… by Francesca Beddie and Minna Muhlen-Schulte, Public History Prize officer, who can be contacted at <prizeofficer.phanswact@gmail.com>. Last year ABC Radio National did a program about art prizes. Are they worth the effort? As the introduction to the discussion answered: They might prove welcome cash to impoverished artists but they dash the hopes of … Read more
… by Peter Hobbins One of the great joys in writing history lies in making myself perennially uncomfortable. Nowhere is this more true than when employing that vexed verb ‘imagine’. I was trained as an empiricist. I have an honours degree in science, earned by killing multitudes of small creatures. It explains why I … Read more
Thank you to all those who contributed to the PHA NSW & ACT blog in 2017. The year’s 25 posts covered: Aboriginal history surprising resources for historical use such as knitting and the Botanical Gardens issues in the practice of history, history tourism and memorialisation (this post received more comments than any other) discussions on … Read more
Bruce Baskerville gives a taste of his paper at the recent Australian Historical Association conference in Newcastle. The presentation was based on part of chapter three in his 80,000 word PhD thesis, so giving just a 20-minute talk was a challenge. As one speaker at the conference noted ‘constraint is enabling’, in other words, a field … Read more
by Deborah Beck Exactly one hundred years ago, Rayner Hoff was in France, serving in the British Army in the Great War. Eighty years ago, in 1937, he died in Australia, aged 42, at the height of his career as a respected and accomplished sculptor. As the Anzac Commemoration Service takes place this year, … Read more
Sue Castrique explains… Some of the surprising users of the National Library of Australia’s Trove are knitters. In 2012, Rose Holley at the NLA noticed that, while the most popular searches were for births, deaths, marriages and murders, there was a strong trend for knitting patterns. For a while, ‘knitting pattern’ and ‘knit + cast … Read more
Ian Willis writes about Sydney’s central parklands… The Domain and Royal Botanic Gardens are some of the most important open spaces in Australia’s urban landscape. The 29 hectares of gardens are surrounded by 51 hectares of parkland including the Sydney Domain. They were officially recognised as a botanic garden in 1816, while only becoming … Read more
Melbourne is abuzz in the lead-up to Christmas. The crowds are out in shops and eateries. Others have been watching 16 hours of Richard Wagner’s monumental Ring Cycle. This production by Neil Armfield accentuates the opera’s warnings about the adverse consequences, on relationships as well as on nature, of greed and material acquisition. Another … Read more
Pauline Curby, author of Independent Minds: a history of St George Girls High School (UNSW Press, Sydney, 2016) talks about the importance of writing the history of public schools… St George Girls High School opened at a critical juncture in the history of Australia. The year 1916 was a troubled time, with political unrest, and war … Read more
Anisa Puri has worked mainly in oral history, heritage interpretation and project management. She is President of Oral History NSW, and managed the Australian Generations Oral History Project from 2012-2015. She is currently working as a historian at a heritage consulting firm and is also involved in the HIV/AIDS Volunteers History Project at Macquarie … Read more