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With its roots in both the New Wave theatre movement and in the traditional circus form, Circus Oz has, since its first shows in 1978, played a foundational role in the development of contemporary circus in Australia and internationally. This thesis draws on a series of extended interviews with key Circus Oz figures to develop, first, an historical account of the inception and the development of the company from the perspective of the practitioners involved, and, second, a thematic analysis of key aspects of the company’s work, again from the point of view of those working with the company over more than four decades of continuous activity. The key argument is that the great strength of the company—the determination to hold to the ideals with which the project started, and the experience and memories of those who worked with the company over the years, constituting a vast body of collective knowledge—is also a potential weakness, when that collective knowledge is lost, discontinued, or not articulated. The thesis not only documents and analyses this history, but on the basis of that analysis, identifies the fundamental elements of Circus Oz that made it an internationally successful company over such a sustained period. This thesis is presented in two parts: Part One presents the chronological history of Circus Oz to both record its history and to present the background to form a foundation for the analytical chapters. Part Two is broken into five themes, emerging from the interviews, which constitute the DNA of the company: the essential elements which, while subject to the vagaries of constant change, as personnel and external circumstances shifted, and as the company navigated the pressures of international success and growth, remained constants. The thesis argues that the essence of Circus Oz lies in the collective memories, practices, and aspirations of those who made, sustained, and constantly re-invented the company over a remarkable 45 years.

This thesis has used the abandoned village site of Mwanihuki located on Makira in the Solomon Islands as a case study to explore the archaeological evidence associated with the initial occupation of the region and the emergence of later inter and intra-island trade and exchange systems. The main aims of the thesis were to establish the timing of initial occupation, understand patterns of settlement and subsistence, and explore evidence for the rise of the southeast trade and exchange system and Mwanihuki’s place in that network. Intensive fieldwork was conducted on Mwanihuki and surroundings, while also analysing and incorporating the legacy material into this research. Radiocarbon evidence revealed phasing that placed the study area into two broad cultural periods. The first was an ephemeral use of Mwanihuki from c. 3000 BP, which was contemporaneous with the Lapita cultural tradition, though aceramic. The second phase of the site demonstrated intensive occupation from c.800BP, which included construction of burial structures, anthropogenic refuse mounds, and a rich material culture. It is argued that these latter items are evidence of shell valuable production and together with the dense concentrations of chert imported from Ulawa indicate that by c500BP Mwanihuki was a significant node in the emergent inter-island trade system. This material culture, along with Mwanihuki’s prominent headland location and strong island inter-visibility all contributed to the transfer of material culture and social and economic complexity. The abandonment of the site c400BP and the retreat to the mountainous interior and defended settlements detailed in oral history appears to be a consequence of an initial contact with Spanish explorers in 1595 AD and the rise of inter and intra island hostilities.

As a branch of Chinese contemporary art, the birth and development of Chinese video art are closely related to the Chinese modernist art movement in the 1980s. Although many scholars have conducted in-depth research on Chinese video art, few works can comprehensively and systematically sort out its entire development and the reasons behind it. This account critically analyses the political, economic, and cultural contexts and spatial and temporal duality of video art in China and the United States, revealing the different trajectories of development and the differences in artists’ practices between the two countries. Chronologically structured around the effect of the Cultural Revolution on the Chinese art scene, the resistance and exploration of young artists during the 85 New Wave movement, the deepening of the Reform and Opening-up policy implemented by Deng Xiaoping after his Southern Tour, the reform of the art education system, and the trend of globalisation, these important historical events and policies have collectively shaped the trajectory of the evolution of video art in China, with the aim of explaining how the artists’ practice has gradually shifted from personalised and objective documentation and artistic experience to a deeper and more in-depth understanding of real life. In this process, Chinese video art has played an essential critical role, reflecting on and critiquing reality through its works and forming a practice closely related to China’s modernisation process. At the same time, Chinese video artists have also constructed their own video art language and aesthetic style through continuous exploration and innovation. Through the analysis in this thesis, we can understand its evolution and development trend more profoundly and provide new ideas and directions for future research in video art.

