Marion most bold : feminine transgression in the greenwood

In my project, I focus on the role and depiction of women found in the Robin Hood greenwood: specifically, those of Maid Marian. Maid Marian rarely appears in early Robin Hood texts, and especially not in a capacity in which she herself speaks, so it is striking that today she has become almost as synonymous with the greenwood in Robin Hood tales as the man himself. Indeed, one of the rare instances in which Marian plays a lead role occurs in the seventeenth-century ballad “Robin Hood and Maid Marian,” which appears in only one manuscript, after the original Robin Hood ballads of the Middle Ages, and does not seem to have been popular. This seventeenth-century ballad allots Maid Marian an agency typically reserved only for Robin’s merry men. Though I agree that Marian exhibits certain transgressive behaviors, especially in “Robin Hood and Maid Marian,” by the end of Robin Hood texts—medieval, early modern, or otherwise—though the space of the greenwood allows a certain level of freedom for the men in the texts, the “good” women in the Robin Hood texts remain noble ladies who still act as they ought to even though they live outside the confines of civilized society. The same social rules of urban society continue to apply to them, and even in the few cases where the women get to demonstrate more traditionally masculine qualities, they still must end up back in their proper role at the end of the Robin Hood ballad or play.Englis

Recent Acquisitions, 2007-2017: Selections from the Gettysburg College Fine Arts Collection

This exhibition reflects the breadth of Gettysburg College’s significant art collection and acknowledges the generosity of its donors. Major acquisitions have been made possible by The Michael J. Birkner \u2772 and Robin Wagner Art and Photography Acquisition Fund, which was established in 2013 to enhance the Gettysburg College curriculum, to offer curatorial opportunities for students, and to provide first-hand access to significant works of art. Purchases made possible by this endowment include works by prominent, internationally renowned artists Kara Walker, Wafaa Bilal, John Biggers, and Michael Scoggins. Other recent donations include important works by Andy Warhol, Glenn Ligon, Leonard Baskin, Raphael Soyer, Marion Greenwood, William Clutz, William Mason Brown, Sally Gall, and Jules Cheret’s Les Maîtres de l\u27Affiche lithographs. The Fine Arts Collection at Gettysburg College is comprised of over 500 museum-quality works, in addition to over 2000 Asian art objects that are featured routinely in Schmucker Art Gallery exhibitions and studied in Gettysburg College courses. The College has acquired over 200 fine art works in the past ten years, and this exhibition marks the first occasion to celebrate and view the scope of the collection. Some of the objects have been featured in recent exhibitions, while others, including large-scale color silkscreens by Andy Warhol and a rare print by MacArthur “Genius” Award recipient Carrie Mae Weems, have not yet been exhibited.https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/artcatalogs/1024/thumbnail.jp

Tolkien Among the Moderns (2015), ed. by Ralph C. Wood

Book review by Robin Anne Reid of Tolkien Among the Moderns (2015) ed. by Ralph C. Woo

A Double Agent Down Under: Australian Security and the Infiltration of the Left

Because of its clandestine character, the world of the undercover agent has remained murky. This article attempts to illuminate this shadowy feature of intelligence operations. It examines the activities of one double agent, the Czech-born Maximilian Wechsler, who successfully infiltrated two socialist organizations, in the early 1970s. Wechsler was engaged by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. However, he was ‘unreliable’: he came in from the cold and went public. The article uses his exposés to recreate his undercover role. It seeks to throw some light on the recruitment methods of ASIO, on the techniques of infiltration, on the relationship between ASIO and the Liberal Party during a period of political volatility in Australia, and on the contradictory position of the Labor Government towards the security services

Engagement in a Public Forum: Knowledge, Action, and Cosmopolitanism

Facing challenges to the civic purpose of higher education, some scholars and administrators turn to the rhetoric of engagement. Simultaneously, the political philosophy of cosmopolitanism has gained intellectual favor, advocating openness to the lived experiences of distant others. We articulate linkages between these two discourses in an extended case study, finding that a cosmopolitan ethos of engagement in a rural context can improve (1) understanding among people ordinarily separated by spatialized social-ecological differences, (2) prospects for longer term environmental sustainability, and (3) the visionary potential of collaborative inquiry. Despite globalization of food systems and neoliberal shifts in fishery management, an annual fisheries forum facilitates coalitions that overcome dichotomies between technocratic and local knowledge, extending benefits to fishing communities, academia, and public policy. Iterative and loosely structured capacity building expands informally through affective processes of recognition and care, as decentralized leadership supports collective mobilization toward alternate futures

Testing the delivery of conservation schemes for farmland birds at the farm-scale during winter, in Southern lowland England

Many farmland bird species across Europe have continued to show population declines since the 1970s, as a result of agricultural intensification. A large number of conservation schemes and initiatives have emerged from Government and the food industry sector to address this problem. Some farmland bird populations are limited by overwintering survival. This paper compares winter farmland bird abundance and species richness from differing conservation schemes, including: Entry Level Stewardship (ELS), Conservation Grade (CG) and Organic farm management scenarios. Winter bird surveys were tailored to the farm-scale, reflecting the proportions of infield habitat arrangements of nine case study farms. Organic farms provided significantly less infield habitat types across all schemes and were dominated by grassland habitat. Entry Level Stewardship and CG schemes had larger proportions of winter bird food provisions and increased habitat heterogeneity. The results show granivorous passerines to be significantly more abundant on CG farms compared to Organic. Moreover, yellowhammers (Emberiza citronella L.) are specialist seed-eaters that were significantly less abundant on Organic farms, compared to ELS and CG. There were no significant differences for insectivorous passerines between schemes. A positive relationship between number of infield habitats and species richness on farms was found, with Organic farms scoring the lowest species richness. These results demonstrate a proof-of-concept that farm-scale management can have positive farm-scale effects for birds; with increasing habitat heterogeneity and the presence of winter bird food provisions. Interestingly, Organic farms are shown not to provide significant benefits to overwintering birds. This paper suggests that the CG scheme provides the best framework for farmers to achieve sufficient infield habitat arrangements to better overwintering farmland bird

Recolonization of Raoul Island by Kermadec red-crowned parakeets Cyanoramphus novaezelandiae cyanurus after eradication of invasive predators, Kermadec Islands archipelago, New Zealand

The Kermadec red-crowned parakeet Cyanoramphus novaezelandiae was driven to extinction on Raoul Island over 150 years ago by introduced cats Felis catus and rats (Rattus norvegicus and R. exulans). These predators were eradicated from the island (2,938 ha) between 2002-04 during the world’s largest multispecies eradication project. In 2008 we documented a unique recolonisation event when parakeets were observed to have returned to Raoul, presumably from a nearby island group, The Herald Islets (51 ha). We captured and aged 100 parakeets, of which 44% were born in 2008, and breeding was observed on Raoul Island. This represents the first evidence of nesting of this species on Raoul Island since 1836. Our findings highlight the global conservation potential for island avifaunas by prioritising eradication areas through consideration of proximity of remnant populations to target management locations, instead of the classical translocation approach alone. The natural recolonization of parakeets on Raoul Island from a satellite source population is to our knowledge, a first for parrot conservation and the first documented population expansion and island recolonization of a parrot species after removal of invasive predators