Language is part of nature, and as such, certain general principles that generate the form of natural systems, will also create the patterns found within linguistic form. Since network theory is one of the best theoretical frameworks for extracting general principles from diverse systems, this thesis examines how a network perspective can shed light on the characteristics and the learning of syntax. It is demonstrated that two word co-occurrence networks constructed from adult and child speech (BNC World Edition 2001; Sachs 1983; MacWhinney 2000a) exhibit three non-atomic syntactic primitives namely, the truncated power law distributions of frequency, degree and the link length between two nodes (the link representing a precedence relation). Since a power law distribution of link lengths characterises a hubterranean structure (Kasturirangan 1999) i.e. a structure that has a few highly connected nodes and many poorly connected nodes, both the adult and the child word co-occurrence networks exhibit hubterranean structure. This structure is formed by an optimisation process that minimises the link length whilst maximising connectivity (Mathias & Gopal 2001 a&b). The link length in a word co-occurrence network is the storage cost of representing two adjacently co-occurring words and is inversely proportion to the transitional probability (TP) of the word pair. Adjacent words that co-occur often together i.e. have a high TP, exhibit a high cohesion and tend to form chunks. These chunks are a cost effective method of storing representations. Thus, on this view, the (multi-) power law of link lengths represents the distribution of storage costs or cohesions within adjacent words. Such cohesions form groupings of linguistic form known as syntactic constituents. Thus, syntactic constituency is not specific to language and is a property derived from the optimisation of the network. In keeping with other systems generated by a cost constraint on the link length, it is demonstrated that both the child and adult word co-occurrence networks are not hierarchically organised in terms of degree distribution (Ravasz and Barabási 2003:1). Furthermore, both networks are disassortative, and in line with other disassortative networks, there is a correlation between degree and betweenness centrality (BC) values (Goh, Kahng and Kim 2003). In agreement with scale free networks (Goh, Oh, Jeong, Kahng and Kim 2002), the BC values in both networks follow a power law distribution. In this thesis, a motif analysis of the two word co-occurrence networks is a richly detailed (non-functional) distributional analysis and reveals that the adult and child significance profiles for triad subgraphs correlate closely. Furthermore, the most significant 4-node motifs in the adult network are also the most significant in the child network. Utilising this non-functional distributional analysis in a word co-occurrence network, it is argued that the notion of a general syntactic category is not evidenced and as such is inadmissible. Thus, non-general or construction-specific categories are preferred (in line with Croft 2001). Function words tend to be the hub words of the network (see Ferrer i Cancho and Solé 2001a), being defined and therefore identified by their high type and token frequency. These properties are useful for identifying syntactic categories since function words are traditionally associated with particular syntactic categories (see Cann 2000). Consequently, a function word and thus a syntactic category may be identified by the interception of the frequency and degree power laws with their truncated tails. As a given syntactic category captures the type of words that may co-occur with the function word, the category then encourages consistency within the functional patterns in the network and re-enforces the network’s (near-) optimised state. Syntax then, on this view, is both a navigator, manoeuvring through the ever varying sea of linguistic form and a guide, forging an uncharted course through novel expression. There is also evidence suggesting that the hubterranean structure is not only found in the word co-occurrence network, but within other theoretical syntactic levels. Factors affecting the choice of a verb that is generalised early relate to the formation and the characteristics of hubs. In that, the property of a high (token) frequency in combination with either a high degree (type frequency) or a low storage cost, point to certain verbs within the network and these highly ‘visible’ verbs tend to be generalised early (in line with Boyd and Goldberg forthcoming). Furthermore, the optimisation process that creates hubterranean structure is implicated in the verb-construction subpart network of the adult’s linguistic knowledge, the mapping of the constructions’ form-to-meaning pairings, the construction inventory size as well as certain strategies aiding first language learning and adult artificial language learning.

