypotheses, but there's almost another... Generation of work that needs to happen into being like, oh, you know, we're gonna have this thing called the interest rate Yeah, and then we have all these ways of manipulating the money supply and like this is a good way of managing like this economy Yeah, right and and I think that's what I'm chasing after with this kind of like sub stack but hopefully the idea is to build it up into like a more coherent kind of framework of ideas about like How do we make science policy work in a way that's better than just like more science now quicker, please? Yeah, right, which is I think we're like [00:11:35] we're very much at at the moment. Yeah, and in particular I'm really interested in the idea of chasing after science almost as like a Dynamic system, right? Which is that like the policy levers that you have You would want to, you know, tune up and tune down, strategically, at certain times, right? And just like the way we think about managing the economy, right? Where you're like, you don't want the economy to overheat. You don't want it to be moving too slow either, right? Like, I am interested in kind of like, those types of dynamics that need to be managed in science writ large. And so that's, that's kind of the intuition of the project. [00:12:04] Ben: Cool. I guess, like, looking at macro, how did we even decide, macro econ, [00:12:14] Tim: how did we even decide that the things that we're measuring are the right things to measure? Right? Like, [00:12:21] Ben: isn't it, it's like kind of a historical contingency that, you know, it's like we care about GDP [00:12:27] Tim: and the interest rate. Yeah. I think that's right. I mean in, in some ways there's a triumph of like. It's a normative triumph, [00:12:35] right, I think is the argument. And you know, I think a lot of people, you hear this argument, and it'll be like, And all econ is made up. But like, I don't actually think that like, that's the direction I'm moving in. It's like, it's true. Like, a lot of the things that we selected are arguably arbitrary. Yeah. Right, like we said, okay, we really value GDP because it's like a very imperfect but rough measure of like the economy, right? Yeah. Or like, oh, we focus on, you know, the money supply, right? And I think there's kind of two interesting things that come out of that. One of them is like, There's this normative question of like, okay, what are the building blocks that we think can really shift the financial economy writ large, right, of which money supply makes sense, right? But then the other one I think which is so interesting is like, there's a need to actually build all these institutions. that actually give you the lever to pull in the first place, right? Like, without a federal reserve, it becomes really hard to do monetary policy. Right. Right? Like, without a notion of, like, fiscal policy, it's really hard to do, like, Keynesian as, like, demand side stuff. Right. Right? And so, like, I think there's another project, which is a [00:13:35] political project, to say... Okay, can we do better than just grants? Like, can we think about this in a more, like, holistic way than simply we give money to the researchers to work on certain types of problems. And so this kind of leads to some of the stuff that I think we've talked about in the past, which is like, you know, so I'm obsessed right now with like, can we influence the time horizon of scientific institutions? Like, imagine for a moment we had a dial where we're like, On average, scientists are going to be thinking about a research agenda which is 10 years from now versus next quarter. Right. Like, and I think like there's, there's benefits and deficits to both of those settings. Yeah. But man, if I don't hope that we have a, a, a government system that allows us to kind of dial that up and dial that down as we need it. Right. Yeah. The, the, [00:14:16] Ben: perhaps, quite like, I guess a question of like where the analogy like holds and breaks down. That I, that I wonder about is, When you're talking about the interest rate for the economy, it kind of makes sense to say [00:14:35] what is the time horizon that we want financial institutions to be thinking on. That's like roughly what the interest rate is for, but it, and maybe this is, this is like, I'm too, [00:14:49] Tim: my note, like I'm too close to the macro, [00:14:51] Ben: but thinking about. The fact that you really want people doing science on like a whole spectrum of timescales. And, and like, this is a ill phrased question, [00:15:06] Tim: but like, I'm just trying to wrap my mind around it. Are you saying basically like, do uniform metrics make sense? Yeah, exactly. For [00:15:12] Ben: like timescale, I guess maybe it's just. is an aggregate thing. [00:15:16] Tim: Is that? That's right. Yeah, I think that's, that's, that's a good critique. And I think, like, again, I think there's definitely ways of taking the metaphor too far. Yeah. But I think one of the things I would say back to that is It's fine to imagine that we might not necessarily have an interest rate for all of science, right? So, like, you could imagine saying, [00:15:35] okay, for grants above a certain size, like, we want to incentivize certain types of activity. For grants below a certain size, we want different types of activity. Right, another way of slicing it is for this class of institutions, we want them to be thinking on these timescales versus those timescales. Yeah. The final one I've been thinking about is another way of slicing it is, let's abstract away institutions and just think about what is the flow of all the experiments that are occurring in a society? Yeah. And are there ways of manipulating, like, the relative timescales there, right? And that's almost like, kind of like a supply based way of looking at it, which is... All science is doing is producing experiments, which is like true macro, right? Like, I'm just like, it's almost offensively simplistic. And then I'm just saying like, okay, well then like, yeah, what are the tools that we have to actually influence that? Yeah, and I think there's lots of things you could think of. Yeah, in my mind. Yeah, absolutely. What are some, what are some that are your thinking of? Yeah, so I think like the two that I've been playing around with right now, one of them is like the idea of like, changing the flow of grants into the system. So, one of the things I wrote about in Microscience just the past week was to think [00:16:35] about, like sort of what I call long science, right? And so the notion here is that, like, if you look across the scientific economy, there's kind of this rough, like, correlation between size of grant and length of grant. Right, where so basically what it means is that like long science is synonymous with big science, right? You're gonna do a big ambitious project. Cool. You need lots and lots and lots of money Yeah and so my kind of like piece just briefly kind of argues like but we have these sort of interesting examples like the You know Like framing a heart study which are basically like low expense taking place over a long period of time and you're like We don't really have a whole lot of grants that have that Yeah. Right? And so the idea is like, could we encourage that? Like imagine if we could just increase the flow of those types of grants, that means we could incentivize more experiments that take place like at low cost over long term. Yeah. Right? Like, you know, and this kind of gets this sort of interesting question is like, okay, so what's the GDP here? Right? Like, or is that a good way of cracking some of the critical problems that we need to crack right now? Right? Yeah. And it's kind of where the normative part gets into [00:17:35] it is like, okay. So. You know, one way of looking at this is the national interest, right? We say, okay, well, we really want to win on AI. We really want to win on, like, bioengineering, right? Are there problems in that space where, like, really long term, really low cost is actually the kind of activity we want to be encouraging? The answer might be no, but I think, like, it's useful for us to have, like, that. Color in our palette of things that we could be doing Yeah. In like shaping the, the dynamics of science. Yeah. Yeah. [00:18:01] Ben: I, I mean, one of the things that I feel like is missing from the the meta science discussion Mm-Hmm. is, is even just, what are those colors? Mm-Hmm. like what, what are the, the different and almost parameters of [00:18:16] Tim: of research. Yeah. Right, right, right. And I think, I don't know, one of the things I've been thinking about, which I'm thinking about writing about at some point, right, is like this, this view is, this view is gonna piss people off in some ways, because where it ultimately goes is this idea that, like, like, the scientist or [00:18:35] science Is like a system that's subject to the government, or subject to a policy maker, or a strategist. Which like, it obviously is, right? But like, I think we have worked very hard to believe that like, The scientific market is its own independent thing, And like, that touching or messing with it is like, a not, not a thing you should do, right? But we already are. True, that's kind of my point of view, yeah exactly. I think we're in some ways like, yeah I know I've been reading a lot about Keynes, I mean it is sort of interesting that it does mirror... Like this kind of like Great Depression era economic thinking, where you're basically like the market takes care of itself, like don't intervene. In fact, intervening is like the worst possible thing you could do because you're only going to make this worse. And look, I think there's like definitely examples of like kind of like command economy science that like don't work. Yes. But like, you know, like I think most mature people who work in economics would say there's some room for like at least like Guiding the system. Right. And like keeping it like in balance is like [00:19:35] a thing that should be attempted and I think it's kind of like the, the, the argument that I'm making here. Yeah. Yeah. I [00:19:41] Ben: mean, I think that's, [00:19:42] Tim: that's like the meta meta thing. Right. Right. Is even [00:19:46] Ben: what, what level of intervention, like, like what are the ways in which you can like usefully intervene and which, and what are the things that are, that are foolish and kind of. crEate the, the, [00:20:01] Tim: Command economy. That's right. Yeah, exactly. Right. Right. And I think like, I think the way through is, is maybe in the way that I'm talking about, right? Which is like, you can imagine lots of bad things happen when you attempt to pick winners, right? Like maybe the policymaker whoever we want to think of that as like, is it the NSF or NIH or whatever? Like, you know, sitting, sitting in their government bureaucracy, right? Like, are they well positioned to make a choice about who's going to be the right solution to a problem? Maybe yes, maybe no. I think we can have a debate about that, right? But I think there's a totally reasonable position, which is they're not in it, so they're not well positioned to make that call. Yeah. [00:20:35] Right? But, are they well positioned to maybe say, like, if we gave them a dial that was like, we want researchers to be thinking about this time horizon versus that time horizon? Like, that's a control that they actually may be well positioned to inform on. Yeah. As an outsider, right? Yeah. Yeah. And some of this I think, like, I don't know, like, the piece I'm working on right now, which will be coming out probably Tuesday or Wednesday, is you know, some of this is also like encouraging creative destruction, right? Which is like, I'm really intrigued by the idea that like academic fields can get so big that they become they impede progress. Yes. Right? And so this is actually a form of like, I like, it's effectively an intellectual antitrust. Yeah. Where you're basically like, Basically, like the, the role of the scientific regulator is to basically say these fields have gotten so big that they are actively reducing our ability to have good dynamism in the marketplace of ideas. And in this case, we will, we will announce new grant policies that attempt to break this up. And I actually think that like, that is pretty spicy for a funder to do. But like actually maybe part of their role and maybe we should normalize that [00:21:35] being part of their role. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. [00:21:37] Ben: I I'm imagining a world where There are, where this, like, sort of the macro science is as divisive as [00:21:47] Tim: macroeconomics. [00:21:48] Ben: Right? Because you have, you have your like, your, your like, hardcore free market people. Yeah. Zero government intervention. Yeah, that's right. No antitrust. No like, you know, like abolish the Fed. Right, right. All of that. Yeah, yeah. And I look forward to the day. When there's there's people who are doing the same thing for research. [00:22:06] Tim: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah when I think that's actually I mean I thought part of a lot of meta science stuff I think is this kind of like interesting tension, which is that like look politically a lot of those people in the space are Pro free market, you know, like they're they're they're liberals in the little L sense. Yeah, like at the same time Like it is true that kind of like laissez faire science Has failed because we have all these examples of like progress slowing down Right? Like, I don't know. Like, I think [00:22:35] that there is actually this interesting tension, which is like, to what degree are we okay with intervening in science to get better outcomes? Yeah. Right? Yeah. Well, as, [00:22:43] Ben: as I, I might put on my hat and say, Yeah, yeah. Maybe, maybe this is, this is me saying true as a fair science has never been tried. Huh, right. Right? Like, that, that, that may be kind of my position. Huh. But anyways, I... And I would argue that, you know, since 1945, we have been, we haven't had laissez faire [00:23:03] Tim: science. Oh, interesting. [00:23:04] Ben: Huh. Right. And so I'm, yeah, I mean, it's like, this is in [00:23:09] Tim: the same way that I think [00:23:11] Ben: a very hard job for macroeconomics is to say, well, like, do we need [00:23:15] Tim: more or less intervention? Yeah. Yeah. [00:23:17] Ben: What is the case there? I think it's the same thing where. You know, a large amount of science funding does come from the government, and the government is opinionated about what sorts of things [00:23:30] Tim: it funds. Yeah, right. Right. And you [00:23:33] Ben: can go really deep into that. [00:23:35] So, so I [00:23:35] Tim: would. Yeah, that's actually interesting. That flips it. It's basically like the current state of science. is right now over regulated, is what you'd say, right? Or, or [00:23:44] Ben: badly regulated. Huh, sure. That is the argument I would say, very concretely, is that it's badly regulated. And, you know, I might almost argue that it is... It's both over and underregulated in the sense that, well, this is, this is my, my whole theory, but like, I think that there, we need like some pockets where it's like much less regulated. Yeah. Right. Where you're, and then some pockets where you're really sort of going to be like, no. You don't get to sort of tune this to whatever your, your project, your program is. Yeah, right, right. You're gonna be working with like [00:24:19] Tim: these people to do this thing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I think there actually is interesting analogies in like the, the kind of like economic regulation, economic governance world. Yeah. Where like the notion is markets generally work well, like it's a great tool. Yeah. Like let it run. [00:24:35] Right. But basically that there are certain failure states that actually require outside intervention. And I think what's kind of interesting in thinking about in like a macro scientific, if you will, context is like, what are those failure states for science? Like, and you could imagine a policy rule, which is the policymaker says, we don't intervene until we see the following signals emerging in a field or in a region. Right. And like, okay, that's, that's the trigger, right? Like we're now in recession mode, you know, like there's enough quarters of this problem of like more papers, but less results. You know, now we have to take action, right? Oh, that's cool. Yeah, yeah. That would be, that would be very interesting. And I think that's like, that's good, because I think like, we end up having to think about like, you know, and again, this is I think why this is a really exciting time, is like MetaScience has produced these really interesting results. Now we're in the mode of like, okay, well, you know, on that policymaker dashboard, Yeah. Right, like what's the meter that we're checking out to basically be like, Are we doing well? Are we doing poorly? Is this going well? Or is this going poorly? Right, like, I think that becomes the next question to like, make this something practicable Yeah. For, for [00:25:35] actual like, Right. Yeah. Yeah. One of my frustrations [00:25:38] Ben: with meta science [00:25:39] Tim: is that it, I [00:25:41] Ben: think is under theorized in the sense that people generally are doing these studies where they look at whatever data they can get. Huh. Right. As opposed to what data should we be looking at? What, what should we be looking for? Yeah. Right. Right. And so, so I would really like to have it sort of be flipped and say, okay, like this At least ideally what we would want to measure maybe there's like imperfect maybe then we find proxies for that Yeah, as opposed to just saying well, like here's what we can measure. It's a proxy for [00:26:17] Tim: okay. That's right, right Yeah, exactly. And I think a part of this is also like I mean, I think it is like Widening the Overton window, which I think like the meta science community has done a good job of is like trying to widen The Overton window of what funders are willing to do. Yeah. Or like what various existing incumbent actors are willing to [00:26:35] do. Because I think one way of getting that data is to run like interesting experiments in this space. Right? Like I think one of the things I'm really obsessed with right now is like, okay, imagine if you could change the overhead rate that universities charge on a national basis. Yeah. Right? Like, what's that do to the flow of money through science? And is that like one dial that's actually like On the shelf, right? Like, we actually have the ability to influence that if we wanted to. Like, is that something we should be running experiments against and seeing what the results are? Yeah, yeah. [00:27:00] Ben: Another would be earmarking. Like, how much money is actually earmarked [00:27:05] Tim: for different things. That's right, yeah, yeah. Like, how easy it is to move money around. That's right, yeah. I heard actually a wild story yesterday about, do you know this whole thing, what's his name? It's apparently a very wealthy donor. That has convinced the state of Washington's legislature to the UW CS department. it's like, it's written into law that there's a flow of money that goes directly to the CS department. I don't think CS departments need more money. I [00:27:35] know, I know, but it's like, this is a really, really kind of interesting, like, outcome. Yeah. Which is like a very clear case of basically just like... Direct subsidy to like, not, not just like a particular topic, but like a particular department, which I think is like interesting experiment. I don't like, I don't know what's been happening there, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Natural, natural experiment. [00:27:50] Ben: Totally. Has anybody written down, I assume the answer is no, but it would be very interesting if someone actually wrote down a list of sort of just all the things you [00:28:00] Tim: could possibly [00:28:00] Ben: want to pay attention to, right? Like, I mean, like. Speaking of CS, it'd be very interesting to see, like, okay, like, what fraction of the people who, like, get PhDs in an area, stay in this area, right? Like, going back to the, the [00:28:15] Tim: health of a field or something, right? Yeah, yeah. I think that's right. I, yeah. And I think that those, those types of indicators are interesting. And then I think also, I mean, in the spirit of like it being a dynamic system. Like, so a few years back I read this great bio by Sebastian Malaby called The Man Who Knew, which is, it's a bio of Alan Greenspan. So if you want to ever read, like, 800 pages about [00:28:35] Alan Greenspan, book for you. It's very good. But one of the most interesting parts about it is that, like, there's a battle when Alan Greenspan becomes head of the Fed, where basically he's, like, extremely old school. Like, what he wants to do is he literally wants to look at, like, Reams of data from like the steel industry. Yeah, because that's kind of got his start And he basically is at war with a bunch of kind of like career People at the Fed who much more rely on like statistical models for predicting the economy And I think what's really interesting is that like for a period of time actually Alan Greenspan has the edge Because he's able to realize really early on that like there's It's just changes actually in like the metabolism of the economy that mean that what it means to raise the interest rate or lower the interest rate has like very different effects than it did like 20 years ago before it got started. Yeah. And I think that's actually something that I'm also really quite interested in science is basically like When we say science, people often imagine, like, this kind of, like, amorphous blob. But, like, I think the metabolism is changing all the [00:29:35] time. And so, like, what we mean by science now means very different from, like, what we mean by science, like, even, like, 10 to 20 years ago. Yes. And, like, it also means that all of our tactics need to keep up with that change, right? And so, one of the things I'm interested in to your question about, like, has anyone compiled this list of, like, science health? Or the health of science, right? It's maybe the right way of thinking about it. is that, like, those indicators may mean very different things at different points in time, right? And so part of it is trying to understand, like, yeah, what is the state of the, what is the state of this economy of science that we're talking about? Yeah. You're kind of preaching [00:30:07] Ben: to the, to the choir. In the sense that I'm, I'm always, I'm frustrated with the level of nuance that I feel like many people who are discussing, like, science, quote, making air quotes, science and research, are, are talking about in the sense that. They very often have not actually like gone in and been part of the system. Huh, right. And I'm, I'm open to the fact that [00:30:35] you [00:30:35] Tim: don't need to have got like [00:30:36] Ben: done, been like a professional researcher to have an opinion [00:30:41] Tim: or, or come up with ideas about it. [00:30:43] Ben: Yeah. But at the same time, I feel like [00:30:46] Tim: there's, yeah, like, like, do you, do you think about that tension at all? Yeah. I think it's actually incredibly valuable. Like, I think So I think of like Death and Life of Great American Cities, right? Which is like, the, the, the really, one of the really, there's a lot of interesting things about that book. But like, one of the most interesting things is sort of the notion that like, you had a whole cabal of urban planners that had this like very specific vision about how to get cities to work right and it just turns out that like if you like are living in soho at a particular time and you like walk along the street and you like take a look at what's going on like there's always really actually super valuable things to know about yeah that like are only available because you're like at that like ultra ultra ultra ultra micro level and i do think that there's actually some potential value in there like one of the things i would love to be able to set up, like, in the community of MetaScience or whatever you want to call it, right, [00:31:35] is the idea that, like, yeah, you, you could afford to do, like, very short tours of duty, where it's, like, literally, you're just, like, spending a day in a lab, right, and, like, to have a bunch of people go through that, I think, is, like, really, really helpful and so I think, like, thinking about, like, what the rotation program for that looks like, I think would be cool, like, you, you should, you should do, like, a six month stint at the NSF just to see what it looks like. Cause I think that kind of stuff is just like, you know, well, A, I'm selfish, like I would want that, but I also think that like, it would also allow the community to like, I think be, be thinking about this in a much more applied way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [00:32:08] Ben: I think it's the, the meta question there for, for everything, right? Is how much in the weeds, like, like what am I trying to say? The. It is possible both to be like two in the weeds. Yeah, right and then also like too high level Yeah, that's right. And in almost like what what is the the right amount or like? Who, who should [00:32:31] Tim: be talking to whom in that? That's right. Yeah, I mean, it's like what you were saying earlier that like the [00:32:35] success of macro science will be whether or not it's as controversial as macroeconomics. It's like, I actually hope that that's the case. It's like people being like, this is all wrong. You're approaching it like from a too high level, too abstract of a level. Yeah. I mean, I think the other benefit of doing this outside of like the level of insight is I think one of the projects that I think I have is like We need to, we need to be like defeating meta science, like a love of meta science aesthetics versus like actual like meta science, right? Like then I think like a lot of people in meta science love science. That's why they're excited to not talk about the specific science, but like science in general. But like, I think that intuition also leads us to like have very romantic ideas of like what science is and how science should look and what kinds of science that we want. Yeah. Right. The mission is progress. The mission isn't science. And so I think, like, we have to be a lot more functional. And again, I think, like, the benefit of these types of, like, rotations, like, Oh, you just are in a lab for a month. Yeah. It's like, I mean, you get a lot more of a sense of, like, Oh, okay, this is, this is what it [00:33:35] looks like. Yeah. Yeah. I'd like to do the same thing for manufacturing. Huh. Right. [00:33:39] Ben: Right. It's like, like, and I want, I want everybody to be rotating, right? Huh. Like, in the sense of, like, okay, like, have the scientists go and be, like, in a manufacturing lab. That's right. [00:33:47] Tim: Yeah. [00:33:48] Ben: And be like, okay, like, look. Like, you need to be thinking about getting this thing to work in, like, this giant, like, flow pipe instead of a [00:33:54] Tim: test tube. That's right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, [00:33:57] Ben: unfortunately, the problem is that we can't all spend our time, like, if everybody was rotating through all the [00:34:03] Tim: things they need to rotate, we'd never get anything done. Yeah, exactly. [00:34:06] Ben: ANd that's, that's, that's kind of [00:34:08] Tim: the problem. Well, and to bring it all the way back, I mean, I think you started this question on macroscience in the context of transitioning away from all of this like weird Cuban Missile Crisis simulation stuff. Like, I do think one way of thinking about this is like, okay, well, if we can't literally send you into a lab, right? Like the question is like, what are good simulations to give people good intuitions about the dynamics in the space? Yeah. And I think that's, that's potentially quite interesting. Yeah. Normalized weekend long simulation. That's right. Like I love the idea of basically [00:34:35] like like you, you get to reenact the publication of a prominent scientific paper. It's like kind of a funny idea. It's just like, you know, yeah. Or, or, or even trying to [00:34:44] Ben: get research funded, right? Like, it's like, okay, like you have this idea, you want yeah. [00:34:55] Tim: I mean, yeah, this is actually a project, I mean, I've been talking to Zach Graves about this, it's like, I really want to do one which is a game that we're calling Think Tank Tycoon, which is basically like, it's a, it's a, the idea would be for it to be a strategy board game that simulates what it's like to run a research center. But I think like to broaden that idea somewhat like it's kind of interesting to think about the idea of like model NSF Yeah, where you're like you you're in you're in the hot seat you get to decide how to do granting Yeah, you know give a grant [00:35:22] Ben: a stupid thing. Yeah, some some some congressperson's gonna come banging [00:35:26] Tim: on your door Yeah, like simulating those dynamics actually might be really really helpful Yeah I mean in the very least even if it's not like a one for one simulation of the real world just to get like some [00:35:35] common intuitions about like The pressures that are operating here. I [00:35:38] Ben: think you're, the bigger point is that simulations are maybe underrated [00:35:42] Tim: as a teaching tool. I think so, yeah. Do you remember the the paperclip maximizer? Huh. The HTML game? Yeah, yeah. [00:35:48] Ben: I'm, I'm kind of obsessed with it. Huh. Because, it, you've, like, somehow the human brain, like, really quickly, with just, like, you know, some numbers on the screen. Huh. Like, just like numbers that you can change. Right, right. And some, like, back end. Dynamic system, where it's like, okay, like based on these numbers, like here are the dynamics of the [00:36:07] Tim: system, and it'll give you an update. [00:36:09] Ben: Like, you start to really get an intuition for, for system dynamics. Yeah. And so, I, I, I want to see more just like plain HTML, like basically like spreadsheet [00:36:20] Tim: backend games. Right, right, like the most lo fi possible. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's helpful. I mean, I think, again, particularly in a world where you're thinking about, like, let's simulate these types of, like, weird new grant structures that we might try out, right? Like, you know, we've got a bunch [00:36:35] of hypotheses. It's kind of really expensive and difficult to try to get experiments done, right? Like, does a simulation with a couple people who are well informed give us some, at least, inclinations of, like, where it might go or, like, what are the unintentional consequences thereof? Yeah. [00:36:51] Ben: Disciplines besides the military that uses simulations [00:36:56] Tim: successfully. Not really. And I think what's kind of interesting is that like, I think it had a vogue that like has kind of dissipated. Yeah, I think like the notion of like a a game being the way you kind of do like understanding of a strategic situation, I think like. Has kind of disappeared, right? But like, I think a lot of it was driven, like, RAND actually had a huge influence, not just on the military. But like, there's a bunch of corporate games, right? That were like, kind of invented in the same period. Yeah. That are like, you determine how much your steel production is, right? And was like, used to teach MBAs. But yeah, I think it's, it's been like, relatively limited. Hm. [00:37:35] Yeah. It, yeah. Hm. [00:37:38] Ben: So. Other things. Huh. Like, just to, [00:37:41] Tim: to shift together. Sure, sure, go ahead. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess another [00:37:44] Ben: thing that we haven't really talked about, but actually sort of plays into all of this, is thinking about better [00:37:50] Tim: ways of regulating technology. [00:37:52] Ben: I know that you've done a lot of thinking about that, and maybe this is another thing to simulate. [00:38:00] Tim: Yeah, it's a model OSTP. But [00:38:04] Ben: it's maybe a thing where, this is actually like a prime example where the particulars really matter, right? Where you can't just regulate. quote unquote technology. Yeah. Right. And it's like, there's, there's some technologies that you want to regulate very, very closely and very tightly and others that you want to regulate very [00:38:21] Tim: loosely. Yeah, I think that's right. And I think that's actually, you know, I think it is tied to the kind of like macro scientific project, if you will. Right. Which is that I think we have often a notion of like science regulation being like. [00:38:35] literally the government comes in and is like, here are the kind of constraints that we want to put on the system. Right. And there's obviously like lots of different ways of doing that. And I think there's lots of contexts in which that's like appropriate. But I think for a lot of technologies that we confront right now, the change is so rapid that the obvious question always becomes, no matter what emerging technology talking about is like, how does your clock speed of regulation actually keep up with like the clock speed of technology? And the answer is frequently like. It doesn't, right? And like you run into these kind of like absurd situations where you're like, well, we have this thing, it's already out of date by the time it goes into force, everybody kind of creates some like notional compliance with that rule. Yeah. And like, in terms of improving, I don't know, safety outcomes, for instance, it like has not actually improved safety outcomes. And I think in that case, right, and I think I could actually make an argument that like, the problem is becoming more difficult with time. Right? Like, if you really believe that the pace of technological change is faster than it used to be, then it is possible that, like, there was a point at which, like, government was operating, and it could actually keep [00:39:35] pace effectively, or, like, a body like Congress could actually keep pace with society, or with technology successfully, to, like, make sure that it was conformant with, sort of, like, societal interests. Do you think that was [00:39:46] Ben: actually ever the case, or was it that we didn't, we just didn't [00:39:50] Tim: have as many regulations? I would say it was sort of twofold, right? Like, I think one of them was you had, at least, let's just talk about Congress, right? It's really hard to talk about, like, government as a whole, right? Like, I think, like, Congress was both better advised and was a more efficient institution, right? Which means it moved faster than it does today. Simultaneously, I also feel like for a couple reasons we can speculate on, right? Like, science, or in the very least, technology. Right, like move slower than it does today. Right, right. And so like actually what has happened is that both both dynamics have caused problems, right? Which is that like the organs of government are moving slower at the same time as science is moving faster And like I think we've passed some inflection [00:40:35] point now where like it seems really hard to craft You know, let's take the AI case like a sensible framework that would apply You know, in, in LLMs where like, I don't know, like I was doing a little recap of like recent interoperability research and I like took a step back and I was like, Oh, all these papers are from May, 2023. And I was like, these are all big results. This is all a big deal. Right. It's like very, very fast. Yeah. So that's kind of what I would say to that. Yeah. I don't know. Do you feel differently? You feel like Congress has never been able to keep up? Yeah. [00:41:04] Ben: Well, I. I wonder, I guess I'm almost, I'm, I'm perhaps an outlier in that I am skeptical of the claim that technology overall has sped up significantly, or the pace of technological change, the pace of software change, certainly. Sure. Right. And it's like maybe software as a, as a fraction of technology has spread up, sped up. And maybe like, this is, this is a thing where like to the point of, of regulations needing to, to. Go into particulars, [00:41:35] right? Mm-Hmm. . Right, right. Like tuning the regulation to the characteristic timescale of whatever talk [00:41:40] Tim: technology we're talking about. Mm-Hmm. , right? [00:41:42] Ben: But I don't know, but like, I feel like outside of software, if anything, technology, the pace of technological change [00:41:52] Tim: has slowed down. Mm hmm. Right. Right. Yeah. [00:41:55] Ben: This is me putting on my [00:41:57] Tim: stagnationist bias. And would, given the argument that I just made, would you say that that means that it should actually be easier than ever to regulate technology? Yeah, I get targets moving slower, right? Like, yeah, [00:42:12] Ben: yeah. Or it's the technology moving slowly because of the forms of [00:42:14] Tim: the regulator. I guess, yeah, there's like compounding variables. [00:42:16] Ben: Yeah, the easiest base case of regulating technology is saying, like, no, you can't have [00:42:20] Tim: any. Huh, right, right, right. Like, it can't change. Right, that's easy to regulate. Yeah, right, right. That's very easy to regulate. I buy that, I buy that. It's very easy to regulate well. Huh, right, right. I think that's [00:42:27] Ben: That's the question. It's like, what do we want to lock in and what don't we [00:42:31] Tim: want to lock in? Yeah, I think that's right and I think, you [00:42:35] know I guess what that moves me towards is like, I think some people, you know, will conclude the argument I'm making by saying, and so regulations are obsolete, right? Or like, oh, so we shouldn't regulate or like, let the companies take care of it. And I'm like, I think so, like, I think that that's, that's not the conclusion that I go to, right? Like part of it is like. Well, no, that just means we need, we need better ways of like regulating these systems, right? And I think they, they basically require government to kind of think about sort of like moving to different parts of the chain that they might've touched in the past. Yeah. So like, I don't know, we, Caleb and I over at IFP, we just submitted this RFI to DARPA. In part they, they were thinking about like how does DARPA play a role in dealing with like ethical considerations around emerging technologies. Yep. But the deeper point that we were making in our submission. was simply that like maybe actually science has changed in a way where like DARPA can't be the or it's harder for DARPA to be the originator of all these technologies. Yeah. So they're, they're almost, they're, they're placing the, the, the ecosystem, the [00:43:35] metabolism of technology has changed, which requires them to rethink like how they want to influence the system. Yeah. Right. And it may be more influence at the point of like. Things getting out to market, then it is things like, you know, basic research in the lab or something like that. Right. At least for some classes of technology where like a lot of it's happening in private industry, like AI. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. [00:43:55] Ben: No, I, I, I think the, the concept of, of like the metabolism of, of science and technology is like really powerful. I think in some sense it is, I'm not sure if you would, how would you map that to the idea of there being a [00:44:11] Tim: research ecosystem, right? Right. Is it, is it that there's like [00:44:17] Ben: the metabolic, this is, this is incredibly abstract. Okay. Like, is it like, I guess if you're looking at the metabolism, does, does the metabolism sort of say, we're going to ignore institutions for now and the metabolism is literally just the flow [00:44:34] Tim: of [00:44:35] like ideas and, and, and outcomes and then maybe like the ecosystem is [00:44:41] Ben: like, okay, then we like. Sort of add another layer and say there are institutions [00:44:46] Tim: that are sure interacting with this sort of like, yeah, I think like the metabolism view or, you know, you might even think about it as like a supply chain view, right? To move it away from, like, just kind of gesturing at bio for no reason, right? Is I think what's powerful about it is that, you know, particularly in foundation land, which I'm most familiar with. There's a notion of like we're going to field build and what that means is we're going to name a field and then researchers Are going to be under this tent that we call this field and then the field will exist Yeah, and then the proper critique of a lot of that stuff is like researchers are smart They just like go where the money is and they're like you want to call up like I can pretend to be nanotech for a Few years to get your money Like, that's no problem. I can do that. And so there's kind of a notion that, like, if you take the economy of science as, like, institutions at the very beginning, you actually miss the bigger [00:45:35] picture. Yes. Right? And so the metabolism view is more powerful because you literally think about, like, the movement of, like, an idea to an experiment to a practical technology to, like, something that's out in the world. Yeah. And then we basically say, how do we influence those incentives before we start talking about, like, oh, we announced some new policy that people just, like... Cosmetically align their agendas to yeah, and like if you really want to shape science It's actually maybe arguably less about like the institution and more about like Yeah, the individual. Yeah, exactly. Like I run a lab. What are my motivations? Right? And I think this is like, again, it's like micro macro, right? It's basically if we can understand that, then are there things that we could do to influence at that micro level? Yeah, right. Which is I think actually where a lot of Macro econ has moved. Right. Which is like, how do we influence like the individual firm's decisions Yeah. To get the overall aggregate change that we want in the economy. Yeah. And I think that's, that's potentially a better way of approaching it. Right. A thing that I desperately [00:46:30] Ben: want now is Uhhuh a. I'm not sure what they're, they're [00:46:35] actually called. Like the, you know, like the metal, like, like, like the [00:46:37] Tim: prep cycle. Yeah, exactly. Like, like, like the giant diagram of, of like metabolism, [00:46:43] Ben: right. I want that for, for research. Yeah, that would be incredible. Yeah. If, if only, I mean, one, I want to have it on [00:46:50] Tim: my wall and to, to just get across the idea that. [00:46:56] Ben: It is like, it's not you know, basic research, applied [00:47:01] Tim: research. Yeah, totally. Right, right, right. When it goes to like, and what I like about kind of metabolism as a way of thinking about it is that we can start thinking about like, okay, what's, what's the uptake for certain types of inputs, right? We're like, okay, you know like one, one example is like, okay, well, we want results in a field to become more searchable. Well what's really, if you want to frame that in metabolism terms, is like, what, you know, what are the carbs that go into the system that, like, the enzymes or the yeast can take up, and it's like, access to the proper results, right, and like, I think that there's, there's a nice way of flipping in it [00:47:35] that, like, starts to think about these things as, like, inputs, versus things that we do, again, because, like, we like the aesthetics of it, like, we like the aesthetics of being able to find research results instantaneously, but, like, the focus should be on, Like, okay, well, because it helps to drive, like, the next big idea that we think will be beneficial to me later on. Or like, even being [00:47:53] Ben: the question, like, is the actual blocker to the thing that you want to see, the thing that you think it is? Right. I've run into far more people than I can count who say, like, you know, we want more awesome technology in the world, therefore we are going to be working on Insert tool here that actually isn't addressing, at least my, [00:48:18] Tim: my view of why those things aren't happening. Yeah, right, right. And I think, I mean, again, like, part of the idea is we think about these as, like, frameworks for thinking about different situations in science. Yeah. Like, I actually do believe that there are certain fields because of, like, ideologically how they're set up, institutionally how [00:48:35] they're set up, funding wise how they're set up. that do resemble the block diagram you were talking about earlier, which is like, yeah, there actually is the, the basic research, like we can put, that's where the basic research happens. You could like point at a building, right? And you're like, that's where the, you know, commercialization happens. We pointed at another building, right? But I just happen to think that most science doesn't look like that. Right. And we might ask the question then, like, do we want it to resemble more of like the metabolism state than the block diagram state? Right. Like both are good. Yeah, I mean, I would [00:49:07] Ben: argue that putting them in different buildings is exactly what's causing [00:49:10] Tim: all the problems. Sure, right, exactly, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But then, again, like, then, then I think, again, this is why I think, like, the, the macro view is so powerful, at least to me, personally, is, like, we can ask the question, for what problems? Yeah. Right? Like, are there, are there situations where, like, that, that, like, very blocky way of doing it serves certain needs and certain demands? Yeah. And it's like, it's possible, like, one more argument I can make for you is, like, Progress might be [00:49:35] slower, but it's a lot more controllable. So if you are in the, you know, if you think national security is one of the most important things, you're willing to make those trade offs. But I think we just should be making those trade offs, like, much more consciously than we do. And [00:49:49] Ben: that's where politics, in the term, in the sense of, A compromise between people who have different priorities on something can actually come in where we can say, okay, like we're going to trade off, we're going to say like, okay, we're going to increase like national security a little bit, like in, in like this area to, in compromise with being able to like unblock this. [00:50:11] Tim: That's right. Yeah. And I think this is the benefit of like, you know, when I say lever, I literally mean lever, right. Which is basically like, we're in a period of time where we need this. Yeah. Right? We're willing to trade progress for security. Yeah. Okay, we're not in a period where we need this. Like, take the, take, ramp it down. Right? Like, we want science to have less of this, this kind of structure. Yeah. That's something we need to, like, have fine tuned controls over. Right? Yeah. And to be thinking about in, like, a, a comparative sense, [00:50:35] so. And, [00:50:36] Ben: to, to go [00:50:36] Tim: back to the metabolism example. Yeah, yeah. I'm really thinking about it. Yeah, yeah. [00:50:39] Ben: Is there an equivalent of macro for metabolism in the sense that like I'm thinking about like, like, is it someone's like blood, like, you know, they're like blood glucose level, [00:50:52] Tim: like obesity, right? Yeah, right. Kind of like our macro indicators for metabolism. Yeah, that's right. Right? Or like how you feel in the morning. That's right. Yeah, exactly. I'm less well versed in kind of like bio and medical, but I'm sure there is, right? Like, I mean, there is the same kind of like. Well, I study the cell. Well, I study, you know, like organisms, right? Like at different scales, which we're studying this stuff. Yeah. What's kind of interesting in the medical cases, like You know, it's like, do we have a Hippocratic, like oath for like our treatment of the science person, right? It's just like, first do no harm to the science person, you know? [00:51:32] Ben: Yeah, I mean, I wonder about that with like, [00:51:35] with research. Mm hmm. Is there, should we have more heuristics about how we're [00:51:42] Tim: Yeah, I mean, especially because I think, like, norms are so strong, right? Like, I do think that, like, one of the interesting things, this is one of the arguments I was making in the long science piece. It's like, well, in addition to funding certain types of experiments, if you proliferate the number of opportunities for these low scale projects to operate over a long period of time, there's actually a bunch of like norms that might be really good that they might foster in the scientific community. Right. Which is like you learn, like scientists learn the art of how to plan a project for 30 years. That's super important. Right. Regardless of the research results. That may be something that we want to put out into the open so there's more like your median scientist has more of those skills Yeah, right, like that's another reason that you might want to kind of like percolate this kind of behavior in the system Yeah, and so there's kind of like these emanating effects from like even one offs that I think are important to keep in mind [00:52:33] Ben: That's actually another [00:52:35] I think used for simulations. Yeah I'm just thinking like, well, it's very hard to get a tight feedback loop, right, about like whether you manage, you planned a project for 30 years [00:52:47] Tim: well, right, [00:52:48] Ben: right. But perhaps there's a better way of sort of simulating [00:52:51] Tim: that planning process. Yeah. Well, and I would love to, I mean, again, to the question that you had earlier about like what are the metrics here, right? Like I think for a lot of science metrics that we may end up on, they may have these interesting and really curious properties like we have for inflation rate. Right. We're like, the strange thing about inflation is that we, we kind of don't like, we have hypotheses for how it happens, but like, part of it is just like the psychology of the market. Yeah. Right. Like you anticipate prices will be higher next quarter. Inflation happens if enough people believe that. And part of what the Fed is doing is like, they're obviously making money harder to get to, but they're also like play acting, right? They're like. You know, trust me guys, we will continue to put pressure on the economy until you feel differently about this. And I think there's going to be some things in science that are worth [00:53:35] measuring that are like that, which is like researcher perceptions of the future state of the science economy are like things that we want to be able to influence in the space. And so one of the things that we do when we try to influence like the long termism or the short termism of science It's like, there's lots of kind of like material things we do, but ultimately the idea is like, what does that researcher in the lab think is going to happen, right? Do they think that, you know, grant funding is going to become a lot less available in the next six months or a lot more available in the next six months? Like influencing those might have huge repercussions on what happens in science. And like, yeah, like that's a tool that policymakers should have access to. Yeah. Yeah. [00:54:11] Ben: And the parallels between the. The how beliefs affect the economy, [00:54:18] Tim: and how beliefs [00:54:19] Ben: affect science, I think may also be a [00:54:21] Tim: little bit underrated. Yeah. In the sense that, [00:54:24] Ben: I, I feel like some people think that It's a fairly deterministic system where it's like, ah, yes, this idea's time has come. And like once, once all the things that are in place, like [00:54:35] once, once all, then, then it will happen. And like, [00:54:38] Tim: that is, that's like how it works. [00:54:40] Ben: Which I, I mean, I have, I wish there was more evidence to my point or to disagree with me. But like, I, I think that's, that's really not how it works. And I'm like very often. a field or, or like an idea will, like a technology will happen because people think that it's time for that technology to happen. Right. Right. Yeah. Obviously, obviously that isn't always the case. Right. Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's, there's hype [00:55:06] Tim: cycles. And I think you want, like, eventually, like. You know, if I have my druthers, right, like macro science should have like it's Chicago school, right? Which is basically like the idea arrives exactly when it should arrive. Scientists will discover it on exactly their time. And like your only role as a regulator is to ensure the stability of scientific institutions. I think actually that that is a, that's not a position I agree with, but you can craft a totally, Reasonable, coherent, coherent governance framework that's based around that concept, right? Yes. Yeah. I think [00:55:35] like [00:55:35] Ben: you'll, yes. I, I, I think like that's actually the criteria for success of meta science as a field uhhuh, because like once there's schools , then, then, then it will have made it, [00:55:46] Tim: because [00:55:47] Ben: there aren't schools right now. Mm-Hmm. , like, I, I feel , I almost feel I, I, I now want there to b

