Lydia Wevers

{{Short description|New Zealand literary historian and critic (1950–2021)}}

{{Infobox academic

| name = Lydia Wevers

| honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=NZL|ONZM|size=100%}}

| birth_name = Lydia Joyce Wevers

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1950|03|19|df=y}}

| birth_place = Hengelo, Netherlands

| death_date = {{Death date and age|2021|09|04|1950|03|19|df=y}}

| death_place = Wellington, New Zealand

| discipline = Literary criticism
Literary history

| workplaces = Victoria University of Wellington

| awards = Pou Aronui Award from the Royal Society Te Apārangi

| title = Emeritus professor

| alma_mater = Victoria University of Wellington

| thesis_title = A History of the Short Story in New Zealand

| thesis_url = https://researcharchive.vuw.ac.nz/xmlui/handle/10063/495

| thesis_year = 1990

| spouse = Alastair Bisley

| children = 3

| relatives = Maarten Wevers (brother)

| notable_students = Anne Kennedy{{Cite thesis |title=Kicking Round Home: Atonality in the Bone People |url=https://openaccess.wgtn.ac.nz/articles/thesis/Kicking_Round_Home_Atonality_in_the_Bone_People/16985098/1 |publisher=Open Access Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington |date=2007-01-01 |doi=10.26686/wgtn.16985098 |first=Anne |last=Kennedy|doi-access=free }}

}}

Lydia Joyce Wevers {{post-nominals|country=NZL|ONZM}} (19 March 1950 – 4 September 2021) was a New Zealand literary historian, literary critic, editor, and book reviewer. She was an academic at Victoria University of Wellington for many years, including acting as director of the Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies from 2001 to 2017. Her academic research focussed on New Zealand literature and print culture, as well as Australian literature. She wrote three books, Country of Writing: Travel Writing About New Zealand 1809–1900 (2002), On Reading (2004) and Reading on the Farm: Victorian Fiction and the Colonial World (2010), and edited a number of anthologies.

Early life and family

Wevers was born in Hengelo, Netherlands, on 19 March 1950, to Mattheus and Joyce Wevers. Her father was an architect and she had four brothers, including diplomat Maarten Wevers.{{cite news |last1=Bönisch-Brednich |first1=Brigitte |last2=McKinnon |first2=Malcolm |title=Obituary: Lydia Wevers, formidable, staunch public intellectual |url=https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/books/126344057/obituary-lydia-wevers-formidable-staunch-public-intellectual |access-date=11 September 2021 |work=Stuff |date=11 September 2021}}{{cite web |title=Wevers, Mattheus Hendrik, 1916-2004 |url=https://natlib.govt.nz/records/22451832 |website=National Library of New Zealand |access-date=11 September 2021}} The family moved to New Zealand in 1953, and Wevers became a naturalised New Zealander the following year.{{cite web |title=Wevers, Lydia |url=https://www.read-nz.org/writer/wevers-lydia/ |website=Read NZ Te Pou Muramura |access-date=6 September 2021}}{{cite web |url=https://search.ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?dbid=1844&h=87447&indiv=try |title=New Zealand, naturalisations, 1843–1981 |publisher=Ancestry.com Operations |year=2010 |access-date=8 September 2021 |url-access=subscription}} She grew up in Masterton and developed a love of reading as a child, saying in later life: "When I was a child, there had to be a special rule for me at Masterton public library that said I could borrow 12 books at a time instead of the usual two".{{cite web |title=Hundreds of lives as a reader |url=https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/news/victorious/2017/spring-2017/life-as-a-reader |website=Victoria University of Wellington |access-date=8 September 2021 |date=Spring 2017}} She attended St Matthew's Collegiate School, where she was head girl and dux.{{cite news |title=Colonial reading habits probed |url=https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/colonial-reading-habits-probed/56XKS4KIU7PVW4KBYNHG2BAQS4/ |access-date=7 September 2021 |work=Wairarapa Times-Age |date=7 June 2006}} She was the only student in her school year to attend university.

Wevers lived in Wellington, and was married to public servant and diplomat Alastair Bisley. They had two sons and a daughter. In the 2017 New Year Honours, he was appointed a Companion of the Queen's Service Order, for services to the State.{{cite web |url=https://www.dpmc.govt.nz/publications/new-year-honours-list-2017 |title=New Year honours list 2017 |date=31 December 2016 |publisher=Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet |access-date=8 September 2021}} She died at home on 4 September 2021,{{cite news|url=https://notices.nzherald.co.nz/obituaries/nzherald-nz/obituary.aspx?n=lydia-joyce-wevers&pid=200044226&fhid=12778|work=The New Zealand Herald |title=Lydia Joyce WEVERS|date=7 September 2021|access-date=7 September 2021}} and was buried at Mākara Cemetery.

