Art and Design Commons^™

Craftivism As Inquiry: Holding Life’S Threads, Chloe Watfern, Gaynor Macdonald, Michele Elliot, Lynne Stone, Imelda Gilmore, Manuel Tecson, Najla Turk, Penny Bingham, Jane Mears, Ann Dadich, Barbara Doran, Katherine Boydell, Sarah Wallace

The Qualitative Report

In this article, we share insights regarding an arts-based research project where carers of people with dementia conveyed their experiences in cloth. Carers face high rates of mental ill health and burnout, while forming a largely undervalued and unrecognised workforce. Through this project, carers’ knowledge was valued and amplified using an innovative methodology – craftivism. During a series of five workshops in 2021, a small group of carers, researchers and artists gathered online to develop an exhibition of craftivist textile works. They evoked the complexity of their makers’ journeys supporting loved ones at the end of life, finding joy and …

Reducing Food Scarcity: The Benefits Of Urban Farming, S.A. Claudell, Emilio Mejia

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Urban farming can enhance the lives of communities and help reduce food scarcity. This paper presents a conceptual prototype of an efficient urban farming community that can be scaled for a single apartment building or an entire community across all global geoeconomics regions, including densely populated cities and rural, developing towns and communities. When deployed in coordination with smart crop choices, local farm support, and efficient transportation then the result isn’t just sustainability, but also increasing fresh produce accessibility, optimizing nutritional value, eliminating the use of ‘forever chemicals’, reducing transportation costs, and fostering global environmental benefits.

Imagine Doris, who is …

A Historical Overview And Description Of The University Of Kwazulu-Natal’S Ceremonial And Academic Attire, Andrew-John Bethke

Transactions of the Burgon Society

he University of KwaZulu-Natal was legally constituted in 2004 when the University of Natal was amalgamated with the University of Durban-Westville. In the early 2000s, the South African government sought to decrease the number of higher education institutions in the country from thirty-six to twenty-one through amalgamation. This article describes the process by which the current university developed its ceremonial and academic dress.

Peculiar And Proper Habits: The Use And Production Of Academic Dress In Colonial, Revolutionary, And Federal Philadelphia, Nicholas Heavens

Transactions of the Burgon Society

This is a study of the adoption and use of academic dress at the University of Pennsylvania and its predecessor institutions, the College of Philadelphia and University of the State of Pennsylvania from approximately 1750–1830. Despite early interest of the College’s founder, Benjamin Franklin, to use academic dress to monitor student activities outside college bounds, there was soon contentious debate between the institution’s founding senior academics about whether academic dress should be used at all. By sheer force of will of its leading proponent, academic dress came into use at public ceremonies. These public ceremonies became a model for public …

Coloured Velvet Is Too Gaudy: The 1861 Reforms To The Academical Costume Of The University Of London, Bruce Christianson

Transactions of the Burgon Society

The University of London’s original system of academic dress was adopted by the Senate in 1844, and made extensive use of velvet on both gowns and hoods. In 1861 London adopted a radically new system, which eliminated the use of velvet and which has (with various amendments and additions) remained recognizably in use to this day. This article tells the story of how the revision came about, by tracing its progress through the Minute Book of Convocation.

Bristol Blue: A Search For The Origins Of Academic Dress At The University Of Bristol, Paul Hayward

Transactions of the Burgon Society

This article gives the results of research into the origins of academic dress at the University of Bristol, and is principally concerned with the regulations surrounding that subject. As such, it does not look into the actual use of academic dress. For example, undergraduate gowns still form part of the official regulations, but they are not to be seen in the University today. This falls outside the scope of this research.

Erratum: The Lack Of A Theology Hood At The University Of The West Indies, Mitchell A. Nicholls

Transactions of the Burgon Society

In the printed edition of Volume 20, p. 162, Mitchell A. Nicholls’ article ‘The Lack of a Theology Hood at the University of the West Indies’ erred in spelling out the degree BCL. It is a Bachelor of Civil Law, not Canon Law. The error was corrected before the digital edition of Volume 20 was uploaded.

Front Matter, Editorial Board

Transactions of the Burgon Society

No abstract provided.

