British (Anglo-Scot)
Telephone: mobile 07792 112641 or 01323 649053 evenings
e-mail:
asia@layish.co.uk
Address: 76A
EASTBOURNE BN21 3TE
Academic Qualifications
All
(in reverse order)
MPhil (career PHASE 3) School of Oriental & African
Studies
Currently working
towards commuting the MPhil to PhD
that aims to solve a puzzle in ancient near eastern art history.
External degree in Archaeology (career PHASE 2) Birkbeck College/Institute of
Archaeology
PGCE (specialising in teaching the History
of Art) (career PHASE 1)
B.A (Hons) History of Art (specialising in the
Modern Period) (career PHASE 1) Courtauld Institute
Profile
Widely travelled (see under Travel) and from an internationally-minded background due
to childhood and marriage connections, Asia is confident in her dealings with men
and women of varied backgrounds, and has met people from most nations.
Activities as author and teacher have gained valuable contacts in universities,
business, publishing and museum worlds and, in her most recent day job, in
Overall Ambition
Having now published two books she makes
full use of the expertise gained from all her degrees, finding relevance for
her present PhD research in the fascination modern society has for the
knowledge and history of the ancient world, most
especially for the roots of the present-day monotheistic traditions that derive
from the ancient near east and its distinctive mind-sets. A conventional
academic position would involve both research and day-to-day administration: as
a free-lancer she prefers to split these two activities and be involved in an
ordinary office day-job to keep a practical balance. She believes in sharing
and implementing knowledge to understand current problems rather than staying
in an ivory tower (motto: Learn, and Teach).
Through family connections going back
generations and her own wide-ranging travels in the
She has always been in the habit of
using her research as an instrument to view the connections between ancient and
modern worlds to help find solutions to present-day concerns, always hoping
that the day job will ultimately merge with the art and archaeology research.
Education
q
PhD
ongoing at School of Oriental and African Studies,
As part of an initial plan to move from
school teaching to a university lectureship, I started work on a PhD subject
with a colleague of my husband’s (Prof. A D H Bivar) in 1985. I got as far as
the MPhil. stage and then he
retired. It was then difficult to find someone to oversee my work who combined
the disciplines of art history and
archaeology, so I simply continued to work on my own, wrapping it round the day
job as a long-term way of life while I dealt with divorce, change of home and
change of job. I was quite far into the initial research before I realised I
had been handed a research topic of capital importance – an art history
detective story of astounding interest. I began to take it more seriously and
was determined I would bring it to term, come what may, even sacrificing my
marriage for it. With hindsight, it was appropriate for me to change career
track to extend my orbit to the
Relevant
Near Eastern Connections
Scots Grandfather,
Professor G G Thomson, Professor at
English Grandfather,
Herbert Partridge, in WWI entered
Father, Hugh Thomson CBE,
was in the Overseas Civil Service, and a District Commissioner in Northern
Rhodesia until
Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr,
first of
Ex-Husband, Prof. Muhammad Abdel-Wahhab
Abdel-Haleem, sent to do a PhD at Cambridge, was cited ‘the cleverest student
of his year in Egypt’, and subsequently employed at SOAS as Lecturer (when I
met him), then Professor, of Arabic/Qur'anic Studies, specialising in Arabic
Literature. Through him and his extended family I gained vast inside knowledge
of the Middle East, though we never travelled there together - even to
Professor Keith Critchlow,
originally Lecturer at the Architectural Association is an expert in Islamic
art and architecture, and now Professor at the Prince of Wales’
PhD Co-Supervisor,
Dr Dominique Collon, Assistant Keeper in the Department of the Ancient Near
East at the British Museum (an expert on cylinder seals, recently retired). Not
so long ago I went to her leaving party in the Assyrian Basement at the BM. At
the start of the Iraq war she travelled to the Iraq Museum two or three weeks after
it was looted, to liaise with the US Army on the inventory of what had gone,
and to arrange training in London in the BM for Iraqi restorers.
q
Diploma
in Archaeology, Institute of
Archaeology/Birkbeck College,
[4-year external degree course] 1986-90
Syllabus:
I: Palaeolithic Man and
his artefacts; II: Prehistoric
III: The civilisations of the Ancient Near East except
Egypt; IV: Egyptology.
Dr
Price-Williams, who taught I and III, is an academic referee (He was in an
earlier year a tutor of Jonathan Tubb, now Curator of Levantine Antiquities at
the
Education cont'd
q
PGCE,
Institute of Education,
This was a
Post-Graduate teacher training course geared to devising ways of teaching Art
History.
q
B.A.
