In collaboration with the University of Leeds, Susan’s AHRC-funded doctoral project focuses on the resources used in the teaching of geology in the early nineteenth century. Her main reference will be the archive relating to charismatic and eccentric figure of the first Reader of Geology at Oxford University, William Buckland (1784-1856), but she will also examine material relating to the first Director of the Museum, John Phillips, and to teaching at important centres further afield such as Edinburgh University and the Geological Survey.
A cross-disciplinary approach will characterise Susan’s project which straddles the history of science, collections, as well as the history of teaching, art and social history. The geological diagrams, topographical watercolours, prints, models and specimens held by the Museum will be her starting point for examining how university teachers in the exciting new field of geology created and deployed different materials in their work.
