We are delighted to announce the publication of Memorandoms by James Martin, edited by Tim Causer.

Among the vast body of manuscripts composed and collected by the philosopher and reformer Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), held by UCL Library’s Special Collections, is the earliest Australian convict narrative, Memorandoms by James Martin. This document also happens to be the only extant first-hand account of the most well-known, and most mythologized, escape from Australia by transported convicts. 

On the night of 28 March 1791, James Martin, William and Mary Bryant and their two infant children, and six other male convicts, stole the colony’s fishing boat and sailed out of Sydney Harbour. Within ten weeks they had reached Kupang in West Timor, having, in an amazing feat of endurance, travelled over 3,000 miles (c. 5,000) kilometres) in an open boat. There they passed themselves off as the survivors of a shipwreck, a ruse which—initially, at least—fooled their Dutch hosts. 

This new edition of the Memorandoms includes full colour reproductions of the original manuscripts, making available for the first time this hugely important document, alongside a transcript with commentary describing the events and key characters. The book also features a scholarly introduction which examines their escape and early convict absconding in New South Wales more generally, and, drawing on primary records, presents new research which sheds light on the fate of the escapees after they reached Kupang. The introduction also assesses the voluminous literature on this most famous escape, and critically examines the myths and fictions created around it and the escapees, myths which have gone unchallenged for far too long. Finally, the introduction briefly discusses Jeremy Bentham’s views on convict transportation and their enduring impact.

We are delighted to announce the release of Sri Lanka at the Crossroads of History, edited by Zoltan Biedermann and Alan Strathern.

The peoples of Sri Lanka have participated in far-flung trading networks, religious formations, and Asian and European empires for millennia. This interdisciplinary volume sets out to draw Sri Lanka into the field of Asian and Global History by showing how the latest wave of scholarship has explored the island as a ‘crossroads’, a place defined by its openness to movement across the Indian Ocean.

 Experts in the history, archaeology, literature and art of the island from c.500 BCE to c.1850 CE use Lankan material to explore a number of pressing scholarly debates. They address these matters from their varied disciplinary perspectives and diverse array of sources, critically assessing concepts such as ethnicity, cosmopolitanism and localisation, and elucidating the subtle ways in which the foreign may be resisted and embraced at the same time. The individual chapters, and the volume as a whole, are a welcome addition to the history and historiography of Sri Lanka, as well as studies of the Indian Ocean region, kingship, colonialism, imperialism, and early modernity.

We are delighted to announce the publication of Fabricate 2017, edited by Bob Sheil, Achim Menges, Ruairi Glynn and Marilena Skavara .

Bringing together pioneers in design and making within architecture, construction, engineering, manufacturing, materials technology and computation, Fabricate is a triennial international conference, now in its third year (ICD, University of Stuttgart, April 2017). Each year it produces a supporting publication, to date the only one of its kind specialising in Digital Fabrication.

The 2017 edition features 32 illustrated articles on built projects and works in progress from academia and practice, including contributions from leading practices such as Foster + Partners, Zaha Hadid Architects, Arup, and Ron Arad, and from world-renowned institutions including ICD Stuttgart, Harvard, Yale, MIT, Princeton University, The Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL) and the Architectural Association.

From the Enlightenment to the first Apple Mac, universities have been the driving force that change the world. Now a new publication from UCL Press explores the role of philanthropy in a rapidly changing higher education environment.

The publication brings to a wider audience the keynote speech given by investor and philanthropist Dr Gerald Chan, who spoke at UCL’s Insiders Day in July 2016 – a preview for close friends and supporters of the new Campaign for UCL which launched publicly in September 2016. Read about the launch here: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/campaign/campaign-news/campaign-launch

Highlighting the vital need for philanthropic public-private partnerships, Dr Chan argues that the independence of universities is crucial for maintaining their dual role as engines of the economy and places of curiosity driven research. He concludes: “This is not a budgetary struggle, it is a struggle for the very soul of the university.”

Payng tribute to Dr Chan in the publication’s foreword, UCL’s President & Provost Professor Michael Arthur says: “We could not have asked for a clearer and more cogent overview of the unique, far-reaching value of philanthropy.

“It is doing something completely different. It enables great researchers to be daring and disruptive, to follow a hunch, to end in a place completely different from the one they expected, to pursue the projects that, for a variety of reasons, public funding cannot support.

“It is this work that produces outcomes that shake society.”

This post originally appeared at: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/campaign/campaign-news/Gerald-Chan-philanthropy-and-universities 

Why do we post selfies in England and footies (photos of their feet) in Chile? How quintessentially English are we when it comes to our social media activity? These are a few of the big themes explored in Why We Post - a global social media research project carried out by a team of UCL anthropologists. Professor Daniel Miller, Professor of Anthropology at UCL, who led the project, and Dr Elisabetta Costa is Anthropologist at the British Institute at Ankara appeared on  Radio 4's influential Today show this morning to discuss the Why We Post project in more detail. 

• Click here to listen to their segment (starts at 2:54)