Ancient Chorasmia, located on the northern frontiers of Central Asia, south of the Aral Sea, was a polity barely known to the Classical world despite some scarce mentions in a few written sources. Chorasmian civilisation and material culture were initially recognised and defined by modern archaeological works carried out in the area since the early 1940s by the Soviet Archaeological-Ethnographic Expedition to Ancient Chorasmia led by S.P. Tolstov. While numerous archaeological sites have provided rich materials regarding multiple aspects of ancient Chorasmia, i.e., the construction of fortifications, ceramic typology and religious practices, the overall lack of a well-stratified sequence and solid chronological evidence has been a striking issue for most of the excavated sites. This is particularly problematic in the study of pottery which could easily be subject to arbitrary judgments without secure stratigraphy and dating. The excavations at Akchakhan-kala (1995-present) by the Karakalpak-Australian Archaeological Expedition have yielded well-stratified pottery sherds with chronological sequences spanning from the early 2nd BCE to 2nd Centuries CE. The site was identified as a royal seat closely linked with monumental and religious purpose, as attested at the Central Monument and Ceremonial Complex, where painted texts testifying to the presence of a “Chorasmian King” were initially found. It provides a precious chance to review the existing pottery typology and chronology of ancient Chorasmia in term of new evidence acquired from Akchakhan-kala, and cast new light on the periodization of the antique period of Chorasmia. Apart from reviews of archaeological sites and the ceramic chronology of ancient Chorasmia, the thesis provides a thorough analysis of the Akchakhan-kala assemblage, concerning fabrics, typology and chronology, presented by illustrations and catalogues.

This thesis investigates the competition between different material-semiotic translations of pain in the period of neoliberalism. Moseley and Butler (2017) published a novel pain theory, which understands pain as emergent from a complex system, in which biological, psychological, and social elements interact. The "Pain Revolution" is a practical implementation of the theory, but this thesis uses the phrase to refer to a wider paradigm shift that is unrealised. This thesis synthesises actor-network theory, Bourdieusian field sociology and narrative theory, and describes a competition between different material-semiotic translations of pain. It demonstrates that Moseley and Butler’s theory has not become imbricated in the networks of major institutions and their translations of pain, nor become predominant in the pain field. To understand why, this thesis traces the coevolution, from the mid 19th century to 2020, of an “economy of responsibility” and a competition between different translations of pain. I establish that this economy of responsibility has been constituted through complex interactions between juridical, insurantial, and professional elements, and been coextensive with a network of body-mind dualism that evolved through liberal, welfare state, and neoliberal periods. We will find that the aforementioned institutions and their translations of pain align with and help to sustain a neoliberal version of an economy of responsibility and network of body-mind dualism. The Pain Revolution is shown to be incommensurable with the juridical, insurantial, and professional logics operating in these networks and so it has not become imbricated with them. I demonstrate that the pain field, rather than operating as a scientific subfield marked by closure and autonomy, has been open to the heteronomous logics of medical, legal and insurance fields. The Pain Revolution has not taken hold in the pain field because it does not fully align with these logics.

This thesis provides a comprehensive digital catalogue and assessment of early medieval castles in the Kingdom of England from the eleventh to thirteenth century CE. Recently released LIDAR-based terrain models are used to measure archaeological castle site features alongside data for historical settlement locations, navigable rivers, and other spatial elements to reassesses the potential economic functions and influence of castles within the developing manorial landscape. Previous research within English castle studies has often focussed on the military and architectural elements of archaeological sites, sometimes to the detriment of their greater context and complexity. Within recent decades, lordly administrative and residential functions, display of conspicuous consumption and prestige, spatial delineation of hierarchical power structures, and economic orientation within the intricately ordered social and built landscapes have become more widely recognised in castle interpretation. This research expands on and tests recently theorised economic functions of castles through the simultaneous analysis of the broader settlement network within which they functioned, identifying ways in which castle and settlement patterns influenced each other. The GIS-based analyses demonstrate not only that the eleventh century settlement pattern impacted the subsequent distribution pattern and typological nature of introduced castles, but also that this newly established pattern of castle sites went on to structure significant aspects of the twelfth and thirteenth century settlement distribution, producing a uniquely English urban network arrangement. The results further suggest that the locational choice, usage dates, and site plans of early castles need to be understood in the context of the underlying economic landscape within which they were constructed and went on to reorient and manipulate.