Fossils In Silk: Historical Hoods Of Trinity College, Toronto, Colin Fleming

Transactions of the Burgon Society

The hoods used by Trinity College at the University of Toronto bear out to some extent what Groves and Christianson suggested, namely that ‘colonial universities initially borrowed their [academical dress] from the mother country, and particularly, in the case of British colonies, from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.’ The hoods we saw at the conference provide evidence that Trinity College may represent an archaeological record of Canadian interpretations (or adaptations) of historical UK usage. The robes of the College have been described in various catalogues and other publications from 1875 to the present, and these sources provided valuable clues …

The Invention Of Tradition: The Cambridge Benefactors’ Gowns, Simon Morris

Transactions of the Burgon Society

This article examines the emergence of a new phenomenon in academic dress that has developed over the past twenty years—the awarding of special gowns by some colleges of the University of Cambridge to recognize individual donors and reward their munificence. This appears to be predominantly—albeit not exclusively—a Cambridge phenomenon, and for reasons advanced below not replicated at Oxford University. This article considers in turn whether benefactors’ gowns qualify as academic dress, the reasons for their institution and the criteria for their design. It then looks at the two types of design that have been used, paying particular attention to the …

University Of Portsmouth Academic Dress, Philip Goff

Transactions of the Burgon Society

The University of Portsmouth has its origins in the Portsmouth and Gosport School of Science and Art (1870), the Portsmouth Municipal Technical Institute (1894) and Portsmouth Municipal College (1908), which replaced the earlier Institute. The College also took under its wing the College of Art, Portsmouth Day Training College for teachers and a public library.This article examines the development of academic dress at the University of Portsmouth.

Iranian Students’ Experience Of K-12 And Higher Education: Use Of Drawings To Convey The Difference Between Ideals And Reality, Iman Tohidian, Abbas Abbaspour, Ali Khorsandi Taskoh

The Qualitative Report

The focus of education during K-12 and Higher Education (HE) in Iran is on theoretical empowerment of students; therefore, our students get an illusion of knowing. In fact, what happens is not learning and understanding; rather, it is verbatim transfer of available information in the textbooks into the students’ minds. It might be because the students and teachers (as the main stakeholders of the education) are the least powerful parties within the pyramid of power amongst educational practitioners and policymakers. It means their voice, feedback, needs, and ideologies have no place in the educational decisions and policies. In alignment with …

The Hoods Of The Three Senior Doctorates At Edinburgh, Nicholas Groves

Transactions of the Burgon Society

The article tracks changes to the hoods of Doctor of Divinity, Doctor of Laws, and Doctor of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh from various sources from 1843 to 1970 in a chart with illustrations.

In Memoriam: Robin L. D. Rees, Nicholas Groves

Transactions of the Burgon Society

Obituary of Robin L. D. Rees, 1946–2021. He was a Fellow of the Society and designed the hoods of the Institute of Physics and for the Archbishop’s Certificate in Church Music.

Editor’S Note, Stephen Wolgast

Transactions of the Burgon Society

No abstract provided.

Cap And Gown? Use Of Headgear At Graduation In Uk Universities In The Twenty-First Century, Martin J. Hardcastle

Transactions of the Burgon Society

Academic headwear, partticularly in the form of the square cap or mortar-board, is perhaps the most widely recognised symbol of educational achievement in the world. This article surveys the current practice of wearing academic caps of all types at graduation ceremonies in UK universities, to understand whether there are common factors in the use or disuse of headwear, and thus tentatively to explain the wide variation in practice that is seen in the twenty-first century.

Primary Source: Examining Official Dress In Universities In Aotearoa New Zealand, Scott Pilkington

Transactions of the Burgon Society

No abstract provided.

‘Different Forms Of Gowns For All Sorts Of Scholars In Their Several Ranks’: Academic Undress At Oxford In 1635, Alex Kerr

Transactions of the Burgon Society

This is a study of a one-page manuscript in the Oxford University Archives with the title ‘Different Forms of Gowns for All Sorts of Scholars in their Several Ranks’, dated June 1635. It was clearly written in connection with the Laudian Code of statutes, which was drafted in 1634 and adopted in 1636. The Code included regulations on university dress and its use at Oxford that would remain in force for 134 years. The document gives a concise specification for Oxford gowns at a time when other written records providing such detail are lacking and pictorial evidence is sparse. This …

A Brief History Of Academic Dress In The Middle East And The Maghreb, Valentina S. Grub

Transactions of the Burgon Society

There are hundreds of universities in the Middle East and the Maghreb, yet the academic dress that they wear, if any, varies widely. Colour standards for hoods are non-existent, and gown shapes vary among British, American, and European shapes, sometimes incorporating elements of each into a single gown, and elaborated with local cultural details. This article examines the current, fluid state of academic dress in the region, where it is not indigenous and is one element of the after-effects of the imposed colonial educational systems.

