This blog post tells the story behind the Camden Teamsters Memorial in John Street, Camden, NSW.
The memorial is a tribute to the teamsters, bullockies and carriage drivers who travelled the Yerranderie Road between the mining town of Yerranderie and Camden through the Burragorang Valley.
The memorial has a rear wheel from a flat-top wagon, a…[Read more]

This blog post tells the story behind the Camden Teamsters Memorial in John Street, Camden, NSW.
The memorial is a tribute to the teamsters, bullockies and carriage drivers who travelled the Yerranderie Road between the mining town of Yerranderie and Camden through the Burragorang Valley.
The memorial has a rear wheel from a flat-top wagon, a…[Read more]

Korean War Battle of Chosin Reservoir: The British casualties in one day in the battle of the Somme during WWI were 50,000 dead and wounded. 50,000 casualties in one day – patriotism & esprit de corps – is a very solid proof that there is a “psychology of groups.”
Why is the Battle of Chosin Reservoir important?
Preface: Materialist dogma – “…[Read more]

This paper surveys potential counterparts of the ancient Egyptian concept of mAat (maat) from other cultures and summarises such cross-cultural studies as have already been completed. Its scope ranges from antiquity to the present day and across Europe, Africa, the Near East, India, China, Australia and the Americas. Paradigms that appear to…[Read more]

This text consists of the ‘lectio praecursoria’ given at the defense of my doctoral dissertation “The Good Noblemen Who Conquered the Kingdom: Islam, Historiography, and Aristocratic Legitimation in Late-Medieval Portugal”. This dissertation deals with aristocratic historiography and political legitimation in late-medieval Portugal (late…[Read more]

This text consists of the ‘lectio praecursoria’ given at the defense of my doctoral dissertation “The Good Noblemen Who Conquered the Kingdom: Islam, Historiography, and Aristocratic Legitimation in Late-Medieval Portugal”. This dissertation deals with aristocratic historiography and political legitimation in late-medieval Portugal (late…[Read more]

This article investigates several discussions of “chemistry,” understood as an analysts’ category referring to theories and practices dealing with the structure and transformation of matter. By reading these texts (a treatise defending kīmiyāʾ by al-Fārābī, the famous passage from Ibn Sīnā’s Shifāʾ on transmutation, Ibn Taymiyyah’s fatwā…[Read more]

The present article challenges Walter C. Kaiser, Jr’s influential proposal for evangelical Old Testament missiology. Out of concern to avoid an understanding of “Israel as God’s favored or pet nation,” Kaiser argues that God’s promise to Abraham in Gen 12:3 is for the sake of all nations, and as such, “the first Great Commission mandate of…[Read more]

This blog post gives an overview of the Camden Material and Colour Guide. The guide provides property owners of heritage buildings in the Camden Heritage Conservation Area with tips and hints on restoration and conservation of their houses. The guide provides colour schemes on building exteriors and interiors by housing styles between 1840 and…[Read more]

This blog post gives an overview of the Camden Material and Colour Guide. The guide provides property owners of heritage buildings in the Camden Heritage Conservation Area with tips and hints on restoration and conservation of their houses. The guide provides colour schemes on building exteriors and interiors by housing styles between 1840 and…[Read more]

Sicily – and especially Syracuse – seems to have had an ongoing preoccupation with paired eyes as an apotropaic or magico-religious symbol. This brief paper explores some signature pieces and speculates that the excised eyes of Santa Lucia, patron saint of Syracuse, may be but a recent embodiment of a propensity that dates back to the Neolithic era.

Sinabi ni Ramon Reyes: Kung ituturing nating relihiyon ang pangunahing dimensyon ng tao kung saan iniuugnay niya ang sagrado, sa “lampas,” sa nagbibigay ng batayan at pinakahuling kahulugan ng kanyang pang-araw-araw na pag-iral, kung gayon ang mga animistikong paniniwala at gawain ng ang mga unang Pilipino ay magiging kuwalipikado bilang…[Read more]

The term “alchemy,” born out of early modern professional polemics among chemists, is problematic as a historical category. The present article shifts away from asking what pre-modern alchemy “really” was, to asking how medieval scholars writing in Greek and Arabic thought about the practice of treating and combining naturally occurring substan…[Read more]

This blog post is about a spring festival in Camden, NSW, called Celebrate Camden.
The brainchild of Vicki Sutherland from the Camden Chamber of Commerce, it aimed to promote Camden as a viable tourist and shopping destination.
The festival had mixed success and was held in 1994 and 1995, to be replaced by the Cowpastures Bicentennial.

This blog post is about a spring festival in Camden, NSW, called Celebrate Camden.
The brainchild of Vicki Sutherland from the Camden Chamber of Commerce, it aimed to promote Camden as a viable tourist and shopping destination.
The festival had mixed success and was held in 1994 and 1995, to be replaced by the Cowpastures Bicentennial.

All around the community in the Macarthur region are cultural artefacts that are representations of the settler-colonial narrative of the Cowpastures, which was variously a colonial frontier, a government reserve, and a formal region.
Today, the material culture of the Cowpastures is hidden in plain sight and appears to have been ‘forgotten’ by…[Read more]

All around the community in the Macarthur region are cultural artefacts that are representations of the settler-colonial narrative of the Cowpastures, which was variously a colonial frontier, a government reserve, and a formal region.
Today, the material culture of the Cowpastures is hidden in plain sight and appears to have been ‘forgotten’ by…[Read more]

This is a preprint of the Conclusion to a book called A History of Camden Chinese Market Gardeners 1899-1993 edited by Ian Willis and others

This is a preprint of the Conclusion to a book called A History of Camden Chinese Market Gardeners 1899-1993 edited by Ian Willis and others

This article briefly examines the ideology of motherhood in the small country town of Camden, NSW.
Around the turn of the century in 1900, a direct link was made between infant welfare, motherhood, patriotism and nationalism. Motherhood and mothering were expressed in terms of patriotism and a national priority. All were driven by European…[Read more]