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Projects

These pages are a collection of my research interests, insofar as they have anyting remotely to do with the central theme of this website.

If there is an overall theme to my professional work, it is probably the way in which scientific illustration, particularly illustration, is passed on from scientific works to other media, such as popular science, hand books, children’s books, but also museum exhibits. Most of what you’ll find here has something to do with that.

The blog posts you will encounter here largely contain material that I stumble upon in my work. These are specific projects I am working on, or have been:

  • Archaeopteryx

This has been a main focus for a number of years now. In time, I’m hoping to contribute something in the form of an article focusing on the role this pivotal fossil has played in the public dissemination of the theory of evolution, and its role in discussions of evolution. There is a separate section devoted to that.

  • Gerhard Heilmann

A remarkable artist-cum-naturalist, who wrote an important book on bird evolution in 1916, republished in English in 1926/7. I published an article about Heilmann in 2004, and some work has been done on his legacy since then by Christian Ries. This section will probably not be amended in the near future – or at all – but I’m keeping it there just for those who are interested.

  • Phorusrhacid bibliography

This may yet take a while. The idea is to present a commented bibliography of these remarkable Eocene birds. There is quite a lot of obscure and non-obscure material on them, so I’m collecting and reading as I go along. I’m hoping to show some real progression in the run of 2010, after this has been done:

  • The ‘Second Golden Age’ and the reorientation of scientific societies in The Netherlands, 1867–1914

Or my Ph.D. thesis. It’s been quite long in the making, but I’m hoping to have it done by the end of September…