Early career

She obtained an undergraduate degree from Victoria University of Wellington, followed by a MPhil at St Anne's College, Oxford on a two-year Commonwealth Scholarship.{{cite web |title=50 Years of Commonwealth Scholarships |url=https://www.universitiesnz.ac.nz/files/u12/NZVCC_Conf_Book_WEB.pdf |website=Universities New Zealand |date=2009 |access-date=14 September 2021}} On returning to New Zealand in 1973 she became a lecturer in Renaissance literature at Victoria University of Wellington, and subsequently developed expertise in New Zealand literature.{{cite web |title=Lydia Wevers |url=https://www.royalsociety.org.nz/150th-anniversary/150-women-in-150-words/1968-2017/lydia-wevers/ |website=Royal Society Te Apārangi |access-date=6 September 2021}}{{cite news |title=Stout Research Centre farewells long-serving director |url=https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/news/2017/07/stout-research-centre-farewells-long-serving-director |access-date=7 September 2021 |work=Victoria University of Wellington |date=24 July 2017}} Her doctoral thesis, completed in 1990, is on the history of the short story in New Zealand.{{cite thesis |last=Wevers |first=Lydia |year=1990 |type=Doctoral thesis |title=The History of the Short Story in New Zealand |publisher=Open Access Repository Victoria University of Wellington, Victoria University of Wellington |doi=10.26686/wgtn.16945516 |url=https://openaccess.wgtn.ac.nz/articles/thesis/The_History_of_the_Short_Story_in_New_Zealand/16945516/1|doi-access=free }} In 1988 she edited Yellow Pencils: Contemporary Poetry by New Zealand Women, which was one of the earliest anthologies of New Zealand's women's verse. Compared to a 1977 anthology edited by Riemke Ensing, it was described by The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature as having a "better range of theme, consistency of achievement, and more generous space".{{cite encyclopedia |last1=Wilson |first1=Janet |editor1-last=Robinson |editor1-first=Roger |editor2-last=Wattie |editor2-first=Nelson |encyclopedia=The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature |title=Anthologies of women's writing |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195583489.001.0001/acref-9780195583489-e-37 |access-date=9 September 2021 |date=2006 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-1917-3519-6 |oclc=865265749 |doi=10.1093/acref/9780195583489.001.0001 |url-access=subscription}}

During her early career, Wevers spent periods living in Australia and working at the University of New South Wales and the University of Sydney where she developed an interest in Australian literature. In the early 1980s she met Australian scholar Elizabeth Webby and became involved with the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL).{{cite web |last1=McMahon |first1=Elizabeth |last2=Webby |first2=Elizabeth |title=Vale Lydia Wevers |url=https://www.asal.org.au/news/vale-lydia-wevers/ |website=Association for the Study of Australian Literature |access-date=14 September 2021 |date=13 September 2021}} Together with Webby, she edited the first two anthologies of stories by Australian and New Zealand women writers: Happy Endings: Stories by Australian and New Zealand Women, 1850s–1930s (1987) and Goodbye to Romance: Stories by Australian and New Zealand Women 1930s–1980s (1989). In 2009 she presented the Dorothy Green Memorial Lecture for an ASAL conference, titled The View From Here: Readers and Australian literature. In the opening, she joked: "I am a New Zealand reader of Australian literature. That makes me just about a category of one. The reverse category, an Australian reader of New Zealand literature, is also a rare beast, though perhaps there is a breeding pair in existence."{{cite journal |last1=Wevers |first1=Lydia |title=The View From Here: Readers and Australian literature |journal=Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature |date=2009 |issue=Special Issue: Australian Literature in a Global World |url=https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/JASAL/article/view/10162/10059 |access-date=14 September 2021}} In 2012 she organised and ran an ASAL conference in Wellington, which was the first and only ASAL conference held outside of Australia.

