Ashmolean Papers

Draws together and extends proceedings from a symposium held at the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Oxford. It offers a broad range of interdisciplinary insights into issues surrounding the impact of deindustrialisation upon heritage, communities and landscapes, and urban renewal through art and culture led strategies.publishedVersio

The New Grand Bourgeoisie under Post-Communism: Central Europe, Russia and China Compared

In the former socialist redistributive economies, the transition to market economy and the conversion to private ownership followed different trajectories. The paper offers an overview on how a new class of grand bourgeoisie was formed in three differentpost-socialism, transitional economies, wealth, privatization, bourgeoisie

Object Identity: Deconstructing the 'Hartree Differential Analyser' and Reconstructing a Meccano Analogue Computer

In 1934, a child's construction toy - Meccano - was used to build the first differential analyser in the UK. Initially intended as a proof-of-concept model, the original Meccano differential analyser proved so successful at resolving equations that many subsequent Meccano and non-Meccano analogue computers were built in the UK. These machines were used before, during, and after the Second World War as research instruments and teaching devices. Despite this, the part of the original Meccano differential analyser that has sat in the Science Museum since 1949 has been used to tell a Whiggish history of computers that focuses on digital machines at the expense of analogue mechanisms. While historians of computing today define their work in opposition to this linear-progressive account of computing, this approach featured prominently in academic literature until the turn of the millennium. This thesis explores Hartree and Porter's original Meccano differential analyser as an analogue computer, using it as a case study to explore the complex relationships between Meccano, play, science, and engineering. In doing so, it considers the object as an assemblage of its Meccano materiality, its instrumentality as an analogue computer, and its career as a collected object in the Science Museum. It deconstructs these different elements of the assemblage and explores how they are part of wider, external assemblages that have their own public histories. The thesis considers the changing materiality of Meccano as an object from 1901 to the present day, analysing marketing materials, the Meccano Magazine, and the voices of the Meccanomen to challenge the conventional, synchronic history of the toy as an unchanged engineering tool. It uses the Meccanomen's popular publications together with archival sources and interviews to historicise the 'alternative' version of the Meccanomen's movement, making it possible to see how individuals attached a variety of personalised meanings to their Meccano hobby. It also explores the object's instrumentality as an analogue computer, beginning with a detailed 'nuts and bolts' comparison of how the original Meccano differential analyser worked with how it was presented in academic and popular publications in 1934. It then brings together the stories and applications of other differential analysers constructed in Britain during this period, to provide further case studies about the role of these computers during the Second World War, and how they have been displayed in museums. The thesis then draws on these analyses by telling the story of the 'Trainbox' object that was collected by the Science Museum in 1949. The 'Trainbox' was comprised of parts of the original Meccano differential analyser that Hartree used to teach the principles of differential equations and integration after the Second World War. Through exploring how the public history and voices of the object have been changed in different exhibits in the museum, this thesis demonstrates the complex relationship between different parts of object's assemblage in a variety of contexts over time. The final part of the thesis builds on these deconstructed elements by reconstructing the original object as the Kent machine, a historical reproduction designed to recover elements of the tacit knowledge used to build it in 1934. It finishes by exploring how these new understandings of Meccano and analogue computers were used to co-curate a new public history for this curious object, using the 'shared authority' of myself, the Meccanomen, and audiences we engaged with the Kent machine

A Social Dimension for Digital Architectural Practice

Merged with duplicate record 10026.1/1296 on 14.03.2017 by CS (TIS)This thesis proceeds from an analysis of practice and critical commentary to claim that the opportunities presented to some architectural practices by the advent of ubiquitous digital technology have not been properly exploited. The missed opportunities, it claims, can be attributed largely to the retention of a model of time and spaces as discrete design parameters, which is inappropriate in the context of the widening awareness of social interconnectedness that digital technology has also facilitated. As a remedy, the thesis shows that some social considerations essential to good architecture - which could have been more fully integrated in practice and theory more than a decade ago - can now be usefully revisited through a systematic reflection on an emerging use of web technologies that support social navigation. The thesis argues through its text and a number of practical projects that the increasing confidence and sophistication of interdisciplinary studies in geography, most notably in human geography, combined with the technological opportunities of social navigation, provide a useful model of time and space as a unified design parameter. In so doing the thesis suggests new possibilities for architectural practices involving social interaction. Through a literature review of the introduction and development of digital technologies to architectural practice, the thesis identifies the inappropriate persistence of a number of overarching concepts informing architectural practice. In a review of the emergence and growth of 'human geography' it elaborates on the concept of the social production of space, which it relates to an analysis of emerging social navigation technologies. In so doing the thesis prepares the way for an integration of socially aware architecture with the opportunities offered by social computing. To substantiate its claim the thesis includes a number of practical public projects that have been specifically designed to extend and amplify certain concepts, along with a large-scale design project and systematic analysis which is intended to illustrate the theoretical claim and provide a model for further practical exploitation

Working At Night

The night has always and almost universally represented a special ‘out of the ordinary’ temporal zone with its own meanings, possibilities, and dangers. It is only since the modern era that the night has become increasingly ‘normalised’. Although 24/7 industrial production is often seen as a consequence of capitalist expansion, other political and economic regimes adopted the ‘night shift’, normalising it as part of an alternative modernity

The ILR School at Fifty: Voices of the Faculty, Alumni & Friends (Full Text)

A collection of reflections on the first fifty years of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. Compiled by Robert B. McKersie, J. Gormly Miller, Robert L. Aronson, and Robert R. Julian. Edited by Elaine Gruenfeld Goldberg. It was the hope of the compilers that the reflections contained in this book would both kindle memories of the school and stimulate interest on the part of future generations of ILRies who have not yet shared in its special history. Dedicated to the Memory of J. Gormly Miller, 1914-1995. Copyright 1996 by Cornell University. All rights reserved

Comparisons & analyses of U.S. & global economic data & trends

Issued as final reportSRI Internationa

Working At Night

The night has always and almost universally represented a special ‘out of the ordinary’ temporal zone with its own meanings, possibilities, and dangers. It is only since the modern era that the night has become increasingly ‘normalised’. Although 24/7 industrial production is often seen as a consequence of capitalist expansion, other political and economic regimes adopted the ‘night shift’, normalising it as part of an alternative modernity