J.H. Kwabena Nketia

Joseph Hanson Kwabena Nketia (b. 22 June 1921–d. 13 March 2019) from Ghana was the preeminent scholar of African musics, whose field research in the 1940s in varied ways formed the foundation of music scholarship in Africa and predated ethnomusicology as an academic discipline in the United States. A prolific writer, music educator, and composer, his publications on key topics in African musicology are pivotal to the transdisciplinary field of African studies. Born and raised in Asante Mampong, Nketia was tutored in two worlds of knowledge systems: his traditional musical environment generated and sustained a lifelong interest in indigenous systems, and his European-based formal education provided the space for scholarship at home and around the world. At the Presbyterian Training College at Akropong-Akwapem, he was introduced to the elements of European music by Robert Danso and Ephraim Amu. The latter’s choral and instrumental music in the African idiom made a lasting impression on Nketia as he combined oral compositional conventions in traditional music with compositional models in European classical music in his own written compositions. From 1944 to 1949, Nketia studied modern linguistics in SOAS at the University of London. His mentor was John Firth, who spearheaded the famous London school of linguistics. He also enrolled at the Trinity College of Music and Birkbeck College to study Western music, English, and history. The result of his studies in linguistics and history are the publications of classic texts cited in this bibliography. From 1952 to 1979, Nketia held positions at the University of Ghana including a research fellow in sociology, the founding director of the School of Performing Arts, and the first African director of the Institute of African Studies; and together with Mawere Opoku, he established the Ghana Dance Ensemble. This was a time that he embarked on extensive field research and documentation of music traditions all over Ghana. His students and the school provided creative outlets for his scholarly publications as he trained generations of Ghanaians. In 1958, a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship enabled Nketia to study composition and musicology at Juilliard and Columbia with the likes of Henry Cowell, and he came out convinced that his compositions should reflect his African identity. Further, he interacted with Curt Sachs, Melville Herskovits, Alan Merriam, and Mantle Hood, which placed Nketia at the center of intellectual debates in the formative years of ethnomusicology. From 1979 to 1983, Nketia was appointed to the faculty of the Institute of Ethnomusicology at UCLA; and from 1983 to 1991, to the Mellon Chair at the University of Pittsburgh, where he trained generations of Americans and Africans. Nketia returned to Ghana and founded the International Center for African Music and Dance (1992–2010) and also served as the first chancellor of the Akrofi-Christaller Institute of Theology (2006–2016). Joseph Hanson Kwabena Nketia died in Accra and was honored with a state burial on 4 May 2019 by the Government of Ghana.

Robert Donald Bruce Fraser 1924–2019

Robert Donald Bruce (Bruce) Fraser was a biophysicist who gained world-wide distinction for his extensive structural studies of fibrous proteins. Bruce began a part-time BSc degree at Birkbeck College, London, while working as a laboratory assistant. In 1942, aged 18, he interrupted his studies and volunteered for training as a pilot in the Royal Air Force (RAF). He was sent to the Union of South Africa and was selected for instructor training, specialising in teaching pilot navigation. At the end of the war he completed his BSc at King’s College, London, and followed this with a PhD. Bruce studied the structure of biological molecules, including DNA, using infra-red micro-spectroscopy in the Biophysics Unit at King’s led by physicist J. T. Randall FRS. During that time Bruce built a structure for DNA that was close to the Watson-Crick structure that gained them and Maurice Wilkins at Kings College, the Nobel Prize in 1962. In 1952, he immigrated to Australia with his family to a position in the newly formed Wool Textile Research Laboratories at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). Here, Bruce established a biophysics group for research on the structure of wool and other fibrous proteins that flourished until his retirement. Over that period he was internationally recognized as the pre-eminent fibrous protein structuralist world-wide. Having been acting chief, Bruce was subsequently appointed chief of the Division of Protein Chemistry and he remained in that role until he took retirement in 1987.

Philip Harris (1926-2018)

Philip Harris, who died on 21 July 2018 at the age of ninety-one, was born in Woodford, Essex, and educated at St Anthony’s School in Woodford (1932-7), St Ignatius College in London (1937-44), Birkbeck College, London, and the Institute of Historical Research. In 1953 he was awarded an M.A. for a thesis on ‘English Trade with the Eastern Mediterranean in the Late 16th Century’. From 1947 onwards he was on the staff of the British Museum (of which the Library was then part), becoming Assistant Secretary in 1959, Deputy Superintendent of the Reading Room in 1963 and Deputy Keeper in 1966. He was in charge in turn of the Acquisitions, the English and North European, and the West European Branches of the Department of Printed Books. In 1998 he published his History of the British Museum Library, the fruit of more than ten years’ research after his ‘retirement’ in 1986.1 His final project there, almost complete when he died, was on the Old Royal Library donated to the Museum by George II.2 At his funeral the first reading was read by a former head of the Chinese Department there.

Ezekiel, Nissim (1924–2004)

Nissim Ezekiel was a poet, playwright, director of plays, university professor, art critic, literary editor, and reviewer. Born to academic Marathi-speaking, Jewish parents of the minority Bene-Israel persuasion, Ezekiel’s existence within cosmopolitan Mumbai (then Bombay) rendered complex his poetic sensibility. After a Bachelor’s degree in literature at Wilson College, Bombay, in 1947 and some political engagement with M.N. Roy’s Radical Democratic Party, he sailed to England for further studies in 1948. As a student of philosophy at Birkbeck College, London, he published his first volume of poetry, A Time to Change (1951).