Her chapter "The Short Story" in The Oxford History of New Zealand Literature in English (1991, edited by Terry Sturm){{cite book |last1=Wevers |first1=Lydia |editor1-last=Sturm |editor1-first=Terry |title=The Oxford history of New Zealand literature in English |date=1991 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Auckland, N.Z. |isbn=9780195582116 |chapter=The Short Story}} was the first academic discussion of the history of New Zealand short stories. It followed her doctoral thesis, A History of the Short Story in New Zealand (1990).{{Cite Q|Q111966174|type Doctoral thesis}}

Later career

From 1998 to 2001 she was appointed as a senior research associate at Victoria University, and the principal researcher for a project on the history of print culture.{{cite web |title=Passing of Professor Emerita Lydia Wevers |url=https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/news/2021/09/passing-of-professor-emerita-lydia-wevers |website=Victoria University of Wellington |access-date=11 September 2021 |date=9 September 2021}} That research led to her historical work Country of Writing: Travel Writing About New Zealand 1809–1900 (2002){{Cite book|last=Wevers|first=Lydia|title=Country of Writing: Travel Writing and New Zealand, 1809–1900|publisher=Auckland University Press|year=2002|isbn=9781869402716|location=|pages=234 pages}} and a companion anthology Travelling to New Zealand: An Oxford Anthology (2000).{{Cite book|editor1-last=Wevers|editor1-first=Lydia|title=Travelling to New Zealand : an Oxford anthology|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2000|isbn=0195584112|location=Auckland, New Zealand|pages=}} In 2002 she founded the Journal of New Zealand Studies, a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary journal for articles with a focus on New Zealand.{{cite web |title=2014 Pou Aronui award: An ambassador for New Zealand literature and the arts |url=https://www.royalsociety.org.nz/what-we-do/medals-and-awards/medals-and-awards-news/2014-pou-aronui-award-an-ambassador-for-new-zealand-literature-and-the-arts/ |website=Royal Society Te Apārangi |access-date=7 September 2021 |date=26 November 2014}} In 2004 her essay work On Reading, commissioned by Lloyd Jones, was published as part of the Montana Estates essay series.{{cite news |last1=Jones |first1=Lloyd |title=Lydia Wevers: On reading |url=https://thespinoff.co.nz/books/19-09-2021/lydia-wevers-on-reading/ |access-date=20 September 2021 |work=The Spinoff |date=19 September 2021}} She opened the essay by saying:

I suffer from an illness, an illness which has no cure, no limit and no end. It’s compulsive, expensive, consuming and addictive, it fills my house and my life and my time – I refer of course to reading.

She assisted with Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand from its inception in 2005, including writing the section on Fiction.{{cite web |last1=Wevers |first1=Lydia |title=Fiction |url=https://teara.govt.nz/en/fiction/print |website=Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand |access-date=7 September 2021 |date=19 August 2015}} In 2010, she published Reading on the Farm: Victorian Fiction and the Colonial World, an exploration of the history of the 2000-volume Victorian library at Brancepeth Station.{{Cite book|last=Wevers|first=Lydia|title=Reading on the Farm: Victorian Fiction and the Colonial World|publisher=Victoria University Press|date=August 2010|isbn=9780864736352|location=|pages=344pp}} John McCrystal in a review for The New Zealand Herald described the book as a "little gem of a social history", in which Wevers did "a wonderful job of evoking the world of those who lived and worked at Brancepeth at the end of the 19th century".{{cite news |last1=McCrystal |first1=John |title=Book Review: Reading On The Farm |url=https://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/book-review-ireading-on-the-farmi/RIA4KBYDNFSFK4D27XEOY4KPTE/ |access-date=11 September 2021 |work=The New Zealand Herald |date=31 October 2010}}