Artist Musquiqui Chihying brushes up the history of displaying sick and strong Asian bodies, from the Formosa Hamlet or human zoo at the Japan-British Exhibition in 1910, to COVID-19, both connected to their own contemporary exhibition in London's Tabula Rasa Gallery. Musquiqui Chihying's multimedia installation, ‘Too Loud a Dust', delves into two events from 1910: the construction of t he Formosa Hamlet by the Japanese Empire at the Japanese-British Exhibition in London, and the publication of ‘Diseases of China' by the British missionary James Laidlaw Maxwell. With soil ‘stolen' from the Japanese Garden, which remains in White City today, and dust from the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, he considers how indigenous Korean and Ainu Japanese bodies were represented then and now, and how transparent glass used to separate - and - other viewers and subjects. The artist connects the contemporary and the historic, sharing how archive colonial postcards recalled the Dragonball cards he collected in his home in Taiwan, his pan-Asian influences including the Japanese proto-feminist poet, Masano Akiko, and why his research during the COVID pandemic, revealed continued racism and prejudices against Asian people, and contemporary ‘neocolonialism' between China and Africa. Cleaning a museum may be a necessary task, but the dust in display cabinets also carries valuable information, challenging concepts of ‘purity', and how anthropology and natural history museums ‘function'. Musquiqui Chihying: Too Loud A Dust runs at the Tabula Rasa Gallery in London until 29 June 2023. WITH: Musquiqui Chihying, contemporary visual artist based in Taipei and Berlin. Specialising in the use of multimedia such as film and sound, he investigates the human and environmental system in the age of global capitalisation, and contemporary social culture in the Global South. ART: ‘Too Loud a Dust, Musquiqui Chihying (2023)'. IMAGE: Installation View. PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic. Follow EMPIRE LINES on Twitter: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936 And Instagram: instagram.com/empirelinespodcast Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines

