James Beattie | Victoria University of Wellington (original) (raw)

James Beattie specialises in environmental history, garden history and the history of science. He is particularly fascinated by the exchange of scientific, health and environmental ideas, especially between Asia and Australasia, as well as the collection of Chinese art objects in New Zealand.

James supervises student research in environmental history; the history of science; imperial history; garden history; and health history.

CURRENT PROJECTS
East India Company settlers in nineteenth century New Zealand;
'Diasporic Chinese and the New Zealand Landscape': an Environmental history of Chinese settlers in New Zealand;
'Collecting China': with Duncan Campbell, Lauren Murray (Australian National University) and Richard Bullen (Canterbury University) on Chinese art collecting in New Zealand;
'Networks of Nature in the British Empire: New Perspectives on Imperial Environmental History';
'Illustrated Lan Yuan': Dunedin Chinese garden book project, with Duncan Campbell;
Settler conservation in 1840s and 1850s Otago;
'Climate and Empire in the Asia Pacific: Historial Perspectives': with Emily O’Gorman, University of Wollongong;
'Australasian Gardens and Landscapes': with K. Holmes, La Trobe University.

TEACHING
HIST100 World History: 600 - 1900CE
ARTS201 Eastern and Western Art Traditions
HIST206 History in Practice: Historical Methods and Research
HIST318 Science and Empire: 1760s - 1920s
HIST502 Historical Research Methodologies
HIST511 Gardens, Environments, Peoples

RECENT AND FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS

BOOKS and EDITING

BOOKS
with Edward Mellilo and Emily O’Gorman, ed., Networks of Nature in the British Empire, (New York; London: Continuum, forthcoming).

Empire and Environmental Anxiety: Health, Science, Art and Conservation in South Asia and Australia, 1800-1920 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2011).

Listen to James' podcast on Empire and Environmental Anxiety:
http://www.eh-resources.org/podcast/podcast2010.html

Editor, 蘭園 Lan Yuan - The Garden of Enlightenment: Essays on the intellectual, cultural, and architectural background to the Dunedin Chinese Gardens, Hamilton: New Zealand Asian Studies Society; Dunedin Chinese Gardens Trust (2008).

JOURNAL EDITING
Guest Editor with K. Holmes, ‘Special Issue: Australasian Landscapes and Gardens’, Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes, 31, 2 (2011), pp.75-166. (http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/14601176.asp)

Associate Editor, New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies (2007-current).

Founding editor, ENNZ: Environment and Nature in New Zealand (2006-current). (http://environmentalhistory-au-nz.org/)

Editorial Board, Environment and History (2009-current).

Guest Editor, 'Special Issue: Environment and Nature in Asia', New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies (June, 2007). (http://www.nzasia.org.nz/journal/volume9\_1.html)

REFEREED JOURNAL ARTICLES
with Lauren Murray, ‘Mapping the Social Lives of Objects: Popular and Artistic Responses to the 1937 Exhibition of Chinese Art in New Zealand’, East Asian History, 37 (2011), pp. 39-58.

‘Natural History, Conservation, and Scottish-trained Doctors in New Zealand, 1790-1920’, Immigrants & Minorities, 29, 2 (2011), pp.281-307.

with Hiroki Oikawa, ‘Health and Biological Connections between Japan and New Zealand’, Journal of the Japan Society of Medical History (2011).

‘Wilderness Found, Lost and Restored: The Sublime and Picturesque in New Zealand, 1830s-2000s’, in Richard Reeve and Mick Abbott, eds, The Future of Wilderness in Aotearoa New Zealand (Dunedin: Otago University Press, October 2011)’, pp.91-105.

'Biological Invasion and Narratives of Environmental History in New Zealand, 1800-2000', in Ian D. Rotherham and Robert A. Lambert, eds., Invasive and Introduced Plants and Animals: Human Perceptions, Attitudes and Approaches to the Environment (London; Washington, D.C.: Earthscan, 2011), pp.343-352.

‘Making home, making identity: Asian garden-making in New Zealand, 1850s-1930s’, Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes, 31, 2 (2011), pp. 139-159.

with K. Holmes, ‘Reflections on the history of Australasian gardens and landscapes’, Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes, 31, 2 (2011), pp. 75-82 .

with Paul Star, 'Global Influences and Local Environments: Forestry and Forest Conservation in New Zealand, 1850s-1920s', British Scholar, 3, 1 &2 (September, 2010), pp.191-218.

'The Conservation Ethic of New Zealand', Chinese Social Sciences Today, 88, (13 May 2010), p.11.

'Climate Change, Forest Conservation and Science: A Case Study of New Zealand, 1840-1920', History of Meteorology, 5, (2009), pp.1-18.

'Exploring Trans-Tasman environmental connections, 1850s-1900s, through the imperial careering of Alfred Sharpe', ENNZ: Environment and Nature in New Zealand, 4, 1 (April, 2009), pp.37-57.

'Seeing the wood for the trees: Empire, nation-making and forest management', New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies. 10, 2 (December, 2008), pp.111-120.

with J. Hei

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