Electron Bio-Imaging Centre (eBIC): the UK national research facility for biological electron microscopy

The recent resolution revolution in cryo-EM has led to a massive increase in demand for both time on high-end cryo-electron microscopes and access to cryo-electron microscopy expertise. In anticipation of this demand, eBIC was set up at Diamond Light Source in collaboration with Birkbeck College London and the University of Oxford, and funded by the Wellcome Trust, the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) to provide access to high-end equipment through peer review. eBIC is currently in its start-up phase and began by offering time on a single FEI Titan Krios microscope equipped with the latest generation of direct electron detectors from two manufacturers. Here, the current status and modes of access for potential users of eBIC are outlined. In the first year of operation, 222 d of microscope time were delivered to external research groups, with 95 visits in total, of which 53 were from unique groups. The data collected have generated multiple high- to intermediate-resolution structures (2.8–8 Å), ten of which have been published. A second Krios microscope is now in operation, with two more due to come online in 2017. In the next phase of growth of eBIC, in addition to more microscope time, new data-collection strategies and sample-preparation techniques will be made available to external user groups. Finally, all raw data are archived, and a metadata catalogue and automated pipelines for data analysis are being developed.

An Overview

During the past two decades, the business world has witnessed a technological revolution known today as electronic commerce or ecommerce. This revolution has allowed businesses all over the world to conduct business in ways that were unimaginable two decades ago. Through the use of e-commerce technologies, businesses can share and disseminate information electronically and conduct business online so consumers, regardless of their locations, can obtain goods and services from the businesses. Because of the many opportunities e-commerce technologies offer in today’s competitive marketplace, it is essential for organizations to have e-commerce presence and effectively utilize the Internet to expand their businesses. With this Internet presence, ensuring security of their data and sales experiences is of paramount importance. Through the use of effective e-commerce security tools, business can increase their sales,Guy Fitzgerald is professor of information systems at Brunel University and is head of the Department of Information Systems and Computing. Prior to this he was the cable and wireless professor of business information systems at Birkbeck College, University of London, and before that he was at Templeton College, Oxford University. As well as being an academic, he has also worked in the computer industry with companies such as British Telecom, Mitsubishi, and CACI Inc., International. His research concerns the effective management and development of information systems and he has published widely in these areas. He is probably best known for his work in relation to development techniques and methodologies and is the author of a major text in this area entitled Information Systems Development: Methodologies, Techniques and Tools, now in its fourth edition. He is also well known for his research in the areas of strategy, outsourcing, and executive information systems. His most recent research is concerned with the development of flexible information systems to enhance organizational agility. He is founder and co-editor of the Information Systems Journal (ISJ), an international journal from Blackwell Publishing, and he has been a member of many international Program Committees, including the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) and the European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS).

Co-operatives in the Cultural Industries

This podcast is a recording of a roundtable discussion on Co-operatives in the Cultural Industries, that took place at City University London on April 1, 2015, organised by Marisol Sandoval and Jo Littler. Speakers were Robin Murray, Rhiannon Colvin, Sion Whellens and Tara Mulqueen. The lives of cultural workers are complex and contradictory; often combining work satisfaction, pleasure and autonomy with job insecurity, low pay, long hours, anxiety and inequality.The roundtable discussed the potentials and limits of worker co-operatives as an alternative way of organizing cultural work. It explored how worker co-operation might contribute to new collaborative forms of cultural production; how they do, or might, strengthen a 'cultural commons'; and the role cultural co-ops play in the wider context of movements for workers' rights. Questions that were discussed include: To what extent can worker co-operatives be a means to confront precariousness and individualisation in work in the cultural sector? Do worker co-ops open up new possibilities for the collaborative production of cultural commons? What role can worker co-operatives play within a broader movement for creating more just, equal and humane cultural work and an alternative to capitalist economies? Where lies the boundary between neoliberal calls for self-help and individual responsibility and a radical co-op movement? What is the relation between worker co-ops and other forms of progressive politics such as the union movements, social protests and civil society activism? Can cultural co-ops contribute to reinventing the meaning and practice of work in the 21st century? About the speakers:Marisol Sandoval is a Lecturer at the Department of Culture and Creative Industries at City University London. Her research critically deals with questions of power, responsibility, commodification, exploitation, ideology and resistance in the global culture industry. Jo Littler is Senior Lecturer at City University London's Department of Culture and Creative Industries. Her work explores questions of culture and power from an interdisciplinary, cultural studies-informed perspective. Rhiannon Colvin after graduating in 2010 to find the world of work competitive and brutal, Rhiannon founded AltGen to empower young graduates to get together and create their own work. http://www.altgen.org.uk/ Tara Mulqueen is a PhD candidate at Birkbeck College School of Law. Her thesis concerns the development of legislation for co-operatives in the 19th century. Robin Murray is an industrial economist. He was Director of Industry at the Greater London Council (GLC) in the 1980s, and has been a Research Fellow at the University of Sussex, the Director of Development for the Government of Ontario and co-founder of Twin and Twin Trading. He is an associate of Co-operatives UK and author of Co-operation in the age of Google. http://www.uk.coop/ageofgoogle Sion Whellens is a member of the graphic design and print co-operative Calverts. As part of the Principle Six partnership, he also advises and supports co-ops in creative industries. http://www.calverts.coop