First, Indian Express' Sourav Roy Barman outlines the key takeaways from the draft of the National Curriculum Framework for school education.Next, Indian Express' Tora Agarwala tells us about a community-led effort in Nagaland to bring back centuries-old ancestral remains from the Pitt Rivers Museum in England. (12:43)And in the end, we discuss the Supreme Court's strong response to the Karnataka Government's decision to scrap the 4 per cent OBC Muslim quota. (18:00)Hosted by Rahel PhiliposeProduced and scripted by Anwiti Singh, Shashank Bhargava, Utsa Sarmin and Rahel Philipose.Edited and mixed by Suresh Pawar

In this episode of The Kenyanist, we aim to broaden and deepen our understanding of the lost Kenyan artefacts, by talking to the incredible Jim Chuchu, a Kenyan artist who has been in the lead of efforts to identify and document Kenya's cultural items that are held outside Kenya. Jim has been part of the International Inventories Programme (IIP), an international research and database project that investigates Kenyan artefacts that are held in museums outside Kenya. In recent years, there have been growing calls by African governments, cultural analysts and activists and their allies for the return of African artefacts in Museums abroad, especially in Europe.  The presence of these artefacts in these countries is a direct legacy of colonialism. In many cases, these items were stolen by the colonisers. Now Africans are calling to have their items back.  For a while, the conversation has been dominated by calls for the return of Benin Bronzes to Nigeria. The Benin Bronzes are a group of several thousand metal plaques and sculptures that decorated the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin, in what is now Edo State, Nigeria. The Benin artworks were forcibly removed in 1897, in a large-scale British military expedition. British forces attacked and occupied the city of Benin, in what is now modern-day Nigeria. The campaign is bearing fruit as we have seen some UK museums signing over their collections of these items to Nigeria.  However, this conversation is broader than that. Most importantly, for our purposes here, there is a Kenyan conversation as well. Our colonisers also looted many Kenyan cultural items. For instance, there have been some claims of items belonging to the Maasai that are currently held at the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford.  Yet, many of us Kenyans are unaware of these conversations, how much of our cultural items are scattered around the world, and who is claiming ownership of them.  As always, if you have any questions, comments or guest and topic recommendations, please reach us at www.thekenyanist.com or on our social media handles using the handle @TheKenyanist

In this episode, Adam and Budi speak with the Director and Contemporary Artist Brook Andrew.Brook's interdisciplinary art practice is driven by the collisions of intertwined narratives, often emerging from the mess of the “Colonial Wuba (hole)”. His practice is grounded in his perspective as an Australian Wiradjuri (Indigenous) and Celtic person. Brook's artworks, museum interventions, research, leadership roles, and curatorial projects challenge the limitations imposed by power structures, historical amnesia, and complicity to center and support Indigenous ways of knowing and being through systemic change and yindyamarra (respect, honor, go slow and responsibility).Brook was the Artistic Director of the groundbreaking First Nations and artist-led “NIRIN,” the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, 2020. Brook's recent works include the theatre script GABAN, premiering in 2022 as a video work, and live performances at YOYI! Care, Repair, Heal, the Gropius Bau, Berlin. International advisor to the Sámi Pavilion at the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia 2022; Enterprise Professor, The University of Melbourne, Associate Researcher, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, UK; ARC (Australia Research Council grant) with Dr. Brian Martin: ARC Special Research Initiative for Australian Society, History, and Culture: ‘More than a guulany (tree): Aboriginal knowledge systems'. As the Director Reimagining Museums & Collections role with the University of Melbourne, Brook founded BLAK C.O.R.E, a collective driven by First Nations methodologies, research, and cultural practices focusing on walumarra (protection), yindyamarra gunhanha (ongoing respect) and murungidyal (healing in the museum).  Mentioned in this episode:GABAN at Art Gallery NSWHouse of SléSupport the showIf you enjoyed this week´s podcast, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. To submit a question: Voice- http://www.speakpipe.com/theatreofothers Email- podcast@theatreofothers.com Support the Theatre of Others - Check out our Merch!Show Credits Co-Hosts: Adam Marple & Budi MillerProducer: Jack BurmeisterMusic: https://www.purple-planet.comAdditional compositions by @jack_burmeister

Professor Rebecca Earley is a design researcher and award-winning team leader at University of the Arts London and is based at Chelsea College of Arts where she is Professor of Circular Design Futures. Initially, she trained as a printed textile designer before creating her own fashion label, B.Earley, in 1995. Her prints and garments have been commissioned by the likes of Bjork and Damien Hirst. They are also in the collections of the V&A and the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. More recently though, she has carved a global reputation as one of the leading thinkers around the need for fashion to become circular. Projects include HEREWEAR, which investigated how bio-based agricultural waste could be turned into material for locally-made clothing and TRASH2CASH that brought designers together with scientists to find ways to regenerate waste cotton and polyester. Not only that but she also co-founded World Circular Textiles Day in 2020.In this episode we chat about: how she started using polyester and why it's a problematic material; idealism versus pragmatism and transition rather than revolt; the value system we build around materials; discovering textile design by chance; empowering women through the education system; circularity's relationship with the market; designing systems; the importance of people; and her love of wild swimming.Support the show

The Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, England, has the largest collection of Naga material culture in the world (around 6466 items), including the human remains of Naga ancestors. Anthropologists Dolly Kikon and Arkotong Longkumer have been working as part of a community-led initiative to ensure the return of the Naga ancestral remains to their rightful home in Nagaland. Through this project, Dolly and Arkotong say they are discovering how Indian mainland scholars have also used and abused Naga ancestral remains in similar ways and that some Indian museums continue to store them. In this episode of The Suno India Show, host Suryatapa Mukherjee spoke to Dolly and Arkotong to learn more about this path-breaking work. This is the first time that repatriation of ancestral human remains have been initiated in India and even Asia, for indigenous people. Dolly Kikon is a Senior Lecturer in the Anthropology and Development Studies Program at Melbourne University, and a Senior Research Associate at the Australia India Institute. Arkotong Longkumer is Senior Lecturer in Modern Asia at the University of Edinburgh, and Senior Research Fellow at the Kohima Institute in Nagaland. Morung Lecture XIV: Naga Ancestral Remains, Repatriation and Healing of the LandThe Unfinished Business of Colonialism: Naga Ancestral Remains and the Healing of the Land | MorungExpressCritical Changes | Pitt Rivers MuseumPitt Rivers Museum | Oxford and Colonialism  Working Towards Return with the Pitt Rivers Museum Return Reconcile Renew See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

