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Among the multitudes lured to Australia's shores in the 1850s by the glitter of gold were entrepreneurial musicians who hoped to attract audiences eager for entertainment and culture. The tours of nineteenth-century virtuoso musicians around Europe and the Americas are well-researched, but less so touring musicians to the Antipodean gold rush. While the 1850s gold rush had profound impacts on social, economic and political life in Australia, the impact of gold upon cultural life warrants more attention. Newspapers of the time record many visiting musicians who hoped to profit from the backwash of rivers of gold. This article opens a window onto this world by studying the concert tours around Australia from 1854 to 1858 of Miska Hauser. A European classical musician with elite violin school training, he is notable as the first world-class violinist to tour the Australian colonies. This study draws upon the digital records of colonial newspapers available online from the National Library of Australia. This article analyses the populist concert programmes that Hauser presented to diverse audiences during his indefatigable tours around Australia and explores the extent of his professional and financial success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Refutations by native or converted Muslims to reject religions other than Islam have been produced for ages, including during the Ottoman era. However, studies about such refutations have mainly focused on the Ottoman world from the 19th century until the 2000s. One of the exceptions is Judith Pfeiffer's study on Kashf al-asrār fī ilzām al-Yahūd wa-l-aḥbār by Yūsuf Ibn Abī ʿAbd al-Dayyān. This paper intends to demonstrate that the conclusion reached by Pfeiffer, i.e., that the text, which she dates to 17th century within the context of the Qāḍīzādelis-Sivāsīs debate and uses as a reference, is actually a tract called al-Radd ʿalá l-Yahūd by Ṭāshkuprīzādah, is not accurate. This paper also aims to demonstrate that Ibn Abī ʿAbd al-Dayyān actually lived in the 16th century and wrote this work in relation to the Jews who had become gradually more visible in the social and cultural life of Istanbul following their migration from Spain and that the use of the reference is actually the use of the book of Ibn Abī ʿAbd al-Dayyān by Ṭāshkuprīzādah. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the pedagogic theory and practice reflected in the Instructions of Dorotheus of Gaza. Recent scholarship has emphasised the school-like character of Palestinian monasticism in the sixth century, but failed to define in what respects the monks' activity in the coenobia near Gaza resembled teaching in the ancient schools. Taking the education system of the Neoplatonic schools as a starting point, this article systematically analyses Dorotheus' conceptualisation of his community, his methods in the formation of the brothers and the role of intellectual activities in the daily life of the monks. It is demonstrated that Dorotheus implemented a curriculum of medicophilosophical therapy that followed the pedagogic pattern in philosophical schools and circles. However, what distinguishes his pedagogy from that of ancient philosophers is the strong emphasis on communal psychagogy and the role of practice in the progress to virtue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Forum’s first case study of a learned woman’s experiences, Harriet Zurndorfer surveys the nature of learned culture in China, concluding with the intellectual context in which her subject had to function at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries. She describes how Wang Zhaoyuan became an accepted scholar and her subsequent reputation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introductory sociology textbooks are one of the disciplinary sites that illustrate both the prominent place, and many uses, of theory in sociology. This article examines the place of theory in a selection of introductory sociology textbooks published in Australia, Britain and the US. It identifies the emergence of theory as a separate topic warranting its own sections or chapters, and considers the historical changes in explicit advice provided about the nature and use of theory in sociology. It also illustrates some of the uses of theory exhibited there that go beyond those directly addressed in textbook advice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The foundations for the eventual professionalization of social science disciplines can be traced to 'armchair scholars' of the nineteenth century. These were amateur researchers who, thanks to financial resources and leisure time, could pursue their academic interests from the comforts of home. In the twenty-first century, with the development of digitization and the numerous online full-text databases, the possibility of researching from home once again exists. The amateur has always played a role in contributing to scholarship, and, with the development of the Internet, the possibilities are limitless for the twenty-first-century 'armchair scholar.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]