(Hons) History of Western Art, Courtauld
Institute,
(Tutors
included Anthony Blunt, Michael Kitson, Alan Bowness (later Director of the
Tate Gallery), Anita Brookner, (later a novelist), Robert Ratcliffe (restoration
expert)
Syllabus: The History of Western painting, sculpture and architecture
from
Special Topics: Rembrandt;
Raphael;
Specialist
Final Year: Modern movements in painting/sculpture/architecture to now
As a modern period specialist I became
aware of how modern artists borrowed from the archaeological discoveries of their time (e.g. Ur, Tutankhamun in
1922) – a thesis I never got to work on because after starting to travel to the
Middle East from 1980 and first passing through a phase of interest in Islamic
art, I became too involved in the ancient world to want to get back to the
modern!
Membership
Of Professional Associations
¸
Member
of Convocation,
¸
Life
Member, Association of Art Historians
¸
Alumna
of the
¸
Alumna
of
¸
Reader
at the British, Warburg Institute and SOAS Libraries
Secondary
School Education
(Headmistress,
Miss P A Fisher, was niece of the then Archbishop of
q Oxford
& Cambridge
q Oxford
& Cambridge
Languages
All languages can be developed based on requirement
French A-level (A grade) ~ excellent reading
and writing with reasonable spoken fluency;
German O level (grade 1) ~ proficient reading
and writing with dictionary – halting spoken;
Arabic (no qualification) ~ basic reading and
spoken, but can copy type(used to mark Arabic ‘O’ levels with my husband every
summer, and help him assess the PhDs of his Arab students);
Russian O level (grade 1) ~ now rather rusty. Have lately
acquired a smattering of
Greek, Hieroglyphics,
Sumerian, Sanskrt (only specialist vocabulary relevant to my
research)
Computer
Skills
Advanced User
Microsoft WORD, and Expert User POWER POINT;
Basic
knowledge of EXCEL and JASC PaintShop Pro; Proficient in OUTLOOK/Lotus
Notes/use of Internet
Career Progression
(Falls into three phases, here given in reverse
order. See referee Kim Wain for overall view)
PHASE
THREE: following the ambition set out on front page Sep.2003
to date
In my day-job currently
work for the Director-General of Corporate Strategy and Resources, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Rm
2.16, 26 Whitehall, London SW1A 2WH Tel:
0207 944 8942.
In early mornings and at weekends I
pursue my research at the British Library, Warburg and School of Oriental and
African Studies Libraries (University of London), with a view to writing a
two-volume work, based on my PhD research, on the Canon
of Art in the Ancient Near East 4000-33BC.
PHASE
TWO: 14 years spent expanding art
history repertoire 1987-2003
(see
under Education)
During
part-time University study for Archaeology and PhD degree paid my way via PA
positions mostly
in the private sector.
though not of
prime significance for my main career,
these enabled me to develop computer
skills, modern office techniques and general administrative know-how (my PhD supervisor had already advised me that computers were
now the standard tool for academics).
q
Many Temporary PA positions, from 1987
The longest of these were assignments
with:
¸
BM Media Group: Assistant to the CEO, 35 Piccadilly,
¸
Amerindo Investment Advisers PA to Stockbroker Principals,
¸
ALSTOM UK Ltd Head Office,
As a graduate with French, was employed
as Office Manager and PA to the Commercial Director of this French global
electrical engineering firm, at its height employing 120,000 people worldwide,
(the company among other things makes trains such as the Eurostar and trainsets
for London Underground, as well as generation equipment for power stations).
Due to factory sell-offs this office was closed down in May 2003. (The President and Commercial Director are
business referees)
I am grateful for the experience gained in
office administration and liaison at senior
level with factories in France and Britain in both French and English; with
British and London Embassies, Government Ministers and Departments, International
Banks and large UK contractors; also with ALSTOM Country Presidents and Sales
Directors of all nationalities (in 60 countries); and, finally, organising
visits in the UK to our factories/Head Office in London for distinguished
clients (usually oriental or middle eastern).
q
Current PA assignment:
OFFICE OF THE DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER, Whitehall 2003-to date
Have
worked for nearly three years now as Personal Assistant to one of the DPM's top
civil servants (Peter Unwin, Director-General (Grade 2) Corporate Strategy and Resources Group - my Civil Service Referee). This is a pressurised and very demanding
position with a lot of exposure to John Prescott's Office, his Ministers, and Permanent
Secretaries and Director-Generals across Government. This requires
§
long hours,