Hello! This week we're talking about museums and the role they have in shaping social and political issues. Many in the museum community agree that our museums are not neutral, but what does that mean when it comes to addressing issues such as climate change, colonialism and corporate influence? We talk to Doug Gurr, Director of the Natural History Museum, Professor Laura Van Broekhoven, Director of the Pitt Rivers Museum and Professor of Museum Studies, Ethics and Material Culture at the University of Oxford and Dr Chris Garrard, Co-Director of campaign group Culture Unstained.Plus: Geoff delves into the archives and quizzes Ed on 250 episodes of RTBC history. How well does he do?Show notes:Buy tickets to our live show hereNatural History MuseumBook a ticket to see DippyPitt Rivers MuseumCulture Unstained See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Fingerprints Episode 6The country's first major art and antiquities collection now sits in the Ashmolean Museum. It reveals untold stories from the ancient world including shipwrecks, competitively collecting, underhand dealings and how classical art was used by aristocrats at the royal court to boost their status and standing. Join lecturer Alison Pollard, as she takes you on a journey which spans over 2000 years. Find a transcript of this episode hereRead moreRead about the Arundel marbles hereSpeakers in this episode:Series host: Lucie Dawkins, Director & Producer, Ashmolean MuseumDr Alison Pollard, Lecturer in Classical Archaeology, University of OxfordProfessor Peter Stewart, Director of the Classical Art Research Centre, University of OxfordJaś Elsner, Professor of Classics and Art History, University of OxfordPhiroze Vasunia, Professor of Greek, UCLAbout the Fingerprints podcastEvery object in the Ashmolean has passed from hand to hand to reach the Museum. In a new podcast, we uncover the invisible fingerprints left behind by makers, looters, archaeologists, soldiers, rulers, curators, and many more. These stories of touch reveal the ways in which the forces of conflict and colonialism have shaped Britain's oldest Museum. Join the Ashmolean's curators alongside artists, experts, and community members, for our new podcast: Fingerprints.Fingerprints will be released on the Ashmolean's website, on Spotify, Apple, and wherever you get your podcasts, weekly from  21 January 2022 until 25 February 2022.Fingerprints is produced and hosted by Lucie Dawkins. Guests include Bénédicte Savoy, co-author of the Report on African Cultural Heritage, commissioned by Emmanuel Macron; Professor Dan Hicks, of Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum; and Simukai Chigudu, one of the founding members of the Rhodes Must Fall campaign.www.ashmolean.org/fingerprints

Fingerprints Episode 5Curator Andrew Shapland shows us a tiny fragment which reveals the story of the man who set out to hunt down the mythical minotaur. Sir Arthur Evans went on to become known as the father of archaeology, but his journey reveals a culture war between empires in the Mediterranean. Find a transcript of this episode hereRead moreRead more about the fragment here or view an image hereSpeakers in this episode:Series host: Lucie Dawkins, Director & Producer, Ashmolean MuseumDr Andrew Shapland, Curator of Bronze Age & Classical GreeceDr Lucia Patrizio Gunning, Modern Historian, UCLDr Antonis Kotsonas, Associate Professor of Mediterranean History and ArchaeologyDr Lisa Bendall, Associate Professor in Aegean Prehistory, University of OxfordDr Athanasia Kanta, archaeologistWith the voice of Jonathan Aris as Arthur EvansAbout the Fingerprints podcastEvery object in the Ashmolean has passed from hand to hand to reach the Museum. In a new podcast, we uncover the invisible fingerprints left behind by makers, looters, archaeologists, soldiers, rulers, curators, and many more. These stories of touch reveal the ways in which the forces of conflict and colonialism have shaped Britain's oldest Museum. Join the Ashmolean's curators alongside artists, experts, and community members, for our new podcast: Fingerprints.Fingerprints will be released on the Ashmolean's website, on Spotify, Apple, and wherever you get your podcasts, weekly from  21 January 2022 until 25 February 2022.Fingerprints is produced and hosted by Lucie Dawkins. Guests include Bénédicte Savoy, co-author of the Report on African Cultural Heritage, commissioned by Emmanuel Macron; Professor Dan Hicks, of Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum; and Simukai Chigudu, one of the founding members of the Rhodes Must Fall campaign.www.ashmolean.org/fingerprints

Laura Van Broekhoven and our Sharon Heal talk disrupting hierarchies and taking steps to decolonise the Pitt Rivers Museum.

Fingerprints Episode 4Curator Paul Collins takes us on a journey with a 3000 year old king uncovered by an Indian soldier digging a trench in World War I, and explore what he has to tell us about the formation of Iraq as a nation state. Find a transcript of this episode hereRead moreRead more about the sculpture here or see an image hereSpeakers in this episode:Series host: Lucie Dawkins, Director & Producer, Ashmolean MuseumDr Paul Collins, Curator of the Ancient Middle East, Ashmolean MuseumSantanu Das, Professor of Modern Literature and Culture, University of OxfordDr Mehiyar Kathem, Nahrein Network, UCL and Oxford, Researcher on cultural heritage in contemporary IraqAbout the Fingerprints podcastEvery object in the Ashmolean has passed from hand to hand to reach the Museum. In a new podcast, we uncover the invisible fingerprints left behind by makers, looters, archaeologists, soldiers, rulers, curators, and many more. These stories of touch reveal the ways in which the forces of conflict and colonialism have shaped Britain's oldest Museum. Join the Ashmolean's curators alongside artists, experts, and community members, for our new podcast: Fingerprints.Fingerprints will be released on the Ashmolean's website, on Spotify, Apple, and wherever you get your podcasts, weekly from  21 January 2022 until 25 February 2022.Fingerprints is produced and hosted by Lucie Dawkins. Guests include Bénédicte Savoy, co-author of the Report on African Cultural Heritage, commissioned by Emmanuel Macron; Professor Dan Hicks, of Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum; and Simukai Chigudu, one of the founding members of the Rhodes Must Fall campaign.www.ashmolean.org/fingerprints

Fingerprints Episode 3Mallica Kumbera Landrus, the Ashmolean's Keeper of Eastern Art, takes us on a journey with 200 clay figures from India, displayed alongside a human zoo at the Colonial and India Exhibition of 1886, and later used to teach young British colonial officers at Oxford's Indian Institute. Find a transcript of this episode hereRead moreView images of some of the sculptures mentioned in the episode hereFind out more about Ali Kazim's exhibition at the Ashmolean hereSpeakers in this episode:Series host: Lucie Dawkins, Director & Producer, Ashmolean MuseumProfessor Mallica Kumbera Landrus, Keeper of Eastern Art at the AshmoleanAli Kazim, one of Pakistan's leading contemporary artists whose work will be on show in the Ashmolean from 7 February 2022Dr Nayanika Mathur, Associate Professor in the Anthropology of South Asia, University of OxfordAbout the Fingerprints podcastEvery object in the Ashmolean has passed from hand to hand to reach the Museum. In a new podcast, we uncover the invisible fingerprints left behind by makers, looters, archaeologists, soldiers, rulers, curators, and many more. These stories of touch reveal the ways in which the forces of conflict and colonialism have shaped Britain's oldest Museum. Join the Ashmolean's curators alongside artists, experts, and community members, for our new podcast: Fingerprints.Fingerprints will be released on the Ashmolean's website, on Spotify, Apple, and wherever you get your podcasts, weekly from  21 January 2022 until 25 February 2022.Fingerprints is produced and hosted by Lucie Dawkins. Guests include Bénédicte Savoy, co-author of the Report on African Cultural Heritage, commissioned by Emmanuel Macron; Professor Dan Hicks, of Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum; and Simukai Chigudu, one of the founding members of the Rhodes Must Fall campaign.www.ashmolean.org/fingerprints

Fingerprints Episode 2Dan Hicks takes us on a journey with three bronze masks from the West African city of Benin, through the hands of soldiers, collectors, and curators, and along with special guests considers the responsibility that European museums have towards looted art in their collections. Find a transcript of this episode hereRead moreView the masks spoken about in the episode hereRead the Pitt Rivers' interim report on the provenance of African cultural heritage in their collection here Find out more about the Benin Bronzes and the Benin Dialogue Group hereFind out more about Oxford University's procedures about the return of cultural objects hereAnd find more about Dan Hicks' book, The Brutish MuseumsSpeakers in this episode:Series host: Lucie Dawkins, Director & Producer, Ashmolean MuseumXa Sturgis, Director of the Ashmolean MuseumSimukai Chigudu, Professor of African Politics, University of Oxford and founding member of Rhodes Must FallDan Hicks, Professor of Contemporary Archaeology, Pitt Rivers Museum, OxfordVictor Ehikhamenor, artistAdenike Cosgrove, collector and historian of African Art HistorianProfessor Bénédicte Savoy, art historian and co-author of the report, The Restitution of African Cultural Heritage commissioned by President Emmanuel MacronAbout the Fingerprints podcastEvery object in the Ashmolean has passed from hand to hand to reach the Museum. In a new podcast, we uncover the invisible fingerprints left behind by makers, looters, archaeologists, soldiers, rulers, curators, and many more. These stories of touch reveal the ways in which the forces of conflict and colonialism have shaped Britain's oldest Museum. Join the Ashmolean's curators alongside artists, experts, and community members, for our new podcast: Fingerprints.Fingerprints will be released on the Ashmolean's website, on Spotify, Apple, and wherever you get your podcasts, weekly from  21 January 2022 until 25 February 2022.Fingerprints is produced and hosted by Lucie Dawkins. Guests include Bénédicte Savoy, co-author of the Report on African Cultural Heritage, commissioned by Emmanuel Macron; Professor Dan Hicks, of Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum; and Simukai Chigudu, one of the founding members of the Rhodes Must Fall campaign.www.ashmolean.org/fingerprints

Fingerprints Episode 1Join the Ashmolean Museum's director, Xa Sturgis, as he questions what a museum is for. He introduces us to Powhatan's Mantle, one of the museum's founding objects, and one inextricably linked with British colonial history. From there, he traces the Ashmolean's story to the present day, as special guests explore how we can transform an uncomfortable past into a more positive future. Find a transcript of this episode hereRead moreSee Powhatan's Mantle hereFind out more about Oxford University's procedures about the return of cultural objects hereSpeakers in this episode:Series host: Lucie Dawkins, Director & Producer, Ashmolean MuseumXa Sturgis, Director of the Ashmolean MuseumSumaya Kassim, writer, curator and museum-scepticReyahn King, CEO of York Museums TrustDr Laura van Broekhoven, Director of the Pitt Rivers Museum, OxfordMustafa Barcho, Oxford-Middle East Community Ambassador, Ashmolean MuseumMarenka Thompson-Odlum, Researcher, Pitt RiversNicola Bird, Community Engagement Officer, Oxford's Gardens, Libraries and MuseumsAbout the Fingerprints podcastEvery object in the Ashmolean has passed from hand to hand to reach the Museum. In a new podcast, we uncover the invisible fingerprints left behind by makers, looters, archaeologists, soldiers, rulers, curators, and many more. These stories of touch reveal the ways in which the forces of conflict and colonialism have shaped Britain's oldest Museum. Join the Ashmolean's curators alongside artists, experts, and community members, for our new podcast: Fingerprints.Fingerprints will be released on the Ashmolean's website, on Spotify, Apple, and wherever you get your podcasts, weekly from  21 January 2022 until 25 February 2022.Fingerprints is produced and hosted by Lucie Dawkins. Guests include Bénédicte Savoy, co-author of the Report on African Cultural Heritage, commissioned by Emmanuel Macron; Professor Dan Hicks, of Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum; and Simukai Chigudu, one of the founding members of the Rhodes Must Fall campaign.www.ashmolean.org/fingerprints

Every object in the Ashmolean has passed from hand to hand to reach the Museum. In a new podcast, we uncover the invisible fingerprints left behind by makers, looters, archaeologists, soldiers, rulers, curators, and many more. These stories of touch reveal the ways in which the forces of conflict and colonialism have shaped Britain's oldest Museum. Join the Ashmolean's curators alongside artists, experts, and community members, for our new podcast: Fingerprints.Fingerprints will be released on the Ashmolean's website, on Spotify, Apple, and wherever you get your podcasts, weekly from  21 January 2022 until 25 February 2022.Fingerprints is produced and hosted by Lucie Dawkins. Guests include Bénédicte Savoy, co-author of the Report on African Cultural Heritage, commissioned by Emmanuel Macron; Professor Dan Hicks, of Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum; and Simukai Chigudu, one of the founding members of the Rhodes Must Fall campaign.--- Transcript for this trailer ---Voice 1: Every object in the Ashmolean has passed from hand to hand to reach the Museum. In a new podcast, we uncover the invisible fingerprints left behind by makers, looters, archaeologists, soldiers, rulers, curators, and many more.These stories of touch reveal the ways in which the forces of conflict and colonialism have shaped Britain's oldest Museum.Join the Ashmolean's curators alongside artists, experts, and community members, for our new podcast: Fingerprints.Voice 2: It was magical to touch the impressions of someone's hand, who may have made this piece thousands of years ago.Voice 3: There's a large gouge from the front of the statue of the pick that the Indian soldier had been using to dig his trench.Voice 4: Those are signifiers and messages that are embedded, are hidden in them for each generation. So, their importance can never be underestimated even though they have been removed from where they were created.Voice 5: It's obvious that it's the face of the human figure that has been scratched out.Voice 6: One of the main attractions was the live display of 34 human beings who were transported from India.Voice 7: So they'd suggests bribing a local Imam to say that the sculptures are against the tenets of Islam.Voice 8: Although some of these stories can be uncomfortable they're also vital. They're stories which connect us to a vast global web of human experiences that allow the objects to speak to us in different ways and with different voices. Voice 9: Because museums are very political places.Voice 1: So, watch out for Fingerprints on the Ashmolean's website, on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts, for weekly releases from the 21st of January.

Every object in the Ashmolean has passed from hand to hand to reach the Museum. In a new podcast, we uncover the invisible fingerprints left behind by makers, looters, archaeologists, soldiers, rulers, curators, and many more. These stories of touch reveal the ways in which the forces of conflict and colonialism have shaped Britain's oldest Museum. Join the Ashmolean's curators alongside artists, experts, and community members, for our new podcast: Fingerprints.Fingerprints will be released on the Ashmolean's website, on Spotify, Apple, and wherever you get your podcasts, weekly from  21 January 2022 until 25 February 2022.Fingerprints is produced and hosted by Lucie Dawkins. Guests include Bénédicte Savoy, co-author of the Report on African Cultural Heritage, commissioned by Emmanuel Macron; Professor Dan Hicks, of Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum; and Simukai Chigudu, one of the founding members of the Rhodes Must Fall campaign.

Every object in the Ashmolean has passed from hand to hand to reach the Museum. In a new podcast, we uncover the invisible fingerprints left behind by makers, looters, archaeologists, soldiers, rulers, curators, and many more. These stories of touch reveal the ways in which the forces of conflict and colonialism have shaped Britain's oldest Museum. Join the Ashmolean's curators alongside artists, experts, and community members, for our new podcast: Fingerprints.Fingerprints will be released on the Ashmolean's website, on Spotify, Apple, and wherever you get your podcasts, weekly from  21 January 2022 until 25 February 2022.Fingerprints is produced and hosted by Lucie Dawkins. Guests include Bénédicte Savoy, co-author of the Report on African Cultural Heritage, commissioned by Emmanuel Macron; Professor Dan Hicks, of Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum; and Simukai Chigudu, one of the founding members of the Rhodes Must Fall campaign.

Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford sound installation reimagined by Scott Lawrence Whitman. "The source of the original field recording was a sound installation at the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford University involving windmills.  "My reimagined piece, like a windmill, revolves and evolves around the field recording, part of which can be heard as a buzzing, insect-like drone  and child's voice, which I sampled and processed to create the various sound elements aside from percussion."

Patti takes us into the beautiful remote village of Napongayit in South Sudan and introduces us to the lives of the Larim people and her life-changing visit in 1979. Patti has always been fascinated by different ways of living, which led her to study social anthropology at Oxford, living in Sri Lanka and South Sudan. Then she became an award-winning BBC producer of documentaries looking at social and ecological issues facing people in Africa and Asia. These days she's a Research Associate of the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, and her photos, research notes and music from South Sudan can all be found on the Pitt Rivers Museum's website.

