After a break of two years, this long-running lecture series resumes with an address by Sitiveni Rabuka and an introduction by the Rt Hon Murray McCully. They discuss democracy in the South Pacific with particular focus on recent history in Fiji. Recorded at the University of Canterbury in October 2012.

Indigenous heritage and museums today. Encyclopaedic museums were institutions born of 'Enlightenment' values and committed to a belief that through the study of things from all over the world, truth would emerge. Museums were also thought to broaden cultural horizons and foster a greater understanding of cultural diversity. For the last quarter-century however, these principles have been called into question. Roger Fyfe examines how increased ethnic and cultural self-assertion has attacked the legitimacy of those museums which are full of objects taken from other places in other times.

Museums in the Colonies The great natural history and encyclopaedic museums of Europe arose as colonial empires were expanding round the globe. Efforts to organise, classify and display the material culture of distant peoples can be seen as a cultural echo of the era's political imperialism. So what happened when newly arrived colonial communities in the so called 'source countries' (eg North America, Australia, New Zealand) set about establishing their own museums? Were the inspired ideals of European museums diluted or compromised? Roger Fyfe searches for answers in the the foundation years of the Canterbury Museum.

Temples to Science: Museums continue to be a burgeoning worldwide phenomenon. They come in a myriad of sizes and guises. Today it seems no community is complete without one or more! But how many of those amongst us who flock to museums in every increasing numbers, both at home and abroad, stop to ask ourselves 'where did this peculiar notion called a museum come from'? Roger Fyfe traces the genesis of the modern museum to some profoundly eighteenth century intellectual vision and values.

The 2009 Macmillan Brown lectures explore how Maori culture operates as a force for New Zealand's social and scientific advancement. In this third lecture, Professor Michael Walker argues that increasing Maori participation in science could expand its intellectual scope and strengthen its practice.

The 2009 Macmillan Brown lectures explore how Maori culture operates as a force for New Zealand's social and scientific advancement. In this second lecture, Professor Lisa Matisoo-Smith looks at how DNA technology can help integrate indigenous and scientific knowledge. She's introduced by Professor Karen Nero from the University of Canterbury's Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies.

The 2009 Macmillan Brown lectures explore how Maori culture operates as a force for New Zealand's social and scientific advancement. In this first lecture, Professor Te Ahukaramu Charles Royal discusses the theme of creative potential in Maoridom. He's introduced by Professor Angus MacFarlane.

Cookbooks and Cultural Identity in the 20th Century. In this final Macmillan Brown lecture for 2008, Prof Helen Leach of the University of Otago exposes the way in which cultural identity can be gauged from looking at community cookbooks published here through the decades. Pakeha regarded Maori cookery as a relic of the past until cookbooks published in the Maori Renaissance during the 1970s showed its resistance to extinction. In the structure of their meals, descendants of British migrants also adhered to their ancestral culinary tradition until the 1960s; however in their baking they asserted a distinctive Kiwi identity throughout the 20th century. 'Internationalization' in the 1960s brought a flood of new recipes. It was followed by 'globalization' which has not (as yet) undermined either identities or culinary traditions.

Cookery in the Colonial Era. Contact with the immigrants brought new types of kai and ways of cooking to Maori, explored by Prof Helen Leach of the University of Otago in the second of her 2008 Macmillan Brown lectures. From the range of introduced crops and animals, Maori selected those which slotted easily into their culinary tradition as substitutes for traditional foods. In contrast Pakeha settlers faced food shortages and a temporary loss of cooking technology. After a period of mutual borrowing, in the 1860s. Pakeha turned to older colonies around the Pacific for new recipes and equipment.

Maori Cookery Before Cook. What impact did migration from a tropical homeland have on Maori cookery? They experienced drastic changes in their traditional foods, yet the rules that were part of their Polynesian culinary tradition remained intact. In the first of her 2008 Macmillan Brown lectures, Prof Helen Leach of the University of Otago argues that culinary traditions are important for the survival and the maintenance of our identities. Leach draws a distinction between culinary traditions and cuisines and explores how Maori adapted tropical cuisine to new food sources.