The art of tropical travel, 1768-1830

Book synopsis: Georgian Geographies provides an innovative interdisciplinary examination of the geographical nature of culture and society in eighteenth-century Britain and the British world. The book's introduction identifies the key areas of study as the geographical constitution of empire, the Enlightenment and the public sphere. These themes are explored by examining the connections between space, place and landscape in the eighteenth century in relation to the emergent empire in the Caribbean and north-west America, and in Britain itself. The topics considered include landscape painting, London's art world, geography's book, mapping, the geography of erotic fiction, provincial science, and the production of domestic space in the early English novel. It will be an essential contribution to eighteenth-century studies for research and teaching staff, postgraduates and advanced undergraduate students in geography, history, literary studies, the history of art, postcolonial studies and the history of science

John Septimus Roe and the art of navigation, c. 1815-1830

In this paper, we consider the ways in which practices of drawing and surveying shaped the geographical imagination of British mariners in the tropics. The art of navigation involved a variety of skills, notably sketching and mapping. The history of naval survey and hydrography is often written from the centre, a more‐or‐less halting narrative of science, government and empire in which prominent naval officials hold the stage. Here, we start with a different view ‐ that of the surveyor in the field, or rather on board ship, working with his eyes and his hands to make a record of the voyage. The two views are not mutually exclusive: but the perspectives they give differ in important respects. Our focus in this paper is on a single figure ‐ John Septimus Roe, who later rose to prominence as Surveyor‐General of Western Australia. We are interested here in Roe's more humble early career, as midshipman and master's mate on a number of vessels during and after the Napoleonic Wars, which took him to various sites across the British empire, formal and informal: to the European theatre of war, to North and South America, the Gulf, India, Mauritius, Burma, South‐East Asia and tropical Australia. The images of Rio de Janeiro examined here form part of a corpus which raises much wider questions about the visual culture of navigation and the experience of observation in the early nineteenth century

Place, gender and the making of natural history: Hannah im Thurn in British Guiana, 1895-1897

In 1895, the forty-year old Hannah im Thurn (née Lorimer) embarked on a new life as a colonial wife in the tropics, having just married the explorer and administrator Everard im Thurn. She accompanied her husband on a two-year sojourn in British Guiana, where they lived in Morawahanna, a remote settlement near the Venezuelan frontier. This paper contributes to a broader historical geography of the field sciences by providing a glimpse into relations across the porous boundaries between the private and the public, the domestic and the official, that shaped the production of natural history knowledge in the colonial context. By piecing together evidence from family letters, photographs, drawings and sculptures produced in British Guiana, we seek to make Hannah’s presence in the historical record – and in Everard’s scientific and administrative life – more visible. In particular, the paper contributes to the increasing body of work on gender and science which has begun to unravel the entangled histories of personal partnerships that have shaped modern science

Place, gender and the making of natural history: Hannah im Thurn in British Guiana, 1895-1897

In 1895, the forty-year old Hannah im Thurn (née Lorimer) embarked on a new life as a colonial wife in the tropics, having just married the explorer and administrator Everard im Thurn. She accompanied her husband on a two-year sojourn in British Guiana, where they lived in Morawahanna, a remote settlement near the Venezuelan frontier. This paper contributes to a broader historical geography of the field sciences by providing a glimpse into relations across the porous boundaries between the private and the public, the domestic and the official, that shaped the production of natural history knowledge in the colonial context. By piecing together evidence from family letters, photographs, drawings and sculptures produced in British Guiana, we seek to make Hannah’s presence in the historical record – and in Everard’s scientific and administrative life – more visible. In particular, the paper contributes to the increasing body of work on gender and science which has begun to unravel the entangled histories of personal partnerships that have shaped modern science

Escrita criativa: um caminho para a motivação

p. 45-49Este artigo apresenta uma breve descrição da forma como contribuímos para o desenvolvimento do projecto de investigação Escrita Criativa que implicou a utilização de um software. Começamos por fazer o enquadramento da nossa inves - tigação referindo o objecto de estudo, os objectivos, a população- alvo, a metodologia e os instrumentos utilizados. Segui damente descrevemos os procedimentos que antecederam a utilização do software e as actividades desenvolvidas e implementadas. Apresentamos também os resultados obtidos no nosso estudo e como conclusão reflectimos sobre todo o processo

Envelhecimento vocal: estudo acústico-articulatório das alterações de fala com a idade

