Contributors

Martin Bortz

I am a current PhD student at the University of Melbourne. I am studying the role of knowledge in public policy, and the way in which that shapes power dynamics between different political actors.

Hans J. Ohff

Hans J Ohff is a visiting research fellow at The University of Adelaide and a former CEO of the Australian Submarine Corporation.

James Knowleds

James Knowles specialises in early modern literature and culture (1500-1700) and has published widely on early modern drama especially Jonson, Marlowe, Marston, Middleton, and Shakespeare. He is an internationally recognised expert on the court masque and civic pageantry and has written on literary and cultural geographies, orientalism, patronage and collecting, manliness and sexuality, verse libel and manuscript culture. He also retains a wider interest in gender, sexualities, and book culture including modern and contemporary gay writing and queer theory. Research area(s): Renaissance literature and culture, esp the court masque and civic pageantry, city comedy, revenge and political drama Caroline and civil war writing Literary and cultural geographies and orientalism, early modern Irish and Scottish cultures Patronage and collecting, esp libraries Manliness, sexualities and book culture including modern and contemporary gay writing and queer theory Book and manuscript culture, verse libels and literary circulations, censorship, and textual editing

Leigh Sparks

I am Professor of Retail Studies at the University of Stirling. I was a geography undergraduate at the University of Cambridge, and completed my Ph.D (on retail employment) at the University of Wales. I have been professor of retail studies at Stirling since 1992. I was a Visiting Professor at Florida State University, Tallahassee from July 2000 to July 2001, and Visiting Professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville from June to December 2006. I undertake research into aspects of retailing, mainly for personal curiosity, but also on behalf of public and private clients and for the research councils and other funding bodies, as well as for major retailers. I have authored and edited a number of books, have published over 125 refereed journal articles as well as many practitioner, trade and newspaper pieces. In 2012-2013 I was a member of the External Advisory Group for the Scottish Government’s National Review of Town Centres and also on the Expert Advisory Group reporting to the Scottish Government on the lessons to be learned from the horsemeat scandal. I am currently Chair of the Scotland’s Towns Partnership and Chair of IDS Scotland Ltd, the company set up by the Scottish Government to oversee Scottish Business Improvement Districts. I run a blog on things retail, typically Scottish: www.stirlingretail.com

Alan Bain

My work is focused on the whole-of-organization challenge of making schools and universities better at learning and teaching. I have been engaged in the design and/or leadership of major organizational change projects in Asia, the Americas, and Australia. My approach has attracted grants, contracts and direct funding for software system development, transforming learning spaces, human resource models, curriculum innovation, and comprehensive organizational design. My books include Transforming the Measurement of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. Routledge (Bain & Drengenberg, 2016); Rising to the Challenge of Transforming Higher Education. Springer (Bain & Zundans-Fraser, 2016); The Learning Edge: What technology can do to educate all children. Teachers College Press (Bain & Weston, 2011); The Self-Organizing School. Rowman & Littlefield (Bain, 2007). I am currently co-writing the higher education sequel to the Self-Organizing School, The Self-Organizing University (Bain & Zundans-Fraser, forthcoming 2017).

Noah Kofi Karley

Dr Karley obtained an MPhil and PhD in the field of Land Economy from University of Cambridge in 2002. Prior to that, he graduated in 1992 with BA (Hons) degree in Economics and Geography from University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana. In 1996, he achieved a First Class Master of Commerce in Economics from University of Zululand, South Africa; and in 2001, he obtained a Certificate for International Housing Finance Programme from Wharton School in the University of Philadelphia in the US. Dr Karley is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, United Kingdom. Dr Karley has a great deal of teaching and research experience in different countries including the United Kingdom (Cambridge University and Heriot Watt), South Africa and Ghana. Since March 2006 he has been a regular visiting lecturer to the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics in China. Dr Karley has experience of researching property & urban systems from an interdisciplinary (but predominantly economic) perspective. He has particular skills in using quantitative methods in assembling economic datasets at different spatial scales and analysis of property and housing market data. In the past, he has received research grants from various sources including the Scottish Government, RICS and ODPM, and has published research outputs in books and peer reviewed journals.