Front Matter, Editorial Board

Transactions of the Burgon Society

No abstract provided.

Reforms To Scottish Academical Dress During The 1860s, Jonathan C. Cooper

Transactions of the Burgon Society

Although hoods were worn in the ancient Scottish universities during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, their use went into decline thereafter. This article focusses on the re-introduction of hoods in Scotland, mostly during the 1860s. After consideration of the academical dress in use earlier during the nineteenth century, the four ancient universities are treated in the order in which they adopted comprehensive hood schemes. Primary sources, in the form of university minutes and portraits, and secondary sources, mostly in the form of contemporary accounts, are examined.

Sourcing Enchantment: From Elemental Appropriation To Imaginal Symbolics, Schwartz, Michael

CONSCIOUSNESS: Ideas and Research for the Twenty-First Century

Critical theorists and social commentators agree that modernity and postmodernity suffer from historical pathologies of world disenchantment. What might be done? Drawing on John Sallis’ phenomenology of the elemental and Tibetan Buddhist teachings on elemental practices, this paper investigates the imagination in its doubling as imaginal in generating a symbolics of the self, world, and other that is always already enchanted; an aesthetics of existence where the world itself shows forth like a work of art replete with exorbitant logics.

The Confessions Of A Goat: An Oral History On The Resistances Of An Indigenous Community, Prabhakar Jayaprakash

The Qualitative Report

Betta Kurumba is an indigenous (also known as Adivasi / tribal) community living in the Gudalur block of Nilgiris district, Tamil Nadu, India. This district is part of the Western Ghats mountain range that runs parallel to the Western Coast of India. It is an anthropological research on a hamlet, Koodamoola, located inside a tea and coffee plantation, the Golden Cloud Estate (pseudonym). Few years ago, the owner (under legal contestation) of this plantation attempted to enforce a ban on rearing of livestock arbitrarily. Betta Kurumbas did not agree to this enforcement since they are the ancient inhabitants of this …

Glasgow Gown With Three Bands On Each Sleeve, Neil K. Dickson

Transactions of the Burgon Society

In my history of the academic dress of the University of Glasgow I recorded that major changes to gowns and hoods took place in 1893. When the proposals for the various degrees were under consideration by a committee, the University Court instructed the committee to design a gown for its members. However no design appeared. In 1901 a new committee was appointed with the result that in 1902 the following design was approved: ‘a black doctor’s gown with collar and yoke and faced all with MA silk and with three bands of MA silk on each sleeve’. [Excerpt].

Tradition And Humour: The Academic Dress Of The University Of Glasgow, Neil K. Dickson

Transactions of the Burgon Society

The University of Glasgow was founded in 1451. It is the second oldest university in Scotland and the fourth oldest in the UK (after Oxford, Cambridge and St Andrews). By the end of the sixteenth century Scotland had five universities, compared with England’s two. This situation continued for more than two hundred years: it was only in the nineteenth century that England finally caught up with Scotland. So perhaps one might expect that Scotland would have a long, continuous and colourful history of academic dress. However, as we shall see, that is not the case. The reason can be expressed …

A Dress Without A Home: The Unadopted Academic Dress Of The Royal Institute Of British Architects, 1923–24, Philip Goff

Transactions of the Burgon Society

Following the death of Bill Keen, the Managing Director of Ede & Ravenscroft, in 1996, one of [Goff's] tasks, as Academic Consultant, was to sift through hundreds of files and letters at the Chancery Lane premises. On one occasion, a yellowing, quarto-size page fell out of a book. It was headed Supplement to the Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and the bold title of the piece caught his eye: ‘Proposals for the Adoption of an Academic Dress for Members and Licentiates of the Royal Institute of British Architects’. This was followed by some illustrations of the costume …

Academical Dress In The University Of Westminster, Philip Goff

Transactions of the Burgon Society

The following is the account of how the system of academical dress came into being, beginning with what Dr Avery wrote on the subject in his report to the Polytechnic of Central London Court of Governors’ sub-committee on university status, on 16 December 1991. [Excerpt].