The University of Auckland - Faculty of Arts
 

Assoc Prof Ruth Barton
MSc (Wellington) , PhD (Pennsylvania)

Associate Professor

Department:
History

Email:
r.barton@auckland.ac.nz

Extension:
87302 (ph + 64 9 373 7599)

Location:
5 Wynyard St
Room 31

Research Interests

Science and culture in Victorian England, domestic technology and housework, science and technology in New Zealand.

Postgraduate Supervision

Samantha Campbell.  `The Biochemical Frontier: An Historical Investigation into the Emergence and Nature of Biochemistry in New Zealand.’  M.A.

Katrina Ford 'The Construction of Germ Theory and Bacteriology in New Zealand, 1875-1910', PhD (with Linda Bryder).

 

Amy Tan (Museums and Cultural Heritage programme).  `The Cheeseman Memorial Show of Native Plants at the Auckland Museum, (1932-1962)’.  Honours dissertation.

 

Linda Tyler (Art History).  `John Buchanan: artist/botanist.’  Ph.D. (with Elizabeth Rankin).

 

Jo Whittle 'The Electric Landscape: Electricity, Public Policy and Environment in New Zealand', PhD.

 


 

Recent Publications

Lockyer's columns of controversy in Nature' in `History of the Journal Nature', Nature 16 Oct 2007

'X Club (act. 1864-1892)' . In: Lawrence Goldman (general editor), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edn, Oxford University Press, Oct 2006.  [http://www.oxforddnb.com.ezproxy.auckland.ac.nz/view/theme/92539, pp.1-6]

Reprinted, Oxford DNB e-newsletter, 13,  2007, http://www.oxforddnb.com/public/themes/92/92539.html Journal

 

'Scientific Authority and Scientific Controversy in Nature: North Britain against the X Club'.  In Louise Henson, Geoffrey Cantor, Gowan Dawson, Richard Noakes, Sally Shuttleworth, and Jonathon R. Topham (eds), Culture and Society in the Nineteenth-Century Media.  Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004, pp. 223-235.

 

'Hirst, Thomas Archer (1830-91)'.  In: Bernard Lightman (general ed.) The Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Scientists. 4 vols,  Bristol, Thoemmes Continuum, 2004: vol. 2, pp. 973-77.

 

'Lubbock, John (Lord Avebury) (1834-1913)'.  In: Bernard Lightman (general ed.) The Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Scientists. 4 vols,  Bristol, Thoemmes Continuum, 2004: vol. 3, pp. 1272-78.

 

'Spottiswoode, William (1825-83)'.  In: Bernard Lightman (general ed.) The Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Scientists. 4 vols,  Bristol, Thoemmes Continuum, 2004: vol. 4, pp. 1889-91.

 

'Men of Science:  Language, Identity and Professionalization in the mid-Victorian Scientific Community'.  History of Science, 41, 2003: 73-119.

 

 

 

Career History

ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS

 

1993: Associate Professor, History Department, University of Auckland

1976-1993:  Senior Tutor, Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor in Social Science Methodology, School of Social Sciences, Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia

1967-1970: Junior Lecturer in Mathematics, Victoria University of Wellington

 

QUALIFICATIONS

 

1970-76: Ph.D. in history and sociology of science (University of Pennsylvania)

1970: M.Sc., with distinction in mathematics

1963-66: B.Sc., B.Sc.Hons (first class in mathematics)





The moa in London with the great animals of the world. The main hall of the new museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1845. Front left, fossil skeleton of the mylodon; front right, fossil shell of the giant extinct armadillo; centre rear, a recently deceased elephant. The moa, a plaster cast of Dinornis giganteus, is on the left in the middle distance with an ostrich further left.


     


     

    Current Teaching


    History
    Course Title   Availability in 2009
    HISTORY 211     Darwin's England   Semester 1
    HISTORY 253     Science, Religion and Politics: Historical Case Studies   Not offered in 2009.
    HISTORY 311     Darwin's England   Semester 1
    HISTORY 353     Science, Religion and Politics: Historical Case Studies   Not offered in 2009.
    HISTORY 709 A B     Science and Society: Comparative Studies 1840-1950   Not offered in 2009.
    HISTORY 211     Darwin's England   Semester 1
    HISTORY 311     Darwin's England   Semester 1
    HISTORY 709 A B     Science and Society: Comparative Studies 1840-1950   Semester 1 and 2 (full year)
    Museums and Cultural Heritage
    Course Title   Availability in 2010
    MUSEUMS 710     Science and Society: Comparative Studies 1840-1950   Semester 1



     
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