Notes on Exhibitions: The Farjeon Family and Experimental Philosophy

Dunedin Public Library

The latest exhibition 'Morning Has Broken: The Farjeon Family Collection' opened yesterday. The more than seventy items on exhibit commemorate the beloved children's author and poet Eleanor Farjeon, and her talented brothers: the composer Harry, the crime novelist Joseph Jefferson and Herbert, a celebrated figure in the British theatre. Also on display is material relating to their father, Benjamin Farjeon, manager, sub-editor and later partner of the Otago Daily Times newspaper; after his return to England Benjamin established himself as a popular Victorian novelist.

On display is a selection of published works (many with presentation inscriptions from one member of the Farjeon family to another), original drafts, theatre ephemera, photographs, sheet music, and personal correspondence. A rather touching item is Benjamin Farjeon's informal Last Will and Testament, written in pencil, and found by Eleanor after her father's death in 1903.

The exhibition coincides with the 130th anniversary of Eleanor Farjeon's birth and the 150th anniversary of the establishment of the Otago Daily Times.

Further information, a PDF of the item list, and video clip of the speaker are available here.

'Morning Has Broken: The Farjeon Family Collection' runs until 23 October.


University of Otago

An exhibition entitled 'Experimental Philosophy: Old and New' launched on 1 July in the de Beer Gallery. The exhibition features (among others) works by Bacon, Newton, John Locke and Abraham Cowley (his A Proposition for the Advancement of Experimental Philosophy [1668]), through to modern philosophers such as Russell, Shaun Nichols, and Kwame Anthony Appiah. One cabinet is dedicated to the Molyneux Problem.


The exhibition coincided with the Australasian Association of Philosophy Conference, which took place in early July, and the publication of Professor Peter Anstey's John Locke and Natural Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).


'Experimental Philosophy: Old and New' runs until 23 September. There is an online version for those unable to visit the Gallery.