University of Otago activities related to the Division of Humanities.
Humanities schools include: College of Education, Law, School of Arts,
Classics, English and Linguistics, History, Languages and Cultures, Philosophy, Theology, School of Geography, School of Performing Arts, School of Social Sciences, Te Tumu School of Māori, Pacific and Indigenous Studies.
Note that John Hislop "godfather of Dunedin College of Education" needs expansion (was he ever faculty? check calendar. Does Hocken have an image?), and pages for William Fitzgerald, David Renfrew White are stubs.
Alumni: Judith Duncan (Dunedin Teachers College grad 1983. PhD University of Otago 2001). Henry Charles McQueen Masters University of Otago MA 1927 "University of Otago College of Education" in metadata not digitised (student and staff Dunedin Training College). Kaumātua Huata Holmes (Q139829446)
The existing page needs to acknowledge at the top the preexisting University of Otago Department of Education, established 1905 according to the page. There will be alumni and staff related to that and to the post-2007 entity.
Also from thesis project Russell Bishop (alumnus 1995 Education department at University of Otago), Judith Duncan (Dunedin Teachers College grad 1983. PhD University of Otago 2001, emp lecturer otago from 1996), no:Pip Lynch Master of Education University of Otago 1991. Henry Charles McQueen Masters University of Otago MA 1927 "University of Otago College of Education" in metadata not digitised (student and staff Dunedin Training College, assistant to ed professor at Otago). Keith Sheen was visiting prof for 1972-1974, Donald Saklofske appointed lecturer 1974, Ted Glynn prof 1984
May: Added an image of the writer's cottage and an image gallery for the fellows (many don't have an image or a decent quality image). Added a paragraph about the funding issues and lack of a 2026 fellow, and added a short paragraph about some fellows' activities.
In Christchurch, Mike Dickison is doing some work with Underground Overground Archeology, and we are taking the opportunity to work together to leverage that into a bigger project involved Otago staff and students. Mike's project is here. Our project page is here.
Associate Professor Tom McLean (Department of English) has published on the blind Irish poet Frances Browne, who is now celebrated at an annual festival 9–12 October 2025 in County Donegal, Ireland where Tom has been invited to speak. Although there is a reasonable article about Browne which cites Tom's work, there is no Wikipedia article about her most famous collection of stories, Granny's Wonderful Chair (draft article here). Tom approached the Frances Browne Literary Festival, and we will be collaborating with them to create an article about the book, and help transcribe a copy for Wikisource.
As part of the work we are adding known editions of Granny's Wonderful Chair, and its Tales of Fairy Times (Q124093868) to Wikidata, and cleaning up illustrations for Wikimedia Commons. We have included the individual stories as works on Wikidata as the different editions contain different selections of the original stories. Some editions:
We added mention of the Frances Browne Festival to the Stranorlar page, and included the controversy over GWC to Frances Hodgson Burnett. The Granny's Wonderful Chair article was nominated for the 'Did You Know' section of the front page.
The journal Landfall is publishing its 250th issue in October 2025, and there will be an exhibition in Special Collections to celebrate, and a one-day symposium on 17th October. We could add coverage of these events to the journal's page (once published) and use it as an opportunity to improve information about people connected to the journal.
A list of 150 notable books, Te Takarangi, was published by RSNZ in 2018. The list was updated to 180 Māori-authored books, and published as a book in 2024. The list has now been added to Wikidata with as much metadata as possible, and linked to author items, publishers, main subjects etc. List of 180 Māori-Authored Books of Significance (Q132151649)Wikidata project pages, showing the completeness of the list on Wikidata, and identifiers such as ISBNs, and connections to authors and editors. The book and RSNZ online resource can be used as a source for creating or improving pages about notable books and/or their authors. See the Books of Mana project page here.
The page for New Zealand writer John Mulgan was ambiguous about how his death came about. As a result of an Otago librarian's work to find a good source explaining the death and subsequent investigations, we have written a much clearer explanation of what happened.