Part of the Humanities Cultural Programme, one of the founding stones for the future Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities. Named after the original title of Richard Rathbone's book on Nana Ofori Atta I, the King of Akyem Abuakwa in Ghana, this talk will be the first that celebrates the paperback edition of Nana Oforiatta Ayim's celebrated novel The God Child. Both books have the kingdom as their centre, with Nana Oforiatta Ayim's book drawing on that of Richard Rathbone, as well as on her family's memories, for her fictional narrative. In this live event the two discuss the interplay of academia and fiction and how narratives are shaped and reshaped according to the telling. They also talk about the nuances of privilege, leadership, and of royalty within a West African kingdom and how this has evolved through time. Nana Oforiatta Ayim Nana Oforiatta Ayim is a Writer, Filmmaker, and Art Historian who lives and works in Accra, Ghana. She is Special Advisor to the Ghanaian government on Museums and Cultural Heritage, leading the country's museums restructuring programme. She is also Founder of the ANO Institute of Arts and Knowledge, through which she has pioneered a Pan-African Cultural Encyclopaedia, a Mobile Museums Project, and curated Ghana’s first pavilion at the Venice Biennale. She published her first novel The God Child with Bloomsbury in 2019, and with Penguin in German in 2021. She has made award winning films for museums such as Tate Modern, LACMA and The New Museum, and lectures a course on History and Theory at the Architectural Association in London. She is the recipient of various awards and honours, having been named one of the Apollo ’40 under 40’; one of 50 African Trailblazers by The Africa Report; a Quartz Africa Innovator in 2017; one of 12 African women making history in 2016 and one of 100 women of 2020 by Okayafrica. She received the 2015 the Art & Technology Award from LACMA; the 2016 AIR Award, which “seeks to honour and celebrate extraordinary African artists who are committed to producing provocative, innovative and socially-engaging work”; a 2018 Soros Arts Fellowship, was a 2018 Global South Visiting Fellow at Oxford University, is a Principal Investigator on the Action for Restitution to Africa programme, and was appointed to the Advisory Council of Oxford University’s Cultural Programme in 2020. Richard Rathbone Richard Rathbone was born in war-time London. His father and mother worked for the BBC but during the war his father was an RAF pilot and he was killed soon after my birth. His childhood was largely spent in and around London. In 1964 Richard began his research career at the School of Oriental and African Studies where he worked under the pioneer historian of Africa, Roland Oliver. He was appointed o teach in the history department at SOAS in 1969, where he worked until early retirement in 2003. During that time Richard served as Chairman of the University of London's Centre for African Studies and as SOAS' Dean of Postgraduate Studies and was promoted to a chair in modern African history in 1994. Life was episodically interrupted by a series of research trips to Ghana and a variety of fellowships to universities in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Harvard and Princeton as well as for shorter periods to Bordeaux, Lesotho and Toronto. Richard's current appointments include Emeritus professor and professorial research associate at SOAS and honorary professor in history at Aberystwyth University. He has also served on the Council of the Royal Historical Society, most recently as one of its vice-presidents. In 2017 he was elected a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales. Chaired by Dr. Laura Van Broekhoven Dr. Laura Van Broekhovenis the Director of the Pitt Rivers Museum and Professorial Fellow at Linacre College, University of Oxford. Previously she led the curatorial department of the Dutch National Museum of World Cultures, was Senior Curator for Middle- and South America and was departmental lecturer in archaeology, museum studies and indigenous heritage at Leiden University. Laura strives to develop a more equitable decolonised praxis in museums including issues around shared and negotiated authority; restitution, reconciliation and redress and the queering of exclusionary binaries and boundaries with relation to social justice and inclusion. Her regional academic research has focused on collaborative collection research with Amazonian Indigenous Peoples and Maasai communities from Kenya and Tanzania; Yokot’an Maya oral history, Mixtec Indigenous market systems and merchant biographies, and Nicaraguan Indigenous resistance in colonial times. She serves on numerous advisory boards, is a member of the Women Leaders in Museums Network (WLMN) and the European Ethnographic Museum Directors Group and is co-chair of the Oxford and Colonialism Network.

Part of the Humanities Cultural Programme, one of the founding stones for the future Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities. Named after the original title of Richard Rathbone's book on Nana Ofori Atta I, the King of Akyem Abuakwa in Ghana, this talk will be the first that celebrates the paperback edition of Nana Oforiatta Ayim's celebrated novel The God Child. Both books have the kingdom as their centre, with Nana Oforiatta Ayim's book drawing on that of Richard Rathbone, as well as on her family's memories, for her fictional narrative. In this live event the two discuss the interplay of academia and fiction and how narratives are shaped and reshaped according to the telling. They also talk about the nuances of privilege, leadership, and of royalty within a West African kingdom and how this has evolved through time. Nana Oforiatta Ayim Nana Oforiatta Ayim is a Writer, Filmmaker, and Art Historian who lives and works in Accra, Ghana. She is Special Advisor to the Ghanaian government on Museums and Cultural Heritage, leading the country's museums restructuring programme. She is also Founder of the ANO Institute of Arts and Knowledge, through which she has pioneered a Pan-African Cultural Encyclopaedia, a Mobile Museums Project, and curated Ghana’s first pavilion at the Venice Biennale. She published her first novel The God Child with Bloomsbury in 2019, and with Penguin in German in 2021. She has made award winning films for museums such as Tate Modern, LACMA and The New Museum, and lectures a course on History and Theory at the Architectural Association in London. She is the recipient of various awards and honours, having been named one of the Apollo ’40 under 40’; one of 50 African Trailblazers by The Africa Report; a Quartz Africa Innovator in 2017; one of 12 African women making history in 2016 and one of 100 women of 2020 by Okayafrica. She received the 2015 the Art & Technology Award from LACMA; the 2016 AIR Award, which “seeks to honour and celebrate extraordinary African artists who are committed to producing provocative, innovative and socially-engaging work”; a 2018 Soros Arts Fellowship, was a 2018 Global South Visiting Fellow at Oxford University, is a Principal Investigator on the Action for Restitution to Africa programme, and was appointed to the Advisory Council of Oxford University’s Cultural Programme in 2020. Richard Rathbone Richard Rathbone was born in war-time London. His father and mother worked for the BBC but during the war his father was an RAF pilot and he was killed soon after my birth. His childhood was largely spent in and around London. In 1964 Richard began his research career at the School of Oriental and African Studies where he worked under the pioneer historian of Africa, Roland Oliver. He was appointed o teach in the history department at SOAS in 1969, where he worked until early retirement in 2003. During that time Richard served as Chairman of the University of London's Centre for African Studies and as SOAS' Dean of Postgraduate Studies and was promoted to a chair in modern African history in 1994. Life was episodically interrupted by a series of research trips to Ghana and a variety of fellowships to universities in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Harvard and Princeton as well as for shorter periods to Bordeaux, Lesotho and Toronto. Richard's current appointments include Emeritus professor and professorial research associate at SOAS and honorary professor in history at Aberystwyth University. He has also served on the Council of the Royal Historical Society, most recently as one of its vice-presidents. In 2017 he was elected a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales. Chaired by Dr. Laura Van Broekhoven Dr. Laura Van Broekhovenis the Director of the Pitt Rivers Museum and Professorial Fellow at Linacre College, University of Oxford. Previously she led the curatorial department of the Dutch National Museum of World Cultures, was Senior Curator for Middle- and South America and was departmental lecturer in archaeology, museum studies and indigenous heritage at Leiden University. Laura strives to develop a more equitable decolonised praxis in museums including issues around shared and negotiated authority; restitution, reconciliation and redress and the queering of exclusionary binaries and boundaries with relation to social justice and inclusion. Her regional academic research has focused on collaborative collection research with Amazonian Indigenous Peoples and Maasai communities from Kenya and Tanzania; Yokot’an Maya oral history, Mixtec Indigenous market systems and merchant biographies, and Nicaraguan Indigenous resistance in colonial times. She serves on numerous advisory boards, is a member of the Women Leaders in Museums Network (WLMN) and the European Ethnographic Museum Directors Group and is co-chair of the Oxford and Colonialism Network.

Dan Hicks, Curator and Professor of Contemporary Archaeology, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford University has written a terrific book. The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution (Pluto Books, 2020) is a call to arms, for Western museums to return everything it procured, or more correctly stole, from African locations.  The claim for cultural restitution is made through the Benin Bronzes, artworks pillaged by the British in a 1897 naval attack, loot that was then gifted to the British Museum, on display for the world to see without context. Well, no more. Dan’s book frames this cultural and material theft as a form of colonial violence, the product of weaponizing museums to tell a particular story about African pasts without reflection on Eurocentric pillage and plunder. Susan Thomson is an Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Colgate University. I like to interview pretenure scholars about their research. I am particularly keen on their method and methodology, as well as the process of producing academic knowledge about African places and people. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies

Dan Hicks, Curator and Professor of Contemporary Archaeology, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford University has written a terrific book. The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution (Pluto Books, 2020) is a call to arms, for Western museums to return everything it procured, or more correctly stole, from African locations.  The claim for cultural restitution is made through the Benin Bronzes, artworks pillaged by the British in a 1897 naval attack, loot that was then gifted to the British Museum, on display for the world to see without context. Well, no more. Dan's book frames this cultural and material theft as a form of colonial violence, the product of weaponizing museums to tell a particular story about African pasts without reflection on Eurocentric pillage and plunder. Susan Thomson is an Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Colgate University. I like to interview pretenure scholars about their research. I am particularly keen on their method and methodology, as well as the process of producing academic knowledge about African places and people. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/archaeology

Dan Hicks, Curator and Professor of Contemporary Archaeology, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford University has written a terrific book. The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution (Pluto Books, 2020) is a call to arms, for Western museums to return everything it procured, or more correctly stole, from African locations.  The claim for cultural restitution is made through the Benin Bronzes, artworks pillaged by the British in a 1897 naval attack, loot that was then gifted to the British Museum, on display for the world to see without context. Well, no more. Dan's book frames this cultural and material theft as a form of colonial violence, the product of weaponizing museums to tell a particular story about African pasts without reflection on Eurocentric pillage and plunder. Susan Thomson is an Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Colgate University. I like to interview pretenure scholars about their research. I am particularly keen on their method and methodology, as well as the process of producing academic knowledge about African places and people. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Dan Hicks, Curator and Professor of Contemporary Archaeology, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford University has written a terrific book. The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution (Pluto Books, 2020) is a call to arms, for Western museums to return everything it procured, or more correctly stole, from African locations.  The claim for cultural restitution is made through the Benin Bronzes, artworks pillaged by the British in a 1897 naval attack, loot that was then gifted to the British Museum, on display for the world to see without context. Well, no more. Dan’s book frames this cultural and material theft as a form of colonial violence, the product of weaponizing museums to tell a particular story about African pasts without reflection on Eurocentric pillage and plunder. Susan Thomson is an Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Colgate University. I like to interview pretenure scholars about their research. I am particularly keen on their method and methodology, as well as the process of producing academic knowledge about African places and people. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

Dan Hicks, Curator and Professor of Contemporary Archaeology, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford University has written a terrific book. The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution (Pluto Books, 2020) is a call to arms, for Western museums to return everything it procured, or more correctly stole, from African locations.  The claim for cultural restitution is made through the Benin Bronzes, artworks pillaged by the British in a 1897 naval attack, loot that was then gifted to the British Museum, on display for the world to see without context. Well, no more. Dan’s book frames this cultural and material theft as a form of colonial violence, the product of weaponizing museums to tell a particular story about African pasts without reflection on Eurocentric pillage and plunder. Susan Thomson is an Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Colgate University. I like to interview pretenure scholars about their research. I am particularly keen on their method and methodology, as well as the process of producing academic knowledge about African places and people. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

Stop playing it safe In this podcast Tracey Camilleri and Samenua Sesher explore the power of art to renew, re-engage and reinvigorate, especially during times of trauma. As the Founder of the digital Museum of Colour, Samenua reflects on some of the creative journeys of her contributors – and on her own visceral reaction to the Pitt Rivers Museum of anthropology in Oxford. Informed by her 'Respect Due' Gallery , she invites us all to take time out to honour those who have influenced our lives, especially our elders. Samenua exhorts even those who don't think of themselves as being ‘creative' or those who don't work in the creative industries to try the untried, to change up their ‘unofficial board of advisors', to dare to follow their imaginations. At times like these, we need to stop playing it safe. Samenua brings a much needed playful, joyful optimism to bear on our sombre times, believing that the development of the vaccine has shown us that ‘we can do things faster than we think'. ‘Joy is a wonderful place to work from', she declares and leaves us with her 2020 playlist which, she says, gladdens the heart. Samenua Sesher is a culture management consultant, a coach, an unconscious bias trainer and the founder and director of the Museum of Colour, exploring the creative journeys of British people of colour. She has experience of delivering multi-million-pound programmes and has fed into national cultural policy; set up and run a local authority culture service and lectured. She was a 2008/09 Clore Fellow and was awarded an OBE for Services to the Arts in spring 2018 from the New Year's Honours List. Samenua is a People's Palace Project (PPP) Associate, member of the Advisory Board for The Art of Cultural Exchange and the is on the faculty for Oxford Cultural Leaders. All her work is underpinned by a passionate belief in the power of creativity to transform us, challenge us and help to improve our understanding of the world, its people and ourselves. Digital Museum of Colour · The Pitt Rivers Museum of Anthropology at Oxford · Samenua's Spotify playlist · Connect with Samenua on LinkedIn

The following are  links to the Art Angle Podcast episodes' first and second episodes that feature Dan Hick's discussion of the Benin Bronzes and his book, The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence, and Cultural Restitution.To view rewards for supporting the podcast, please visit Warfare's Patreon page.© Stephanie Drawdy [2021]

The story of the Benin Bronzes is one of the bloodier, more shameful chapters in the history of the Western world's "encyclopedic" museums. Looted from the Kingdom of Benin in 1897 by the British in a punitive raid whose indiscriminate slaughter and wanton cruelty inspired The Hague Convention two years later, the artworks are today scattered across art institutions and ethnographic museums in Europe and the United States—a stain on the Western conscience that is ensanguined with the sins of colonialism. Recently, the Oxford professor and Pitt Rivers Museum curator Dan Hicks wrote a book about this history called The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence, and Cultural Restitution, and last week he joined the podcast to speak about the horrific events that led to the artworks leaving Africa. This week, we present part two of the episode, to discuss the urgency of righting this colonial crime and the status of the Bronzes' restitution today.

The story of the Benin Bronzes is one of the bloodier, more shameful chapters in the history of the Western world’s "encyclopedic" museums. Looted from the Kingdom of Benin in 1897 by the British in a punitive raid whose indiscriminate slaughter and wanton cruelty inspired The Hague Convention two years later, the artworks are today scattered across art institutions and ethnographic museums in Europe and the United States—a stain on the Western conscience that is ensanguined with the sins of colonialism. Recently, the Oxford professor and Pitt Rivers Museum curator Dan Hicks wrote a book about this history called The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence, and Cultural Restitution, and last week he joined the podcast to speak about the horrific events that led to the artworks leaving Africa. This week, we present part two of the episode, to discuss the urgency of righting this colonial crime and the status of the Bronzes’ restitution today.

Join us this week as we discuss what ceramics tell us about political dramas, national mourning, ideas of the home, and childhood. Our guest is Professor Matt Smith, whose ceramics have been displayed at the Pitt Rivers Museum, the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, and the V&A.

Dan Hicks, British archaeologist and anthropologist discusses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on museums with Stanley Ulijaszek Dan Hicks is Professor of Contemporary Archaeology, Curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum, and a Fellow of St Cross College, Oxford University.

