What made you decide to pursue a career in history? My grandmother did our family history when I was really young. She had stories about our family going back to the First Fleet. I became fascinated with how we (me, my family, my community, humanity in general) got to where we are today, and … Read more
What is your area of historical interest? After working as a professional historian and heritage consultant since 1996, I completed my PhD at the University of Sydney in 2012. My thesis was titled ‘On “the Road”: A Cultural History’. It explored how roads beyond the urban and suburban setting have been imagined, experienced and … Read more
Christine Yeats reports on the Royal Australian Historical Society’s June Day Lecture by Dick Whitaker, Chief Meteorologist with Sky News Weather in Australia. In his lecture, ‘Of Droughts and Flooding Rains – rainfall variability in Australia and its effect on our history’, Dick discussed the impact of Australia’s often extreme weather patterns on our history. … Read more
Frank Heimans is an oral historian, filmmaker and managing director of Cinetel Productions What made you decide to pursue a career in history? I started off in documentary filmmaking as a writer, director and editor. Later I became a producer and have made 53 television documentaries. It’s hard to avoid history when you are making … Read more
by Professor Bridget Griffen-Foley, Centre for Media History, Macquarie University. Since Kerry Packer’s death on Boxing Day, 2005, his family, and that of the Murdochs, have been ripe for nostalgic embrace. Three dramatic mini-series focused on the Packer empire: Paper Giants: The Birth of Cleo (on the ABC in 2011), Howzat! The Kerry Packer War … Read more
Professional historian, Clare Wright, has won the 2014 Stella Prize for women’s writing. Selected from a strong shortlist which included both fiction and non-fiction, Wright won $50,000 for her history of the Ballarat goldfields, The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka. In her citation, Kerryn Goldsworthy, chair of the 2014 Stella Prize judging panel, said: A rare … Read more
This post brings you something new on the PHA NSW blog. It is the first in a series of profiles of our members, inspired by a column in the UK online magazine, the History Vault. Thanks to Stephen Gapps for the suggestion and Pauline Curby (on the right) for being our guinea pig. What is … Read more
by Nicole Cama, Digital Curator, Australian National Maritime Museum. I always find the amalgamation of past and current events to be a challenging task as a historian. Last week I was a guest speaker for the Dictionary of Sydney’s weekly history segment on Breakfast at 2SER radio. The International Court of Justice had, only the day … Read more
As we approach Anzac Day in the centenary year of the beginning of the First World War, we are sure to see outpourings of reminiscence and myth about the ‘Great’ War. Francesca Beddie brings to the attention of fellow historians some of the efforts being made to encourage balance and honesty in the history being … Read more
Ian Willis reports on a paper he presented at the 12th Australasian Urban History/Planning History Conference at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand. The paper examined the identity of the Macarthur region southwest of Sydney and its sense of place. What is Macarthur’s regional identity? This seems a fairly safe question but if the response … Read more