She was the director of the Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies at Victoria University from 2001 to 2017.{{cite news |title=Lydia Wevers bids a fond farewell to the Stout Research Centre |url=https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/standing-room-only/audio/201852908/lydia-wevers-bids-a-fond-farewell-to-the-stout-research-centre |access-date=6 September 2021 |work=Radio New Zealand |date=30 July 2017}} At the time Wevers was appointed a part-time director, the university had been considering the centre's closure, and it was through her efforts that the centre became an integral part of the university with additional staff members, connections with other research institutes and a broad scope of research into New Zealand society, history and culture. In this role she mentored a number of young female and Māori academics, and had a particular role in supporting the centre's Treaty of Waitangi Research Unit. After her retirement in 2017 she was appointed an emeritus professor and continued to be involved with a number of university projects and teaching work.{{cite news |last1=Wiltshire |first1=Laura |title=A matter of trust: Victoria University staff speak out over divided campus |url=https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/122651688/a-matter-of-trust-victoria-university-staff-speak-out-over-divided-campus |access-date=8 September 2021 |work=Stuff |date=19 September 2020}} Together with Charlotte Macdonald she hosted a popular series of "Butcher Shop" lectures in 2017, exploring New Zealand's primary industries such as meat and dairy products.{{cite web |title=The Butcher's Shop series |url=https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/201842140/the-butcher's-shop-series |website=Radio New Zealand |access-date=10 September 2021 |date=1 May 2017}} In the same year, she and Maria Bargh released New Zealand Landscape as Culture, an open-access online course on the edX platform featuring mātauranga Māori concepts, which has been described as New Zealand's first bicultural massive open online course.{{cite journal |title=The hills have names |journal=Victorious |date=Spring 2017 |issue=2 |page=6 |url=https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/1124348/victorious-spring-2017.pdf |access-date=10 September 2021}} In September 2020 she spoke out about division in the university "brought to a head partly by Covid, and partly by this increasing and demonstrable sense the staff have that they don’t trust the senior leadership".

Wevers was a former vice-president of the New Zealand Book Council, chair of the Writers and Readers Committee of the New Zealand Festival of the Arts, and chair of the Board of Trustees of Wellington College. She was the Chair of the Trustees of the National Library of New Zealand and in 2003 became the inaugural Chair of the Kaitiaki Guardians of the National Library.{{cite web |last1=Szekely |first1=Chris |title=Goodbye Lydia |url=https://natlib.govt.nz/blog/posts/goodbye-lydia |website=National Library of New Zealand |access-date=8 September 2021 |date=8 September 2021}} On 28 June 2018 she delivered the Founder Lecture at the launch of the National Library's centenary celebrations on the subject of the library's history and the book collector Alexander Turnbull.{{cite web |title=Dr Lydia Wevers: Books and their readers |url=https://natlib.govt.nz/blog/posts/dr-lydia-wevers-books-and-their-readers |website=National Library of New Zealand |access-date=8 September 2021 |date=27 July 2018}} She was a member of the selection panel for the Arts Foundation of New Zealand Laureate Awards in 2001, a member of the Marsden Fund Council of the Royal Society Te Apārangi, a member of the Arts Board of Creative New Zealand, a member of the selection panel for the Prime Minister's Awards for Literary Achievement in 2019,{{cite web |title=2019 Prime Minister's Awards for Literary Achievement: winners announced |url=https://www.creativenz.govt.nz/news/2019-prime-minister-s-awards-for-literary-achievement-winners-announced |website=Creative New Zealand |access-date=11 September 2021 |date=7 October 2019}} and a board member of Aratoi, Wairarapa Museum of Art and History, for eight years.{{cite web |title=A very fond farewell |url=https://www.aratoi.org.nz/news/very-fond-farewell-lydia-wevers |website=Aratoi, Wairarapa Museum of Art and History |access-date=11 September 2021 |date=7 September 2021}} She reviewed books for Nine to Noon on Radio New Zealand and The New Zealand Listener,{{cite encyclopedia |last1=Mason |first1=Andrew |editor1-last=Robinson |editor1-first=Roger |editor2-last=Wattie |editor2-first=Nelson |encyclopedia=The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature |title=New Zealand Listener, The |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195583489.001.0001/acref-9780195583489-e-880 |access-date=11 September 2021 |date=2006 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-1917-3519-6 |oclc=865265749 |doi=10.1093/acref/9780195583489.001.0001 |url-access=subscription}} as well as for a number of other magazines, newspapers and literary journals.

Awards and legacy

Wevers was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to literature in the 2006 Queen's Birthday Honours.{{cite web |url=https://dpmc.govt.nz/publications/queens-birthday-honours-list-2006 |title=Queen's Birthday honours list 2006 |date=5 June 2006 |publisher=Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet |access-date=4 May 2020}} She was an Honorary Life Member of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature and a Fellow of the Stockholm Collegium of World Literary History. In 2010 she was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Georgetown University in Washington DC, where she researched the relationship between New Zealand and American literature, and ran a course on modern New Zealand literature.{{cite web |title=2010 Fulbright New Zealand Grantees Booklet |url=https://www.fulbright.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/2010-Fulbright-New-Zealand-Grantees-Booklet.pdf |website=Fulbright New Zealand |access-date=8 September 2021 |page=17}}