Stop playing it safe In this podcast Tracey Camilleri and Samenua Sesher explore the power of art to renew, re-engage and reinvigorate, especially during times of trauma. As the Founder of the digital Museum of Colour, Samenua reflects on some of the creative journeys of her contributors – and on her own visceral reaction to the Pitt Rivers Museum of anthropology in Oxford. Informed by her 'Respect Due' Gallery , she invites us all to take time out to honour those who have influenced our lives, especially our elders. Samenua exhorts even those who don’t think of themselves as being ‘creative’ or those who don’t work in the creative industries to try the untried, to change up their ‘unofficial board of advisors’, to dare to follow their imaginations. At times like these, we need to stop playing it safe. Samenua brings a much needed playful, joyful optimism to bear on our sombre times, believing that the development of the vaccine has shown us that ‘we can do things faster than we think’. ‘Joy is a wonderful place to work from’, she declares and leaves us with her 2020 playlist which, she says, gladdens the heart. Samenua Sesher is a culture management consultant, a coach, an unconscious bias trainer and the founder and director of the Museum of Colour, exploring the creative journeys of British people of colour. She has experience of delivering multi-million-pound programmes and has fed into national cultural policy; set up and run a local authority culture service and lectured. She was a 2008/09 Clore Fellow and was awarded an OBE for Services to the Arts in spring 2018 from the New Year’s Honours List. Samenua is a People's Palace Project (PPP) Associate, member of the Advisory Board for The Art of Cultural Exchange and the is on the faculty for Oxford Cultural Leaders. All her work is underpinned by a passionate belief in the power of creativity to transform us, challenge us and help to improve our understanding of the world, its people and ourselves. Digital Museum of Colour · The Pitt Rivers Museum of Anthropology at Oxford · Samenua's Spotify playlist

This epsode of Modern Myth is all about repatriation, restitituion and the return of artefacts. The Brutish Museums is a new book from Professor Dan Hicks, of the University of Oxford and Curator of World Archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum. In this episode we discuss the items that are currently in museums that were obtained during colonial times, under duress or through direct violence. In particular Professor Hicks has been working with the Benin Dialogue Group in order to have the Benin Bronzes returned to Nigeria. We also discuss what is meant by restitution rather than repatriation and its effect on more dialogue. You can buy The Brutish Museums from Pluto Press - https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745341767/the-brutish-museums/ or from your local bookstore You can follow Dan on Twitter or visit his website

This epsode of Modern Myth is all about repatriation, restitituion and the return of artefacts. The Brutish Museums is a new book from Professor Dan Hicks, of the University of Oxford and Curator of World Archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum. In this episode we discuss the items that are currently in museums that were obtained during colonial times, under duress or through direct violence. In particular Professor Hicks has been working with the Benin Dialogue Group in order to have the Benin Bronzes returned to Nigeria. We also discuss what is meant by restitution rather than repatriation and its effect on more dialogue. You can buy The Brutish Museums from Pluto Press - https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745341767/the-brutish-museums/ or from your local bookstore You can follow Dan on Twitter or visit his website

This week we look at museums and Africa: we explore the future of museums and African institutions’ central role in it and we look at the 19th-century looting of the Benin Bronzes and what it tells us about museums and colonialism, then and now. We talk to Sonia Lawson, the founding director of the Palais de Lomé in Togo, and András Szántó, the writer of the new book The Future of the Museum: 28 Dialogues. We also speak to Dan Hicks, professor of contemporary archaeology at the University of Oxford and curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum there, about his book The Brutish Museums, focusing on the Benin Bronzes. And for our Work of the Week, Christopher Riopelle of the National Gallery in London talks about a painting of Copernicus by the Polish artist Jan Matejko, which is coming to the National for an exhibition next year. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode, I speak with Professor Dan Hicks about his new book, which calls for a return of stolen artefacts and a reimagination of museum spaces and their deep-rooted violence. Hicks draws on his research as a Professor of contemporary Archeology at Oxford University, his curatorial role at the Pitt Rivers Museum and his extensive study of the Benin Bronzes. Check out his new book 'The Brutish Museums' online or in all major bookseller. Dan Hicks' Twitter: @profdanhicks Credit Host, Writer & Producer: Bryan Knight Twitter: @BryanKnight_ Twitter: @TellAFriendPod Instagram: Bryan Knight__ Instagram: @TellAFriendPod [Theme Music Credit - Tha Silent Partner] *Views expressed by any guest are solely representative of their opinions* ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BY HOST BRYAN KNIGHT. PERMISSION MUST BE SOUGHT BEFORE USING ANY UPLOADED CONTENT. NO REPRODUCTIONS ALLOWED. FULL ATTRIBUTION TO BRYAN KNIGHT IS MANDATORY FOR ALL USES.

Sean was joined by Dan Hicks, Professor of Contemporary Archaeology at the University of Oxford and curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum, who put forward a call for western museums to return the objects looted in the violent days of empire. Dan lays out his argument in his new book “The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution”  

Walk into any European museum today and you will see the curated spoils of Empire. They sit behind plate glass: dignified, tastefully lit. Accompanying pieces of card offer a name, date and place of origin. They do not mention that the objects are all stolen. Few artefacts embody this history of rapacious and extractive colonialism better than the Benin Bronzes - a collection of thousands of brass plaques and carved ivory tusks depicting the history of the Royal Court of the Obas of Benin City, Nigeria. Pillaged during a British naval attack in 1897, the loot was passed on to Queen Victoria, the British Museum and countless private collections. Now, more than 120 years later, the story of the Benin Bronzes sits at the heart of a heated debate about cultural restitution, repatriation and the decolonisation of museums.  In November, Pluto releases a new book on the subject, The Brutish Museums by Dan Hicks, in which he makes a powerful case for the urgent return of such objects, as part of a wider project of addressing the outstanding debt of colonialism. Joining us to discuss the new book and ongoing conversations around decolonisation and cultural restitution, are:  Dan Hicks, Professor of Contemporary Archaeology at the University of Oxford and Curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum; Nadine Batchelor-Hunt, a journalist and broadcaster; Chris Garrard, co-director of Culture Unstained; and Diya Gupta, Past & Present Fellow, Race, Ethnicity and Equality in History, Royal Historical Society.

We're joined by special guest hosts Jeremy Uden and Marina de Alarcón from the Pitt Rivers Museum as we discuss the return of cultural objects. What are some of the attitudes we've encountered, and what is the role of the conservator in this? Kloe talks to Mark Furness about preparing objects for return, and Daniel Schwartz about how we can become better facilitators. Also tune in for a review of 'Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits' by Chip Colwell. 00:00:52 Repatriation or restitution? 00:03:01 Attitudes in the sector 00:10:47 Where did we get these things to begin with? 00:13:38 Knowing what you've got 00:16:41 Role of conservators 00:24:32 Reactions and dialogue 00:28:19 Stewardship not ownership 00:31:23 Gains, not losses 00:37:35 Our place within restitution 00:44:06 Interview with Mark Furness 00:55:58 Interview with Daniel Schwartz 01:04:55 Review: 'Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits' Show Notes: - Repatriation vs restitution: https://collectionstrust.org.uk/cultural-property-advice/restitution-and-repatriation/ - About NAGPRA: https://www.nps.gov/subjects/nagpra/index.htm - Pitt Rivers removal of human remains from display: https://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/news/2020/09/pitt-rivers-museum-removes-shrunken-heads-from-display-after-ethical-review/ - Bronze cockerel returned to Nigeria: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/nov/27/bronze-cockerel-to-be-returned-to-nigeria-by-cambridge-college - Museum Ethnographers Group: http://www.museumethnographersgroup.org.uk/en/ - Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Plundered-Skulls-Stolen-Spirits-Americas/dp/022629899X Support us on Patreon! http://www.patreon.com/thecword Hosted by Jenny Mathiasson, Kloe Rumsey, Jeremy Uden, and Marina de Alarcón. Intro and outro music by DDmyzik used under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. A Wooden Dice production, 2020.

This year is like living in a zombie movie. Except it's worse, because the zombies are running the country. Or maybe it's The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, because someone has even taken over the usually reliable Home Secretary, Priti Patel, and they won't give her back. The government has introduced “the Rule of Six” and is urging you to spy on your neighbors and turn them in accordingly. Source

This year is like living in a zombie movie. Except it’s worse, because the zombies are running the country. Or maybe it’s The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, because someone has even taken over the usually reliable Home Secretary, Priti Patel, and they won’t give her back. The government has introduced “the Rule of Six” […]Sponsored by Bambee, Fast Growing Trees Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/london-calling/the-obi-wankers/.Now become a Ricochet member for only $5.00 a month! Join and see what you’ve been missing: https://ricochet.com/membership/.Subscribe to London Calling in Apple Podcasts (and leave a 5-star review, please!), or by RSS feed. For all our podcasts in one place, subscribe to the Ricochet Audio Network Superfeed in Apple Podcasts or by RSS feed.

Will and Lyra navigate the dangers of Will's Oxford. Lyra meets an unsettling man while investigating some trepanned skulls in a museum, before heading off to explore further mysteries about Dust with an overworked physicist. Will delves into the archives to learn (a little) more about the strange disappearance of his father…Join us as we get confused about how post works, speculate about dark matter and reminisce on our favourite Oxford museums!------A video of someone demonstrating how to use (the very fiddly) microfilm in a microfilm reader can be found here.Some very general information about the I Ching can be found here.A rough introduction to Dark matter here.Here is the full letter from Keats to his brothers, which Mary Malone quotes in this chapter. You can read more on this concept of ‘Negative Capability' that Keats wrote about here.Here is an interesting article on the history of radar installations in the Arctic.Continuing the Virtual Tour of Oxford:Inside the Covered MarketOutside and inside the Natural History Museum, within which is the Pitt Rivers museum (museum within the museum!)Display case in the Pitt Rivers Museum where Lyra sees her Arctic clothingPhoto of Philip Pullman in the Pitt Rivers Museum, with the Trepanned skulls and instruments which inspired this scene in the book.Park which Lyra consults the alethiometer inDenys Wilkinson Building (part of the dept. of Physics) within which the real-world LUX-ZEPELIN Dark Matter research project is housed.You can view the wonderful collections at the Ashmolean museum online, here. If you want to view what it looks like for Will when he takes refuge here in this chapter, then you can view inside the museum here.------Music by: Jaymen Persaud, performed by Claire Wickeswww.thedarkmaterialpodcast.comPatreon: www.patreon.com/darkmaterialpodcastTwitter: @darkmaterialpodInstagram: @thedarkmaterialpodcastFacebook: www.facebook.com/thedarkmaterialpodcast

Recorded at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford as part of the Oxford Light Festival in November 2015.  Across the lawn in front of the museum, dozens of poles with tiny windmills were installed, with the windmills attached  to sound generators that responded in different ways to the passing wind. 

What are the best shelters? the right language? how does our view of hosting families change if we look at refugee self help schemes and experiences in camps in Palestine and Syria ? A trio of researchers share their findings with John Gallagher as we mark Refugee Week 2020. Dr Rebecca Tipton, from the University of Manchester, works on Translating Asylum - an ongoing research project looking at language and communication challenges common to individuals displaced by conflict both past and present https://translatingasylum.com/about/ Professor Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, from University College London, leads Refugee Hosts - an ongoing research project examining local community experiences of and responses to displacement from Syria: Views from Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. https://refugeehosts.org/ Associate Professor, Tom Scott-Smith, at the University of Oxford, is a 2020 New Generation Thinker and works on Architectures of Displacement - an ongoing research project exploring temporary accommodation for refugees in the Middle East and Europe. It is a partnership between the Refugee Studies Centre at Oxford University and the Pitt Rivers Museum. https://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/research/architectures-of-displacement All of their work features in the Imperial War Museum London exhibition Refugees: Forced to Flee. You can find more on the website https://www.iwm.org.uk/ and on the website of the AHRC, part of UKRI, which helped put this programme together as part of a series focusing on the latest academic research from UK univerisites https://ahrc.ukri.org/ You can find all the conversations available as Ne w Thinking podcasts on the BBC Arts & Ideas feed and as a playlist here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90 Producer: Karl Bos

This is the SECOND in what promises to be a special series of Histories of the Unexpected Episodes geared towards homeschooling, as the United Kingdom and much of the globe enters into lockdown, schools close, and the world begins a period of isolation and educated online and at home. Over the next few weeks, we will endeavour to record a series of history podcast episodes catering for kids, parents and teachers, with the intention of providing interesting history material readily available to anyone interested in history, and with access to a device capable of receiving a podcast, and with access to the internet. It is aimed at audiences from 8-108!In this HoTU Homeschooling Episode, James takes you VIA VIKING ZOMBIES, CORPSE DOORS and CARELESS TUDOR CHILDREN on a whistle-stop tour of the incredible digital resources easily available online line for making history exciting for kids: educational websites, and virtual tours round museums, including a fabulous 360 degree tour of the terrific Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford with its collection of SHRUNKEN HEADS. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This is the SECOND in what promises to be a special series of Histories of the Unexpected Episodes geared towards homeschooling, as the United Kingdom and much of the globe enters into lockdown, schools close, and the world begins a period of isolation and educated online and at home. Over the next few weeks, we will endeavour to record a series of history podcast episodes catering for kids, parents and teachers, with the intention of providing interesting history material readily available to anyone interested in history, and with access to a device capable of receiving a podcast, and with access to the internet. It is aimed at audiences from 8-108!In this HoTU Homeschooling Episode, James takes you VIA VIKING ZOMBIES, CORPSE DOORS and CARELESS TUDOR CHILDREN on a whistle-stop tour of the incredible digital resources easily available online line for making history exciting for kids: educational websites, and virtual tours round museums, including a fabulous 360 degree tour of the terrific Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford with its collection of SHRUNKEN HEADS. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Almost three years ago Samwel Nangiria paid a visit the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. While there he was presented with objects gathered from his culture around 100 years ago. To his shock the collection included items that would normally never have made it into a museum or out of the hands of specific members of the Maasai community. He would eventually express his feelings to the museum, and what follows has become a fascinating and at times emotional engagement to de-colonize museums and empower the Maasai to tell their own story of who they are as a living culture today. Today on the podcast we explain the process from the unlikely way it began to the interesting ways it has evolved. With help from Nick Lunch - Director of Insight Share, Dr/ Laura from Broekhoven - director of the Pitt Rivers Museum, and Samwel Nangiria of the Pan-African Living Cultures Alliance.

The Gyptians and Lyra embark for Trollesund - a town on the coast of Lapland where witch consuls, aeronauts and bears are all to be found. We learn more about what your daemon says about you and about a mysterious prophesy concerning Lyra and the fate of us all.Amy says seamen a lot, Iain attempts a bear's voice and neither of us can pronounce Hatuumaasaari. Pizzly bears abound.------Here is a picture of a scarlet ibis - the most likely flame-red bittern-sized bird from our world (credit: Magda Ehlers via Pexel)Iain offends all Scottish people by disbelieving that ‘Scots' exists. As proof of this language being alive and well (and definitely not just because Amy is writing the notes this week), here's a wee link tae ‘Scots Wikipaedia', which includes pages on Harry Potter, Haggis and a short section on Sir Philip himself.You can read this mysterious ‘History of the Alethiometer' here, and decide for yourselves if this is canon or not...For more on Guilio Camillo and his concept of the Theatre of Memory, check out this interesting article.You can read more about Giordano Bruno's fascinating life here.In this episode, we talk about the various items on display at the Pitt Rivers Museum from the Aleutian islands. You can see some pictures of the items on display here, such as the astounding waterproof coat made from seal intestine.Some more information on New Denmark can be found here.In terms of theories about why parts of the Americas are called ‘New Denmark' in Lyra's world, we discussed Vitus Bering and Peter Freuchen.This week, Iain reveals some ridiculous names for polar bear/grizzly bear hybrids.And - lest we forget - Farder Coram categorically doesn't look at explosions.------Music by: Jaymen Persaudwww.thedarkmaterialpodcast.comTwitter: @darkmaterialpodInstagram: @thedarkmaterialpodcastFacebook: www.facebook.com/thedarkmaterialpodcast

The context of the Pitt Rivers Museum stimulates discussion about human-technology relations. Gemma Hughes asks Dr Laura van Broekhoven, Director of the Pitt Rivers Museum, about the unique nature of the Museum. Dr Sara Shaw describes the differences between Utopian discourses of technology and the ways in which people relate to technology in everyday life, and Dr Joe Wherton talks about his research into the use of GPS tracking devices by people with dementia.

Researchers and community members go behind the scenes at the Pitt Rivers Museum to learn more about the care and ethics involved in conservation. Museum conservators, Jem and Andrew, provide insights into their work which illuminate new ways of understanding the complex nature of the Museum collections as living objects. Discussion about how objects are made to last, or to decay and what it means to preserve objects in the context of the museum sparks conversations about movement and stillness at the end of life.

Professor Trisha Greenhalgh and colleagues discuss what assistive living technologies are and how they engaged the public in exploring assistive living technologies at the Pitt Rivers Museum. Professor Trisha Greenhalgh and Dr Gemma Hughes discuss what assistive living technologies are and how they can be researched. They have a conversation which ranges from a Zimbabwean Bush Pump (referring to de Laet and Mol, 2002) to Trish’s elephant bike. They discuss symbolic and cultural meanings of assistive living technology, naturalistic and ethnographic methods for studying technologies-in-use and post-actor network theory. Gemma introduces Jozie Kettle and Beth McDougall from the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford who explain how they involve the Museum Collections as catalysts for conversations with the public.

