Islam in an Age of Confessionalisation

Suleiman the Magnificent

I hadn't been to one of the Birkbeck EMPHASIS seminars in ages. Every time I go to one, I leave with my head bursting with knowledge, usually in several types of dead language. So one a year is probably my max. This one on Islam and Christianity in the Early Modern World, presented by Jan Loop caught my eye, as this topic has been on my study to-do list for a while. Hoping for a break from my wiredrawing bench, I inevitably came away with a few ideas of new areas to pursue regarding the Lutheran polemic which forms part of its decoration. It was bound to be relevant because that is how connections work...

CLIG Seminar: Employment law and socia media

These notes come out of a CLIG seminar I attended on 18 March 2014 - the excellent and extremely thorough speaker was Alexandra Mizzi. Apologies for any omissions or mistakes, which are entirely mine and certainly not her fault.

Social media is being tackled piecemeal in the courts and some of these interesting cases are discussed below. It is a tricky area due to increasingly blurred lines between personal and private lives. Creating a successful social media brand is personality driven, so a personal/professional clash is inevitable.

The seminar covered the following areas: the perils of online selection, screening and recruitment; employee misconduct online looking at both company reputation and employer liability; and finally the tricky issue of social media contacts ownership. 

Twenty Years as a Law Librarian - Communications

Early librarian communication

This is the second in my series of 'Twenty Years as a Law Librarian' blogposts. Although the first was about technology, whilst writing it I found myself constantly thinking about communications. I decided to split the two so I could expand on other areas so that, for example, in the technology piece I could explore the development of  search engines, electronic services, and library catalogues. In this I want to explore different aspects of communications, not just in the obviously technologically reliant areas, but the many other ways we communicate day-to-day.

'Constellatio Felix': August the Strong's Festival of the Planets

One of the unexpected highlights of the Royal Palace was the collection of prints drawings and photographs. On the top floor, like the print collection of the British Museum, it has an air of secluded quiet, and requires a visitor to seek out its treasures. The Dresden museum has 500,000 works on paper by over 11,000 artists from eight centuries. Therefore the Kupferstichkabinett (print collection) puts on changing exhibitions, so visitors can have a tiny taste of the material they keep. The exhibition on currently is the 'Constellatio Felix: August the Strong's Festival of the Planets • Thomas Ruff's stellar constellations'.

Constellatio Felix 'fortunate stellar constellation' was the theme of one of the most lavishly ostentatious celebrations of the baroque. Augustus II staged a month long set of events to mark the September 1719 marriage of his son to Frederick Augustus to Archduchess Maria Josepha of Austria. The festivals dedicated to the planets were particularly spectacular, and thankfully for us, Augustus required that the event was fully documented. Images of feasts, dances, parades, meticulously recorded the every detail of day- and night-time extravaganzas. Interspersed throughout the baroque fancies, the curators have placed Ruff's timeless planet pieces; offering balance, colour and serenity to the endless historic, dynastic and political posturing.