Language is part of nature, and as such, certain general principles that generate the form of natural systems, will also create the patterns found within linguistic form. Since network theory is one of the best theoretical frameworks for extracting general principles from diverse systems, this thesis examines how a network perspective can shed light on the characteristics and the learning of syntax. It is demonstrated that two word co-occurrence networks constructed from adult and child speech (BNC World Edition 2001; Sachs 1983; MacWhinney 2000a) exhibit three non-atomic syntactic primitives namely, the truncated power law distributions of frequency, degree and the link length between two nodes (the link representing a precedence relation). Since a power law distribution of link lengths characterises a hubterranean structure (Kasturirangan 1999) i.e. a structure that has a few highly connected nodes and many poorly connected nodes, both the adult and the child word co-occurrence networks exhibit hubterranean structure. This structure is formed by an optimisation process that minimises the link length whilst maximising connectivity (Mathias & Gopal 2001 a&b). The link length in a word co-occurrence network is the storage cost of representing two adjacently co-occurring words and is inversely proportion to the transitional probability (TP) of the word pair. Adjacent words that co-occur often together i.e. have a high TP, exhibit a high cohesion and tend to form chunks. These chunks are a cost effective method of storing representations. Thus, on this view, the (multi-) power law of link lengths represents the distribution of storage costs or cohesions within adjacent words. Such cohesions form groupings of linguistic form known as syntactic constituents. Thus, syntactic constituency is not specific to language and is a property derived from the optimisation of the network. In keeping with other systems generated by a cost constraint on the link length, it is demonstrated that both the child and adult word co-occurrence networks are not hierarchically organised in terms of degree distribution (Ravasz and Barabási 2003:1). Furthermore, both networks are disassortative, and in line with other disassortative networks, there is a correlation between degree and betweenness centrality (BC) values (Goh, Kahng and Kim 2003). In agreement with scale free networks (Goh, Oh, Jeong, Kahng and Kim 2002), the BC values in both networks follow a power law distribution. In this thesis, a motif analysis of the two word co-occurrence networks is a richly detailed (non-functional) distributional analysis and reveals that the adult and child significance profiles for triad subgraphs correlate closely. Furthermore, the most significant 4-node motifs in the adult network are also the most significant in the child network. Utilising this non-functional distributional analysis in a word co-occurrence network, it is argued that the notion of a general syntactic category is not evidenced and as such is inadmissible. Thus, non-general or construction-specific categories are preferred (in line with Croft 2001). Function words tend to be the hub words of the network (see Ferrer i Cancho and Solé 2001a), being defined and therefore identified by their high type and token frequency. These properties are useful for identifying syntactic categories since function words are traditionally associated with particular syntactic categories (see Cann 2000). Consequently, a function word and thus a syntactic category may be identified by the interception of the frequency and degree power laws with their truncated tails. As a given syntactic category captures the type of words that may co-occur with the function word, the category then encourages consistency within the functional patterns in the network and re-enforces the network’s (near-) optimised state. Syntax then, on this view, is both a navigator, manoeuvring through the ever varying sea of linguistic form and a guide, forging an uncharted course through novel expression. There is also evidence suggesting that the hubterranean structure is not only found in the word co-occurrence network, but within other theoretical syntactic levels. Factors affecting the choice of a verb that is generalised early relate to the formation and the characteristics of hubs. In that, the property of a high (token) frequency in combination with either a high degree (type frequency) or a low storage cost, point to certain verbs within the network and these highly ‘visible’ verbs tend to be generalised early (in line with Boyd and Goldberg forthcoming). Furthermore, the optimisation process that creates hubterranean structure is implicated in the verb-construction subpart network of the adult’s linguistic knowledge, the mapping of the constructions’ form-to-meaning pairings, the construction inventory size as well as certain strategies aiding first language learning and adult artificial language learning.

Comic books are one of the many popular cultural forms that attract, as part of their audience, a committed readership that engages in a participatory relationship as part of a shared interest in the text. In common with other media forms, this engagement expresses itself in a variety of ways, including interaction with other readers online and face-to-face at conventions, correspondence with producers, and the creation of textual products. Other features of the discourses and practices of this community may be more specific to the comic book readership. One of the most interesting of these is a participatory belief, widely expressed by readers, that they can influence the story content of the published comic book and that comic books are unique among other media forms in this. In this thesis, I investigate several aspects of this belief, in order to offer a more nuanced understanding of the participatory involvement that readers have in comic books, particularly the superhero comic books that dominate American comic book culture. First, I examine whether this participatory belief is supported by evidence from published comic books by undertaking a content analysis of the letter columns and story pages of comic books. Next, I explore the discourses of online comic book culture that relate to authorship and the boundaries of participation and show how the rules of textual engagement that are held by readers shape the interactions between readers and producers. Finally, I look for alternative participatory spaces that are available to comic book readers, finding these in a contested form of engagement with comic books, that of exploring the fictional universes of the text. This approach imagines the text as the representation of a non-actual world, to which the comic book is an incomplete window. Theorising this mode of engagement leads to a conceptualisation of participation that makes visible a participatory space that has been previously overlooked by academic fan studies, and that complicates the existing models of participatory culture.