Conversations about language. Artist Nick Ryan (https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/residents/nick-ryan) presents an ontological adventure into voice recognition, language, semiotics, sensory experience, immersive sound and imagination. In this bumper final episode of the series, Nick Ryan continues his search into the meaning of language with Anthropologist Dr Jerome Lewis, asking why and where language began. A Reader in Social Anthropology at University College London, Jerome has 25 years of research experience working with The Bayaka hunter-gatherers in the Congo Basin researching child socialisation, play and religion; egalitarian politics and gender relations; and language, music and dance. Jerome takes Nick on Journey into the forest, tracing the origins of language, as he explains ‘radical egalitarianism’, polyphonic singing, survival from predators, ‘costly signalling’ and how to call fish with your voice underwater. With thanks to the Pitt Rivers Museum and Reel to Real project for use of the Bayaka recordings used in this episode. - The series documents and delves into the research being undertaken by Nick Ryan and his collaborators for RE:COGNITION, an interdisciplinary project exploring the connection between the sound of spoken language) and meanings manifest in the physical world as sound or concepts otherwise capable of being represented sonically. In connection to this Nick Ryan presents The Gulf of Understanding (Re:cognition) as part of BONDS until 05 Jan 2020 at Gallery 31 (https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/whats-on/gallery-31-bonds) , Somerset House Studios (https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/somerset-house-studios) ’ new permanent exhibition space. The Gulf of Understanding (Re:cognition) taps into the magic of making sense, exploring the sound of spoken language and its relationship to sensation and matter. Inviting visitors to speak a word into a microphone, the installation uses machine learning and natural language processing to automatically represent these words as sounds. Simultaneously, a visualisation displays the words and their semantic relationships to related vocabulary.  Nick Ryan is a multi-disciplinary artist and composer exploring auditory representations of information, language, physical materiality and space through the creation of sound and multi-sensory installations, bespoke instruments and generative audio experiences.  Re:cognition is commissioned by CASE Foundation and currently is in the R&D phase.  Podcast produced by Nick Ryan and Jo Barratt for Somerset House Studios.

Book at Lunchtime seminar held on 16th October 2019. How can Archaeology help us understand our contemporary world? This ground-breaking book reflects on material, visual and digital culture from the Calais 'Jungle' - the informal camp where, before its destruction in October 2016, more than 10,000 displaced people lived. Lande: The Calais 'Jungle' and Beyond reassesses how we understand ‘crisis’, activism, and the infrastructure of national borders in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, foregrounding the politics of environments, time, and the ongoing legacies of empire. Introducing a major collaborative exhibit at Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum, the book argues that an anthropological focus on duration, impermanence and traces of the most recent past can recentre the ongoing human experiences of displacement in Europe today. Authors Professor Dan Hicks and Dr Sarah Mallet were in conversation at this TORCH Book at Lunchtime event with Professor Mary Bosworth, Dr Leonie Ansems de Vries, Lisa Kennedy and John McTernan, introduced by Professor Wes Williams. Book at Lunchtime is a series of bite-sized book discussions held fortnightly during term-time, with commentators from a range of disciplines. The events are free to attend and open to all.

A 15,000-line epic, Poly-Olbion has inspired Professor Andrew McRae from the University of Exeter and the Places of Poetry project which asks you to pin newly written poems to a modern version of William Hole's map of England and Wales. Why did Michael Drayton leave out Scotland? And what do the modern poems tell us about Brexit Britain? Hetta Howes finds out and talks to writers Pete Kalu & Will Harris alongside Dr Corinne Fowler from the University of Leicester about the Colonial Countryside Project. This has taken 100 children, 10 National Trust properties and 10 writers whose work is being published by Peepal Tree Press and has put the spotlight on stories such as former plantation owner who lived in Speke Hall in Liverpool. Find out more information on https://www.placesofpoetry.org.uk and https://colonialcountryside.wordpress.com/ and http://poly-olbion.exeter.ac.uk/ Will Harris has also worked with the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford and https://museumofcolour.org.uk/ This episode is one of a series of conversations - New Thinking - produced in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UK Research & Innovation. New Generation Thinkers is an annual scheme to showcase academic research in radio and podcasts. You can find more information on the Arts and Humanities Research Council website https://ahrc.ukri.org Producer: Debbie Kilbride

Sarah Mallet School of Archaeology and Louise Fowler Museum of London Archaeology give a talk for the Knowledge Exchange Showcase on their research on the Calais migrant camp known as the Jungle. Sarah Mallet, School of Archaeology Dr Sarah Mallet is a post-doctoral researcher at jointly appointed at the Pitt Rivers Museum and School of Archaeology in Oxford. Her current role consists in researching the visual and material culture of the Calais ‘Jungle’, and she is one of the co-curators of the major temporary exhibition ‘Lande: The Calais ‘Jungle’ and beyond’ on display at the Pitt Rivers Museum until November 2019. The project has developed new approaches to contemporary collecting in impermanent spaces and uses the principles of archaeological methodology to understand and record the lives of undocumented people in the present. With a multi-disciplinary background, including medieval history and scientific archaeology, her current research on this project has focused on borders and migrations, as well as the history of camps in Northern France in relation to contemporary events. She is the co-author with Dan Hicks of the book ‘Lande: The Calais ‘Jungle’ and beyond’ published by Bristol University Press in May 2019.

The 2019 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition has been won by the Ukrainian baritone Andrei Kymach. The week-long competition held every two years is one of the most significant competitions in the classical calendar and has helped make stars of many participants since its inception in 1983. We hear from this year's winner Andrei Kymach and from music critic Anna Picard. This week marks the 50th anniversary since the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York, a key moment in the birth of the gay rights movement. Each night this week Front Row will be reflecting on the best examples of queer fiction since then, one night for each decade. We begin with the 1970s and our guide to the decade is poet and critic Gregory Woods. As we head into the final weeks of this year's prestigious Art Fund Museum of the Year competition, Front Row looks at the five shortlisted institutions vying for the top prize of £100,000. Today it’s the turn of the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, whose director Dr Laura Van Broekhoven explains why she believes the Pitt Rivers would be a worthy winner. Plus novelist Celia Brayfield joins Stig to discuss the work of writer Judith Krantz whose glamorous romantic novels have sold over 85 million copies worldwide. Presenter : Stig Abell Producer : Dymphna Flynn

In the creepy confines of the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, England, Charlie talks with best selling crime novelist Cara Hunter about her latest novel featuring Detective Inspector Adam Fawley, No Way Out. Charlie & Cara discuss Oxford, detective fiction, the secrets of writing a good mystery, and more.

We talk to Journalist and Author Melanie Reid about her memoir where she gives us an honest account about when she fell from her horse, breaking her neck and fracturing her lower back. Melanie was paralysed from the top of her chest down she spent almost a year in hospital. To help her recover she turned to the one thing she knew, writing to help her navigate her way through a world that had previously been invisible to her. Her book 'The World I fell Out Of' comes out this week.We hear from a Curator involved in an exhibition about the lives of women who carried out anthropological fieldwork around the world in the early twentieth century. Six are being featured in a new exhibition at The Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford.What queries and problems do you have when it comes to parenting? Author and Psychotherapist Philippa Perry talks about her latest publication ‘The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read' and answers your questions about how to parent well and give children a healthy start.Producer: Sej Asar

In the UK, someone is reported missing every 90 seconds - around 180,000 a year. What is it like for the families who are never reunited? How does it feel to be a mother with a missing son or daughter? Jane speaks to three women about their own experiences.Jane speaks to the Minister for Women and Equalities, Penny Mordaunt, about a new government campaign to end period poverty globally by 2030.Waitress is the first ever West End musical that has been written, composed, directed and choreographed by women. Jane meets its star Katharine McPhee - best known for Smash and American Idol - and the woman behind the songs and music multi Grammy Award nominee singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles.We discuss the lives of women who carried out anthropological fieldwork around the world in the early twentieth century. Six are being featured in a new exhibition at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford.

Is karaoke the modern sea shanty? Containers are the nearly invisible carriers of 90% of the goods on earth – yet we know so little about them, or the people on board. The crew who power globalisation, are unsung heroes. Now we hear them sing, and capture something of that strange, lonely, heroic life. Sea shanties are a relic of the past – today it’s far more likely to be karaoke soothing the soul and powering the arm of the modern sea farer. Instead nearly all ships have a karaoke machine on board - and rumour has it, competition is ferocious. In search of the modern sea shanty, Nathaniel Mann, award winning singer and song collector, who has long avoided taking part in karaoke, boards a state-of-the-art container ship in Gdansk shipyard… the Maribo Maersk, to sing along with the Filipino sea men, ship's cook Valiente, and able-seaman Ariel. He also ‘plays the ship’ - discovering acoustic possibilities from the engine room to the Monkey Island (the platform above the bridge), attaching contact microphones which revel the rhythms hidden behind heavy metal walls. He climbs out on the 'catwalk' to watch the stevedores at work, the giant cranes crashing a container into the hold every two minutes, 24 hours a day - until all 18,272 have been shifted - with all the complexity of a game of Tetrus. The company offers mainly 5 month contracts to the 20 or so sailors on board, and discovering how the team pass those months at sea, Nathaniel hears tales of home-sickness, made even more poignant by the choice of songs the crew prefer to sing. We hear from an international crew about life at sea in this giant vessel – you can’t even hear the sea from the decks above. Tales of dark skies, longed for loved ones, learning the shape of the world from water - we hear a fluid mix of the sounds of the ship, the crew singing karaoke, and Nathan's own new songs, gleaned from his observations on board. We also hear from Suffolk shanty singers Des and Jed, who wonder if karaoke might be an updated version of an older form of shanty. About the presenter: Nathaniel Mann is an experimental composer, sound artist, performer and sound designer - known both for his experimental trio Dead Rat Orchestra, and most recently as embedded composer at the Pitt Rivers Museum. He also won the Arts Foundation's 25th Anniversary Fellowship 2018. In 2015 he won the George Butterworth Prize for Composition, and much of his experience as an accomplished and imaginative percussive master, as well as singer, will be integral to this programme - a symphony of singing, the sea, the ships and the songsters. Producer: Sara Jane Hall With thanks to the crew of the Maribo Maersk, especially: Chief Officer: Morten Fløjborg Hansen CPT: Stig Lindegaard Mikkelsen 2nd Officer: Francis Umbay Dela Cerna 4th Engineer: Campbell John Dooley Chief Cook: Valiente Panopio Peralta AB: Ariel Dallarte Martin

C is for: Crimbo Ho ho ho! We review our predictions for 2018 and make some new ones for 2019, listen to a museum version of The Night Before Christmas, and play a parlour game! Also tune in for this year's version of 12 Days of Christmas with St Edmund's Choir, plus a seasonal Dear Jane! 02:34 Museum advent calendars 06:57 Our predictions for 2018 from last year 13:56 Our new predictions for 2019 21:02 The Curator's 12 Days of Christmas 25:22 Let's play twenty— oh, TEN questions! 48:50 The Night Before Christmas 50:43 Dear Jane 52:38 Need a Christmas gift? 53:25 Patreon shout-out Show Notes: - Examples of suffragette exhibitions in the UK during 2018: https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2018/jan/31/centenary-votes-for-women-anniversary-events-parades-exhibitions-suffragette-pankhurst - Spanish ‘restorations' make headlines again: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/botched-st-george-restoration-spain-1309535 - St Edmund's Choir: http://www.stedmundschoir.com - Alphonsine bulldog magnet: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/667943519/bulldog-magnet-design-collection-first - Conservator Secret Santa Pinterest board: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/thecwordpodcast/conservator-secret-santa/ - Conservator Gift Ideas Pinterest board: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/thecwordpodcast/conservator-gift-ideas/ !! SPOILERS !! Museums from 10 Questions game: - Pitt Rivers Museum: https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/ - V&A Dundee: https://www.vam.ac.uk/dundee - Vindolanda Museum: http://www.vindolanda.com/roman-vindolanda/vindolanda-museum - The Pencil Museum: https://www.derwentart.com/en-gb/c/about/company/derwent-pencil-museum - The Museum of Witchcraft and Magic: https://museumofwitchcraftandmagic.co.uk/ - The Gordon Museum of Pathology: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/gordon/index.aspx Support us on Patreon! http://www.patreon.com/thecword Hosted by Jenny Mathiasson, Kloe Rumsey, and Christina Rozeik. Intro and outro music by DDmyzik used under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Additional sound effects and music by Calum Robertson and SoundBible. Made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. A Wooden Dice production, 2018.

Are sports sexist? V&A Dundee and the problem of showcase museums (Pitt Rivers Museum, Sir John Soane's Museum, Whose Culture Is It, Anyway? by Kwame Anthony Appiah) Note: No Andrea this ep Follow us at @culturescast, and our hosts on Twitter at @adrianhon @naomialderman @andrhia We're on Mastodon at @adrianhon@mastodon.social @naomialderman@mastodon.social @andrhia@wandering.shop

In this two-part special feature we think with the Museum Ethnographer's Group conference "Decolonizing the Museum in Practice", held in April of this year (http://www.museumethnographersgroup.org.uk/en/conference/422-2018-conference-decolonising-the-museum-in-practice.html). The second part focuses on the stories and objects around which much decolonizing work revolves and features a read paper by JC Niala and an interview with Laura Peers. Niala relates to us a story that illustrates, among many other insights, what is lost when indigenous perspectives are not included or even considered in museum exhibits; Peers shows us what the process of building relationships between museums and indigenous communities might look like and the challenges that must be overcome to successfully share access to and ultimately governance of museum collections. Hosted by Deborah Thomas and with interviews conducted by Chris and Cassandra Green, this two-part series on “decolonizing museums” examines the past, present, and future(s) of museum practice. Given often sordid collection histories and the strained at best or non-existent at worst relations that museums have had with communities of origin, these interviews address how we might face head-on the legacies of colonialism and empire. For a full transcript of this episode, please follow this link: http://www.americananthropologist.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/MEG-Episode-2-transcript-1.pdf Credits: Introduction/Conclusion: Deborah Thomas Interviewer: Chris Green Recorder: Cassandra Green Producers: Kyle Olson and Nooshin Sadegh-Samimi Assistant Producer: Chris Green Music and found footage: Gingee "Decolonize your Mind" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYQJkgZNzdk) The University of Oxford "Inside the Pitt Rivers Museum" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukwnYt0E5Co) Decolonize This Place Video "Anti-Columbus Day: Decolonize This Museum" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY0mQUWO9_Q) Singing Haida Song with Raven and Alex (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnbT14i8zUg) Image Caption: The central gallery of the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford University, UK. View from the upper mezzanine showing the gallery length-wise. The many glass cases containing artifacts from all over the world on and around the ground floor are clearly visible, while two people look on in the lower foreground.

In this two-part special feature we think with the Museum Ethnographer's Group conference "Decolonizing the Museum in Practice", held in April of this year (http://www.museumethnographersgroup.org.uk/en/conference/422-2018-conference-decolonising-the-museum-in-practice.html). The first part focuses on the legacies and futures of ethnographic museums and features interviews with Faye Belsey, Laura Van Broekhoven, and Rachael Minott. Together, these conversations ask us: what does decolonization look like in practice, how can injustices past and present be addressed by museum professionals, and by what means might we better balance power and access between museum staff and diverse stakeholders? Hosted by Deborah Thomas and with interviews conducted by Chris and Cassandra Green, this two-part series on “decolonizing museums” examines the past, present, and future(s) of museum practice. Given often sordid collection histories and the strained at best or non-existent at worst relations that museums have had with communities of origin, these interviews address how we might face head-on the legacies of colonialism and empire. For a full transcript of this episode, please follow this link: (coming soon!) Credits: Introduction/Conclusion: Deborah Thomas Interviewer: Chris Green Recorder: Cassandra Green Producers: Kyle Olson and Nooshin Sadegh-Samimi Assistant Producer: Chris Green Music and found footage: Gingee "Decolonize your Mind" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYQJkgZNzdk) RT Segment "Brooklyn Museum Hires White Curator of African Art, Horace Cooper Responds to Backlash"(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yq0q5jspNY) Now This Video "Why We Need to Decolonize the Brooklyn Museum" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8giaN7fg7h8) Decolonize This Place Video "Anti-Columbus Day: Decolonize This Museum" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY0mQUWO9_Q) Image Caption: The central gallery of the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford University, UK. View from the upper mezzanine showing the gallery length-wise. The many glass cases containing artifacts from all over the world on and around the ground floor are clearly visible, while two people look on in the lower foreground.

Louisa Layne investigates the reggae music archive, exploring music and poetry through Linton Kwesi Johnson’s dub club.

Travel back with Leah Broad to 1926 and hear recently found music by Swedish composter Ture Rangstrom, composed for a Strindberg play.

