Places cannot exist in limbo. The concept of place is inevitably relationship-based. Whether in the mind or linked to a particular locus, a sense of place is mediated by association, be that forged through experience, history or imagination and desire. Creating a garden is quintessentially developing a sense of place and this is so whether at the level of the individual, the community or indeed the nation.
Hamlet uses the fortuitous arrival of the players at Elsinore as the pivotal point in his prolonged campaign to expose his uncle's fratricide/regicide. He confesses his confidence in the power of the play to effect this outcom. Hamlet of course is fiction. Could this happen in real life? Apparently so, according to various accounts of the opening night performance in November 1932 at J C Williamson's Criterion Theatre in Sydney of the play Whose Child.
I have been working with Lily Xiao Hong Lee and Agnes Stefanowska for over a decade on The Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women (New York: M E Sharpe, 1998-). Three volumes have been published and we are now working on the final (fourth but in historical chronology third) volume. Without Agnes, who died suddenly just two years ago, Lily and I faltered somewhat and our progress slowed for a time...
The Independent Scholars Association of Australia has now enjoyed a fruitful existence for more than fifteen years and in view of its diverse and changing membership, I would like to make available this personal recollection of its genesis and early years.1
The decision to establish a body that brought together the interests of independent scholars emerged over time from my own direct experience at the young Griffith University where,...