Background: Although the aging process causes specific alterations in the speech organs, the knowledge about the age effects in speech production is still disperse and incomplete. Objective: To provide a broader view of the age-related segmental and suprasegmental speech changes in European Portuguese (EP), considering new aspects besides static acoustic features, such as dynamic and articulatory data. Method: Two databases, with speech data of Portuguese adult native speakers obtained through standardized recording and segmentation procedures, were devised: i) an acoustic database containing all EP oral vowels produced in similar context (reading speech), and also a sample of semispontaneous speech (image description) collected from a large sample of adults between the ages 35 and 97; ii) and another with articulatory data (ultrasound (US) tongue images synchronized with speech) for all EP oral vowels produced in similar contexts (pseudowords and isolated) collected from young ([21-35]) and older ([55-73]) adults. Results: Based on the curated databases, various aspects of the aging speech were analyzed. Acoustically, the aging speech is characterized by: 1) longer vowels (in both genders); 2) a tendency for F0 to decrease in women and slightly increase in men; 3) lower vowel formant frequencies in females; 4) a significant reduction of the vowel acoustic space in men; 5) vowels with higher trajectory slope of F1 (in both genders); 6) shorter descriptions with higher pause time for males; 7) faster speech and articulation rate for females; and 8) lower HNR for females in semi-spontaneous speech. In addition, the total speech duration decrease is associated to non-severe depression symptoms and age. Older adults tended to present more depressive symptoms that could impact the amount of speech produced. Concerning the articulatory data, the tongue tends to be higher and more advanced with aging for almost all vowels, meaning that the vowel articulatory space tends to be higher, advanced, and bigger in older females. Conclusion: This study provides new information on aging speech for a language other than English. These results corroborate that speech changes with age and present different patterns between genders, and also suggest that speakers might develop specific articulatory adjustments with aging.Contextualização: Embora o processo de envelhecimento cause alterações específicas no sistema de produção de fala, o conhecimento sobre os efeitos da idade na fala é ainda disperso e incompleto. Objetivo: Proporcionar uma visão mais ampla das alterações segmentais e suprassegmentais da fala relacionadas com a idade no Português Europeu (PE), considerando outros aspetos, para além das características acústicas estáticas, tais como dados dinâmicos e articulatórios. Método: Foram criadas duas bases de dados, com dados de fala de adultos nativos do PE, obtidos através de procedimentos padronizados de gravação e segmentação: i) uma base de dados acústica contendo todas as vogais orais do PE em contexto semelhante (leitura de palavras), e também uma amostra de fala semiespontânea (descrição de imagem) produzidas por uma larga amostra de indivíduos entre os 35 e os 97 anos; ii) e outra com dados articulatórios (imagens de ultrassom da língua sincronizadas com o sinal acústico) de todas as vogais orais do PE produzidas em contextos semelhantes (pseudopalavras e palavras isoladas) por adultos de duas faixas etárias ([21-35] e [55-73]). Resultados: Tendo em conta as bases de dados curadas, foi analisado o efeito da idade em diversas características da fala. Acusticamente, a fala de pessoas mais velhas é caracterizada por: 1) vogais mais longas (ambos os sexos); 2) tendência para F0 diminuir nas mulheres e aumentar ligeiramente nos homens; 3) diminuição da frequência dos formantes das vogais nas mulheres; 4) redução significativa do espaço acústico das vogais nos homens; 5) vogais com maior inclinação da trajetória de F1 (ambos os sexos); 6) descrições mais curtas e com maior tempo de pausa nos homens; 7) aumento da velocidade articulatória e da velocidade de fala nas mulheres; e 8) diminuição do HNR na fala semiespontânea em mulheres. Além disso, os idosos tendem a apresentar mais sintomas depressivos que podem afetar a quantidade de fala produzida. Em relação aos dados articulatórios, a língua tende a apresentar-se mais alta e avançada em quase todas as vogais com a idade, ou seja o espaço articulatório das vogais tende a ser maior, mais alto e avançado nas mulheres mais velhas. Conclusão: Este estudo fornece novos dados sobre o efeito da idade na fala para uma língua diferente do inglês. Os resultados corroboram que a fala sofre alterações com a idade, que diferem em função do género, sugerindo ainda que os falantes podem desenvolver ajustes articulatórios específicos com a idade.Programa Doutoral em Gerontologia e Geriatri