Discover how we create and store ideas, and how modern neuroscience process 16th century theories on memory.

An exploration of a Victorian blue-print for a city of health and happiness, where everyone could live to 100.

Andrew Hughes gives a short talk on the discovery unusual things lost and found during a move of 100,000 Pitt Rivers Museum objects.

Find out how Anne Griffiths’ work, Lost in Imagination, reimagines intriguing objects lost within the Pitt Rivers archive.

The Keynote speech by Tim Lewens (Professor of Philosophy of Science, Cambridge) for the Cultural Evolution Workshop held at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, on 28 February 2017

The sound of music flying through the air, carried on the tails of pigeons. "I knew it was a noise maker, but it was the only thing in the museum that I had no idea what it might sound like. Because it works in a way no other instrument does. No other instrument physically moves around you in space, flying overhead, and that seemed like magic". Inspired by the Chinese pigeon whistles in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, Nathaniel Robin Mann decided he wanted to revive the ancient art of pigeon whistling, a tradition possibly thuosands of years old, in which tiny flutes are attached to pigeons in flight. His experience with birds, however, was limited and he needed a bird expert. "None of the pigeon racers wanted to get involved in a music project. Then someone said, 'Well, there's this guy in Nottingham who has a loft made of an old hutch that he straps to the back of his scooter. They call him Pigeon Pete.'" Enter Pete Petravicius, Nottinghamshire ex-miner and steeplejack. A life-long passion for pigeons makes him the perfect trainer to teach the birds how to fly with their unusual musical attachments. We follow Nathan and Pigeon Pete as their friendship, and their understanding of the pigeon whistles grow. From the gloomth of the Pitt Rivers Museum, to the creation of a modern day 3D-printed whistle for Pete's pigeons. Finally, we hear a pigeon's flight described in sound across the sky, creating a haunting, undulating chord cloud, accompanied by Nathan's hypnotic voice, singing songs he has discovered about pigeon culture. Producer: Sara Jane Hall About the presenters: Nathaniel Mann is a composer, singer and performer. As Sound & Music's Embedded Composer in Residence at the Pitt Rivers Museum and Oxford Contemporary Music, he discovered the world of Pigeon Whistles, and started to explore their potential, supported by PRSF, a foundation helping new musicians make new work. His eclectic projects chart diverse worlds of sound and culture, from bronze foundries and popcorn, to donkeys and Trafalgar Square - each has found a voice through Mann's work. Pete Petravicius is unique in that he is the only man in the UK who trains his birds to return to a mobile pigeon loft. The birds can thus travel across the country, flying in formation and returning to their small motor home/coop. He's also an ex-miner and terrific raconteur who loves his Birmingham Rollers. The Pigeons are cared for in strict accordance to guidelines and regulations laid out by the DEFRA & the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency (AHVLA). The use of Pigeon Whistles has been deemed as not causing stress or harm to the birds by independent animal welfare advisors and Pigeon Fancing experts. 3D Pigeon Whistles modeled and printed by Joe Banner at Printrite, Nottinghamshire. About the music : The Pigeon Bell Words/Music: Mann - after poems by Mei Yaochen (1002-1060) & Zhang Xian (990-1078) - as translated by Wang Shixiang The Pigeon Words: Trad. Music: Mann Adapted from 19th Century Broadside Ballad "The Pigeon" Found in Bodleian Library's collections Shelfmark: Harding B 21(14) The Pigeon Chase After 'Uke Uke' - Fox Chase - as sung by Dee Hicks of the Cumberland Plateau Words: Mann / Music: Trad.

In his keynote speech for the Cultural Evolution Workshop (held in the Pitt Rivers Museum on 28 February 2017), Prof. Tim Lewens of Cambridge examines the concept of culture in cultural evolution.

Beth Asbury, Assistant to the Director and Administration Team, Pitt Rivers Museum, gives a short talk for Oxford University Museums Staff Conference. Beth shares an Oxford University Museums Partnership Innovation Fund project to create a printed trail across the collections providing new perspectives on some of their objects written by volunteers from Oxford’s LGBTQ+ community. This is a response to a lecture by Professor Richard Parkinson of the Oriental Institute calling for more explicit, not implicit, representations of the LGBTQ+ experience in all museums.

Andrew Hughes, Move Project Team Leader, Pitt Rivers Museum, gives a short talk for the Oxford University Museums Staff Conference. Andrew talks about how a dedicated project team are documenting, photographing, packing and tracking the move of 120,000 objects from the Old Power Station Store, where they have been housed for over 40 years. This is not only a transportation project, but a transformation project, improving access to collections not on display and informing new strategic approaches from display, to conservation, to online collections.

Beth McDougall and Madeleine Ding, VERVE Team, Pitt Rivers Museum give a short talk for the Oxford University Museums Staff Conference. The VERVE project is a £1.6m, 5 year campaign to conserve and deepen understanding of the Pitt Rivers Museum’s displays, inspiring a significant programme of public engagement. In this talk the team share three VERVE initiatives that aim to create deep public engagement: ‘Meet me at the Museum’, aimed at older people; ‘Pitt Fest’, an annual outdoor celebration; and ‘Museum Takeovers’, which allow young adults to take over the museum.

This podcast on the rainforest music of the BayAka was produced and presented by Jo Barratt It is part of our series on ethnomusicology made with the sound archive  of the Pitt Rivers Museum  in Oxford.  In this podcast you'll hear the sound of the BayAka people of the Central African Republic. Specifically a collection of recordings made by Louis Sarno.   All of these recordings, and more, are available on the Pitt Rivers Reel to Real sound archive website   In other programmes in the Pitt Rivers series, we look at different aspects of ethnomusicology, but here we are taking an in-depth look at a single collection of sounds, the rainforest music of the Bayaka and, through it, telling some of the story of the BayAka people. Guiding us through this podcast is Noel Lobley   from the Pitt Rivers Museum.  The interviewer is social anthropologist Sarah Winkler Reid from the University of Bristol. Here is Noel to introduce us to the man who made these recordings: Noel Lobley: Louis Sarno is a guy from New Jersey who fell in love with the BayAka music from the rainforest of the Central African Republic/Northern Congo. He bought himself a one way ticket, a tape player, batteries and some spare tapes to record the music and more or less never came back. He became a part of the community and over the last 30 years has made the world's most important collection of BayAka music. It currently stands at about 1500 hours worth of music recorded. He has recorded every hunter-gather community and mapped its relationship to forest and the environment. He has gone from being a recorder to an advocate, living amongst the community and helps to mobilise healthcare. BayAka singing has been well documented,  but the instrumentation has not been looked at as much. Amongst the community he has been living with, there is a beautiful four note flute called a mbyo (sometimes called mobio), it is made from climbing palm. A musician may play it for many reasons, sometimes for entertainment.  But it is usually played at night, when the rest of the camp is asleep. They will wonder around the camp and it is played to enter your dreams. If you think about it, when you are asleep, the sound echoes around the canopy and the forest is sometimes described as a cathedral, due to the way the sound resonates. A musician may play at night for benediction, protection or for the camp. Bear in mind Louis has recorded it in its context: its relationship to the rain forest, acoustic and environment. When you listen carefully, you can sometimes hear musicians playing against the canopy, so the overtones weave in and out as the musicians are playing. So sometimes it sounds like two people singing perfectly together. You can hear the forest soundscape. You can hear the insects, and if it is a heavy sheet of insects, it can tell you whether it is late at night or early in the morning. Sometimes you can pick out the pulse of the insects the musicians are playing with. You can sometimes hear they are playing to a rhythmical structure that is in the forest. The music is very much of the forest and a gift for the forest. Most of these instruments are made from the forest.  It sounds very much to me like an exploration of the acoustic properties of the forest. In this community, it is not played any more. Over the time Louis has been there, there were three master musicians, but they have all died. The last player who played this, and who knew how to make the flutes gave one to Louis to look after. Louis says he never hears it played anymore. No one knows how to make it, or which particular plant is needed to make it. He looked after the last flute (mbyo) in Yanduombe and it was on its way to us in April earlier this year. There has been oucoup d'état in the Central African Republic. Seleka Rebels have overthrown the government. President Bozize has fled. Rebels have overtaken the capital. In April last year, Louis posted from the Central African Republic...

Andrew McLellan, Pitt Rivers Musuem, gives a talk on how the Pitt Rivers Museum has been using academic research to create new educational activities

Dan Hicks, Pitt Rivers Museum, gives a talk on object based research at the Pitt Rivers Museum

Chris Morton, Pitt Rivers Museum, gives a talk on working with first nations and source communities to enhance the museum's understanding of its collections

The term ‘ethnomusicology’ was coined in 1959 by Dutch academic, Jaap Kunst.  Put simply, it is the social and cultural study of music – whether that is gamelan, hip hop, British folk or any other kind. A Spanish translation of this podcast is set out below the English transcript.  We are very grateful to Héctor Pittman Villarreal for producing it for us. Jo Barratt and Sarah Winkler Reid went to the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford to interview Dr Noel Lobley, the museum’s ethnomusicologist to find out more about ethnomusicology and hear about his personal experiences working particularly in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Jo and Sarah have produced 2 other podcasts from the Pitt Rivers collection: Pitt Rivers Collection: Louis Sarno and the BayAka Pitt Rivers Collection: Reel to Real Noel Lobley:  What is ethnomusicology?  That’s a good question and it has been debated and argued about for at least the last 60 years. Ethnomusicology was coined as an academic term in 1959 by Jaap Kunst, a Dutch scholar working mainly in Indonesia.  Before that ethnomusicology was known as comparative musicology. Simplistically, it is the social and cultural study of music.  It’s very interdisciplinary, it was originally a divergence from more traditional musicology, which was very much about wertern art music, about the cannon, German composers,  this is the only music that matters. Ethnomusicologists were those who started to be interested in Indian music, folk music - just the variety of musics that are out there in the world- and realised that the musicological approach (transcription, score based analysis) doesn’t necessarily apply or doesn’t work anything like what we understand as harmony. Musicologists realised they needed different methods of dealing with different musics, so they started to say it is the study of music in culture, music as culture, the study of all the human processes that are important in the making of music eg psychology, biology, what happens in the cells.  But the most important threads are still the anthropological approaches to music.  This means participant observation, fieldwork, long term immersion with a culture.  Ethnomusicology used to be defined by what it studied, but it isn’t any more because Ethnomusicologists study techno, hip hop, noiseart.  I don’t think there is a genre of music or sound that Ethnomusicologists don't look at now.  It's not just traditional music from Africa or India.  It's the social and cultural study of music, trying to find interdisciplinary ways of understanding what enable us to make music. Sometimes that involves non-human processes.  There is research into the relationship between insect sounds, bird sounds and whale sounds, and our music. The natural environment and our music. So it is a very vibrant and exciting area of musical study. Jo Barratt: Does this mean recorded sound is your primary source? NL: In the development of ethnomusicology recording has been hugely influential. , - the making of ethnographic recordings, where scholars/researchers/travellers/ anthropologists went somewhere and made their recordings. As soon as the invention of the phonograph in 1877, it has probably been the central method, alongside participant observation. Ethnomusicologists used to do analysis just through recordings, which might not have bee made by them, so they could listen to the recorded objects and they might get it worng, through not understanding the context - not knowing what went into making the recording.  If the recording is too fast and there is no picture reference you can make mistakes. But the recorded object has been hugely influential. We've made millions of hours of these ethnomusicology recordings, piled them up in sound archives or private collections.  But the next stage, what to do with those documents is not always so obvious.  Traditionally once they'd been transcribed the recording would be discarded,

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of the Victorian anthropologist and archaeologist Augustus Pitt-Rivers. Over many years he amassed thousands of ethnographic and archaeological objects, some of which formed the founding collection of the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford University. Inspired by the work of Charles Darwin, Pitt-Rivers believed that human technology evolved in the same way as living organisms, and devoted much of his life to exploring this theory. He was also a pioneering archaeologist whose meticulous records of major excavations provided a model for later scholars. With:Adam Kuper Visiting Professor of Anthropology at Boston UniversityRichard Bradley Professor in Archaeology at the University of ReadingDan Hicks University Lecturer & Curator of Archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford.Producer: Thomas Morris.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of the Victorian anthropologist and archaeologist Augustus Pitt-Rivers. Over many years he amassed thousands of ethnographic and archaeological objects, some of which formed the founding collection of the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford University. Inspired by the work of Charles Darwin, Pitt-Rivers believed that human technology evolved in the same way as living organisms, and devoted much of his life to exploring this theory. He was also a pioneering archaeologist whose meticulous records of major excavations provided a model for later scholars. With: Adam Kuper Visiting Professor of Anthropology at Boston University Richard Bradley Professor in Archaeology at the University of Reading Dan Hicks University Lecturer & Curator of Archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Producer: Thomas Morris.

Hello from the Plain! The last few weeks have flown by in a whirl of assessments and cushions, so this is just a quick update prior to the Postcard, which was recorded back in April. Woolsack Update The first two Listener Cushions are now assembled and stuffed and ready to make their way to London. Thank you all so much! The first cushion I think is made from a lot of Rowan British Breeds, and includes a square made in the US on the front.... and squares made in Australia on the back... The second cushion also has some "Made in Oz" squares, this time on the front.... Thanks to all the listeners who contributed! A Postcard from Oxford The music in this postcard is from the album The Oxford Ramble and is used with the kind permission of Magpie Lane . Some photos from the day: Magdalen Tower Inside Darn It & Stitch The dinosaur in a badly-knitted Fair Isle sweater (aka Keble College) Another dinosaur - real this time! Looking down into the Pitt Rivers - it looks a lot darker than this in real life! The Shrunken Heads in the Pitt Rivers The Radcliffe Camera The Bodleian Library Links Magpie Lane http://www.magpielane.co.uk/ May Morning http://www.oxford.gov.uk/PageRender/decVanilla/MayMorninginOxford.htm Magdalen Tower http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalen_Tower Botanical Gardens http://www.botanic-garden.ox.ac.uk/ The Grand Cafe http://www.thegrandcafe.co.uk/ ; Darn It and Stitch http://www.darnitandstitch.com/ ; Oxford Kitchen Yarns http://www.oxfordkitchenyarns.com/shop/ Morse http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspector_Morse ; Lewis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergeant_Lewis ; Oxford University Museum of Natural History http://www.oum.ox.ac.uk/ ; Pitt Rivers Museum http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/ ; Shrunken heads http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrunken_head/ Bodleian Library http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/bodley John Hampden http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hampden Christchurch http://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/ ; Dr Fell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Fell_(bishop) Howard Goodall http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Goodall ; Ashmolean Museum http://www.ashmolean.org/ Martyrs’ Memorial http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyrs'_Memorial ; Oxford Martyrs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_Martyrs Theme Music: Rondopolska by Barry Philips, from the album Tråd, available from Magnatune. We have a listeners' map. Please go on over to pop in a pin - we're covering 5 continents! Feel free to leave a comment here or at http://www.yarnsfromtheplain.podbean.com/, or email me at yarnsfromtheplain AT googlemail DOT com. We have a Ravelry group here, so come on over to chat. You can find me on Ravelry as talesfromtheplain and on Twitter as talesfromplain (although Tweeting can be sporadic!). TTFN, Nic x

Professor Chris Gosden talks about what it means to be English with reference to a project at the Pitt Rivers Museum called 'The Other Within'.

Professor Chris Gosden talks about what it means to be English with reference to a project at the Pitt Rivers Museum called 'The Other Within'.

Anthropologist and filmmaker Udi Mandel Butler and Alan Mandel explore the art of Henna in Birmingham. From techniques of application to how it is used to decorate the body and bring people together in celebration at festive occasions among Asian, North African and Arab communities in the UK.

Colloquia Week 4 HT11: Egyptian Collection at the Pitt Rivers Museum.

Con una conferencia del profesor B. A. L. Cranstone, Conservador del Pitt Rivers Museum de Oxford, sobre «Entorno y cultura de Nueva Guinea», se inauguró el pasado 21 de abril, en la sede de la Fundación, la Exposición de Arte de Nueva Guinea y Papua, que permanecerá abierta hasta el proximo 20 de junio. Integrada por 128 piezas -armas y herramientas de trabajo, mascaras, objetos rituales, orfebreria y todo tipo de fetiches- pertenecientes a las colecciones particulares que don Alberto Folch y don Eudaldo Serra han ido formando a través de sucesivas expediciones a esas islas en los ultimos trece años, la muestra ha sido organizada en colaboracion con la Fundación Folch, de Barcelona. Concebida con caracter didáctico, incluye, además de las obras, diversos mapas, textos explicativos y fotografias de ambiente, para una mayor comprensión de la cultura negra de Oceania.Más información de este acto