In 2014, the Royal Society Te Apārangi presented Wevers with the Pou Aronui Award for distinguished service to the humanities. The selection panel described her as a "tireless and effective champion of New Zealand's literature, history, thought and culture". In 2017 she was a 150 women in 150 words laureate of the Royal Society Te Apārangi.{{cite web |title=150 Women in 150 Words |url=https://www.royalsociety.org.nz/150th-anniversary/150-women-in-150-words/ |website=Royal Society Te Apārangi |access-date=11 November 2020}}

From April to June 2022, Victoria University hosted a series of seminars in honour of Wevers. The focus of the seminars was reading in New Zealand, and speakers included Ingrid Horrocks, Tina Makereti, Anna Fifield, Kate De Goldi, Dougal McNeill, Fergus Barrowman, and a range of other writers and literary experts.{{Cite web |date=26 April 2022 |title=New seminar series honours Lydia Wevers' legacy |url=https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/news/2022/04/new-seminar-series-honours-lydia-wevers-legacy |access-date=28 April 2022 |website=Victoria University of Wellington}} On the final night of the series, an NZ$33,000 scholarship in Wevers' name was announced, which will be awarded annually to a postgraduate student carrying out research about New Zealand.{{cite news |first=André |last=Chumko |title=Scholarship launched in late academic Lydia Wevers' name |date=8 June 2022 |url=https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/education/128839001/scholarship-launched-in-late-academic-lydia-wevers-name |access-date=8 June 2022 |work=Stuff.co.nz}}

Selected works

1984 Selected poems/Robin Hyde (editor)
1984 Classics New Zealand Short Stories (editor, fourth edition){{cite encyclopedia |last1=Evans |first1=Patrick |editor1-last=Robinson |editor1-first=Roger |editor2-last=Wattie |editor2-first=Nelson |encyclopedia=The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature |title=Anthologies of fiction |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195583489.001.0001/acref-9780195583489-e-35 |access-date=9 September 2021 |date=2006 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-1917-3519-6 |oclc=865265749 |doi=10.1093/acref/9780195583489.001.0001 |url-access=subscription}}
1985 Women's Work: Contemporary Short Stories by New Zealand Women, also published as One Whale, Singing; And Other Stories from New Zealand (1986) (editor, with Marion McLeod)
1987 Happy Endings: Stories by Australian and New Zealand Women, 1850s–1930s (editor, with Elizabeth Webby)
1988 Yellow Pencils: Contemporary Poetry by New Zealand Women (editor)
1989 Goodbye to Romance: Stories by Australian and New Zealand Women 1930s–1980s (editor, with Elizabeth Webby)
1990 Tabasco Sauce and Ice Cream: Stories by New Zealanders (editor){{Cite book|editor-last=Wevers|editor-first=Lydia|title=Tabasco Sauce and Ice Cream: Stories by New Zealanders|publisher=Macmillan|year=1990|isbn=9780333416365|location=|pages=176 pages}}
2000 Travelling to New Zealand: An Oxford Anthology (editor)
2002 Country of Writing: Travel Writing About New Zealand 1809–1900 (author)
2004 On Reading (author){{cite book |last1=Wevers |first1=Lydia |title=On Reading |date=2004 |publisher=Four Winds Press |location=Wellington |isbn=9780958251402}}
2010 Reading on the Farm: Victorian Fiction and the Colonial World (author)

References

External links

[https://www.read-nz.org/writer/wevers-lydia/ Wever's biography] on the website for Read NZ Te Pou Muramura
[https://natlib.govt.nz/blog/posts/dr-lydia-wevers-books-and-their-readers "Books and their readers"], lecture delivered by Wevers at the launch of the centenary celebrations for the National Library of New Zealand on 28 June 2018
[https://thespinoff.co.nz/books/19-09-2021/lydia-wevers-on-reading/ Extracts from Wevers' essay On Reading (2004)], published on The Spinoff

Category:1950 births

Category:2021 deaths

Category:New Zealand women writers

Category:Dutch emigrants to New Zealand

Category:Writers from Wellington City

Category:New Zealand literary critics

Category:Women literary critics

Category:Officers of the New Zealand Order of Merit

Category:Academic staff of Victoria University of Wellington

Category:People educated at St Matthew's Collegiate School

Category:Alumni of St Anne's College, Oxford

Category:Naturalised citizens of New Zealand