{"id":2269,"date":"2026-09-30T17:25:59","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T16:25:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/19cc\/?p=2269"},"modified":"2026-09-30T17:25:59","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T16:25:59","slug":"research-seminar-wednesday-7th-october","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/19cc\/2026\/09\/30\/research-seminar-wednesday-7th-october\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Seminar &#8212; Wednesday 7th October"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Join us on Wednesday 7th October at 4pm for an exciting talk from <a href=\"https:\/\/findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au\/profile\/913751-sara-fernandes\">Dr Sara Fernandes <\/a>(University of Melbourne) who will be talking about her work in the archives, and the far-reaching implications of natural history education and settler narratives and lives.<\/p>\n<p><b>Arts 103 (Constance Naden Room)<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>Title: &#8216;<\/b>A Portable Little System: Natural History Lessons in Britain and Australia&#8217;<\/p>\n<p><b>Abstract<\/b><\/p>\n<p>This paper traces the development of natural history education and its relationship to the broader practice of rational pedagogy by women in Britain at the end of the eighteenth century. It also charts the transportation of this practice into the Australian colonial context in the nineteenth century with a focus on settler-author Louisa Anne Meredith (1812-1895). Meredith\u2019s writing blends scientific knowledge and pedagogical purpose with inviting narratives in prose and verse. Meredith\u2019s career began in Birmingham (where she published under her maiden name, Twamley). She emigrated to Australia via Sydney in 1839, before ultimately settling in Tasmania\/lutruwita (VDL until 1856). Her work is largely out of print and access is kept alive by archives across Australia\u2019s east coast, the National Library of New Zealand, and major institutions in the UK. This paper emerges from archival research that was supported by the Lisa Jardine grant (Royal Society), and it contributes to an ongoing collaborative project with my colleague in English\/Education, Dr Lauren Weber. This paper will offer close readings of Meredith\u2019s letters and published works and argues that Meredith imports the colonial apparatus of taxonomy, botanical illustration, and photography to classify and \u2018familiarise\u2019 living beings and ecosystems in Tasmania for developing readers across both colony and metropole.<\/p>\n<p><b>Bio<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Dr Sara Fernandes is a Lecturer in English and Theatre Studies at the University of Melbourne, where she teaches and researches eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature, history of the novel, and history of science. She is a co-convenor of the research network Enlightenment and Romanticism at Melbourne (ERAM) and is currently collaborating on the project \u2018Portable Pedagogies: Colonial Writing for Young Australia\u2019 with Dr Lauren Weber (University of Wollongong). Research from this project can be found in <i>Children\u2019s Literature <\/i>and the forthcoming issue of <i>Genre. <\/i>Her writing can also be found in <i>New Literary History, Textual Practice<\/i>, and <i>European Romantic Review<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Join us on Wednesday 7th October at 4pm for an exciting talk from Dr Sara Fernandes (University of Melbourne) who will be talking about her work in the archives, and the far-reaching implications of natural history education and settler narratives and lives. Arts 103 (Constance Naden Room) Title: &#8216;A Portable Little System: Natural History Lessons &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/19cc\/2026\/09\/30\/research-seminar-wednesday-7th-october\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Research Seminar &#8212; Wednesday 7th October&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1899,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/19cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/19cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/19cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/19cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1899"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/19cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2269"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/19cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2270,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/19cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2269\/revisions\/2270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/19cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/19cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/19cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}