Dispersed habitation patterns have long been noted as a feature of pre-industrial Mainland Southeast Asian settlements and recent research at Greater Angkor in central Cambodia has demonstrated that, at its height, this settlement was a massive low-density complex of dispersed temples, habitation mounds, and water features spread amongst agricultural fields. However, little is known about how common large settlements with low occupation densities were across Mainland Southeast Asia more broadly. This study begins to address this lacuna by marshalling available data on settlement forms from sites across the Mainland over the course of the first and second millenniums CE. With a focus on settlement scale, density, and morphology, this work demonstrates that a shift towards low-density configurations was a common trajectory associated with the initial development of large-scale (>100ha) settlements across the Mainland, but that a new trend towards the formation of larger areas of relatively dense habitation occurred during the second half of the second millennium CE. These region-wide trends indicate the need to consider settlement form as a factor in the creation large-scale historical outcomes in the region and to incorporate the spatial patterning of settlements into broader understandings of historical change in Mainland Southeast Asia.

Many societies across the world see birds as providers of information – be it environmental, cultural, or symbolic. In Central Australia, birds are seen by Aboriginal people as referents. One way in which central Australian Aboriginal people ‘know’ of monsters is through the visual, acoustic and sensory presence of birds: distinctive calls, fleeting movements, camouflaged sightings, scratched tracks and the sensation of being ‘watched’ are qualities displayed in uncannily similar ways by various species of birds and their monstrous counterparts. Whilst some birds warn of monsters and some accompany them, here I focus on a type of monster I call bird/monsters. They appear as ancestral beings in the songs and associated Dreaming narratives of Warlpiri people, who traditionally lived in the Tanami Desert and today live in towns fringing the Tanami as well as further afar. Bird/monsters are understood to be male figures that, at once, are both men and birds and exist amongst other ancestral beings which take on the form described by Rose (2011: 122) as “shape-shifters, sometimes walking as humans, sometimes travelling in the form of the being they would become.” Being birds and men simultaneously also distinguishes them from classical hybrid figures such as centaurs (part man, part horse) and werewolves (sometime person, sometimes wolf). What is clear is that like all monsters, bird/monsters defy easy categorisation (Cohen 1996). The two-part terminology I apply when describing them as bird/monsters reflects both this and their ability to move between different realms. Cohen suggests that “the ways in which [monsters] shift and refuse definition is what makes them so feared” (1996:6). The spiritual associations that birds have to Warlpiri people and their ever presence in their environment link them closely to the human realm, yet the immoral and culturally inappropriate acts of the monsters they embody continue to make this categorisation uneasy. As I show, despite potentially becoming more human-like these bird/monsters do not play by the rules of the human world, a factor which enhances their power to control and frighten. I begin by presenting portraits of four bird/monsters and explain how I understand them to be ‘monsters’. My main focus is on showing how the manifestations of bird/monsters as immoral, socially inept, violent and culturally defiant monsters highlight deep-seated social fears. The stories of these bird/monsters are passed on and made known to Warlpiri people through Dreaming narratives and songs, intimately linking them to fundamental and highly valued components of Warlpiri cultural heritage. I demonstrate how bird/monsters continue to have monstrous signification even when what is feared has changed. These bird/monsters continue to invoke fear in contemporary contexts marked by the widescale social changes associated with neo-colonialism and increased connections to a broader and more globalised world. Contemporary fears are concerned with loss—of connections to country, of traditional patterns of social organisation, of control over women’s sexuality, and of the gendered forms of sociality which have until recently typified Warlpiri life.

은 두 개의 줄거리를 동시에 사용하여 헤라클레스의 12과업에 대한 고대 신화 이야기를 다시 하고 르네상스 이후부터 현대까지의 과학, 기술, 그리고 예술의 역사에서 헤라클레스의 수용에 대해 논의하는 학제간 전시회입니다. 이 전시회는 차우 착 윙 박물관에서 수용학에 관한 시리즈의 두 번째 전시회입니다. 첫 번째 전시회인 는 호메로스의 서사시 과 를 중심으로 린나이우스의 분류와 작명 체계를 소개하였습니다. 이 전시회는 명명될 동물의 외형적 속성을 자주 무시한 이름을 사용함에 있어 라틴어 신화 기록가의 글의 역할을 강조하였습니다. 그러나 헤라클레스라는 이름은 동물, 장소 또는 허구를 그 고대 인물과 연관시키기 위해 외형적 특성이 고려되어야 합니다. 전시에는 헤라클레스와 그의 동료 또는 적들의 이름이 우리 주변에서 사용된 다양한 방식을 나타내는 동물, 식물, 그리고 사물과 함께 고대 아테네와 르네상스 이후의 미술이 포함되어 있습니다.