FRIENDS OF IZIKO SOUTH AFRICAN
MUSEUM Non-Profit Organisation 052-511-NPO Postal address: P O Box 61 Cape Town 8000 South Africa Physical address: 25 Queen Victoria Street Cape Town SA Phone: 021 481 3913 Fax: 021 481 3993 Cell: 072 225 6893 E-mail: samfriends@iziko.org.za Website http://www.iziko.org.za/; http://www.iziko.org.za/ static/page/friends-of-the-south-african-museum
NEWSLETTER – MAY 2016 As autumn has arrived, we have endeavoured to plan some indoor outings to accommodate the change in weather. Please look out for exciting events and lectures. We welcome suggestions from members, please contact us should you come across anything of interest.
DONATION TO TH BARRY LECTURE THEATRE As you will be aware, the data projector in the TH Barry Lecture Theatre has reached the end of its life. Thanks to you, the Friends, we have been able to purchase a new and superior replacement which has been received with great excitement.
Tuesday 31 May Speaker: Dr Jill Weintroub Title: Colonial Adventurer or Loyal Follower? Re-visiting the life and scholarship of Dorothea Bleek How has history treated Dorothea Bleek? Was she a scholar in her own right, or did she merely follow in the footsteps of her famous father, and her aunt and mentor Lucy Lloyd? In much of current scholarship on the BleekLloyd research project Dorothea’s oeuvre rarely warrants close attention. But a close reading of her field notebooks, personal correspondence and published and unpublished work reveals a complex character whose scholarship and research is complicated by idiosyncratic personal and intellectual agendas. The written record of Dorothea’s fieldwork shows her engaging with the landscape and the people in a myriad of complex and contradictory ways. This presentation looks at Dorothea’s biography, her childhood in Mowbray, her schooling and tertiary education in Europe, and her fieldwork in southern Africa, and evaluates her research and scholarship in light of these.
Tuesday 28 June Speaker: Dr Simon van Noort, Curator of Entomology Iziko South African Museum Title: Wasps for Africa Wasps are super-diverse with almost 20 000 species described from Africa alone, but hundreds of thousands of species await discovery and description entailing exciting field expeditions into remote areas of this vast continent. The talk will showcase the microscopic lives of this biologically diverse group of insects as well as the field work and research undertaken to discover and document Africa’s wasps. Fascinating biological interactions will be highlighted, including the life styles of maritime parasitoid wasps, fig wasp pollinators and gall wasps.
An extract from the thank you letter from Theo Ferreira, Planetarium Manager/AV Coordinator: ‘The projector has been installed in the TH Barry Lecture Theatre, it is great to see a bright crisp image on the screen. I have seen how hard the Committee work to raise funds and am honoured that they made the decision to donate the equipment for use in Iziko.’
LECTURE PROGRAMME 2016 Lectures are held in the TH Barry Lecture Theatre at 18:00, unless otherwise advertised. Entrance is free to members on presentation of a valid 2016 membership card. Visitors are asked for a donation of R30 per lecture.
Above: Close-up of the cuticle of the Splendid Cuckoo wasp, Chrysis splendens (Chrysididae). Photograph by Simon van Noort.
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