In this dissertation’s study of virtual reality (VR), I focus my attention on two prominent types of VR: real virtualities and virtual realities. I argue that both are composed of performative acts of spatial production and that through the study of those acts, researchers can isolate and describe the difference between these two tropes of virtual reality. My thesis focuses on Henri Lefebvre’s theorisation of social space as the most detailed and appropriate spatial theory for such a process while Victor Turner’s liminal theory of social and ritual performance provides the necessary performative methodology to complement Lefebvre’s. My use of these theories allows researchers to identify the difference between social spaces that produce new spaces and practices, and those which reinforce the spatial paradigm that generated them. The process of identifying these differences further clarifies Lefebvre’s complicated description of social space, but it also provides a platform for researchers to distinguish between the two different types of virtual reality. Through a detailed examination of three ostensibly different examples of VR, I argue that virtual realities ought to be considered primarily as realities made virtual while real virtualities should be discussed as virtualities made real. In doing so this thesis advances the study and application of Lefebvrean thought whilst opening up new directions for virtuality studies. I have chosen to explore three case studies that, through their difference, foreground their spatial and performative nature. By focusing on distinctly different and atypical case studies, I highlight the methodology described in this project and its suitability (or otherwise) for discussing VR. Focusing firstly on Google, I explore the virtual reality of the World Wide Web, perhaps the most ubiquitous example of a virtual reality. The sheer pervasiveness, uptake and constant evolution of the World Wide Web means that it requires constant academic attention. Google is the page through which a staggering 53.3% of Web users access the Internet and to say that most people are actually browsing Google’s web instead of the actual web is by no means an under statement. Google, like all other search engines, has its own formula for determining results and rankings for search queries. Google is not, as many people would like to think, an objective map of the Internet. It relies so heavily on users’ data in relation to their search query (which pages they click on, how long they spend there, whether they click back) that apart from the virtual algorithms that it uses to articulate the process Google could be said to be constituted solely by the real world practices of its users. Secondly I explore an example of the other type of VR, a real virtuality. Though the Gothic cathedral may not traditionally fall under the rubric of virtuality studies, the building itself provides an excellent example of the interaction of space and performance required to bring into existence that which was not there before. The Gothic cathedral is a concrete resolution of the actual/virtual dialectic and provides a unique opportunity to test my methodology’s ability to describe both types of VR and highlight the distinction between them. Whereas much of what constitutes virtuality studies centres on what I am calling the virtualisation of reality (online chat rooms, virtual banking, etc) – spaces that represent virtual others of real world entities, the Gothic cathedral represents the reverse of this: the realisation of a virtuality. The Gothic cathedral is unique in the context of this thesis for it is first and foremost a physical building rather than an onscreen other. It is a real virtuality in this thesis because, while concrete, there are some aspects of its reality that remain essential rather than formal and are dependent upon parishioners’ performance in order to be made ‘real.’ The final case study of this project represents the future usefulness of my methodology. In following up the work on exploring the suitability of describing a Gothic cathedral alongside Google, the last chapter of my dissertation explores the suitability of describing theatrical space as a VR. Similar to the Google chapter, this chapter focuses on a digital VR tool recently developed by Joanne Tompkins at the University of Queensland called the Online Theatre Project. The Online Theatre Project (OTP) represents a unique approach to the documentation, digital conceptualisation and archival problems that present themselves to a working theatre company in its everyday practice. The OTP is a server-based modeling and archival tool that allows users to draw, model and design their theatre production in real-time and then house their data on a remotely accessible server. Any notional description of theatrical space is necessarily a slippery one, given the relative youth of such studies and this project positions itself in this ever evolving debate by suggesting that the Online Theatre Project actually provides a description of what theatrical space entails where others have not. This thesis argues that VR space is dependent upon a constant spatial and performative production process. It illustrates how Lefebvre’s conceptualisation of the production process is most suitable for describing that production process and argues that re-imagining Lefebvre’s definition with the assistance of Turner’s everyday performative theory of liminality affords researchers the chance to differentiate between real virtualities and virtual realities. In doing so this thesis advances the study of VR, by proving that it is possible to discuss such complicated subjects in spatial and performative terms instead of the dominant real or un-real ones. Further, I outline the necessary adaptation of Lefebvre’s spatial triad that can be undertaken to prove its usefulness in many other aspects of VR studies.

1. The biography of Crawford Munro (1904-76) describes his early life in Toowoomba and Sydney, and his maturation as an engineer, working for Sydney Water, Sydney Technical College and in the production of Cruiser tanks in World War II. He was a large confident man with a big voice and an optimistic, humorous personality. As the Foundation Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of New South Wales Munro was liberal, fostered humanist studies and developed the School of Engineering with a unique emphasis on water engineering. He recruited excellent staff for research and postgraduate education who led the nation across all phases of hydrology and hydraulics. Munro developed a remarkable, rational solution for flood mitigation at Launceston, and actively promoted research, partly through the Australian Water Research Foundation and the Institution of Engineers, Australia. He was much involved with predicting flood runoff, developing benefit/cost relations for irrigation schemes, which led him into public controversy, and other hydrological projects. Munro’s attempts to raise social consciousness about water problems, his multi-disciplinary approach to the evaluation of water resources and his campaigns for the collection of stream and rainfall data helped provide a better basis for proper planning. In his later years he undertook the first Australian environmental impact study. The concluding chapter outlines a vision for the current management of Australia’s water. Munro posed necessary questions about measuring the supply of water and bringing the demand of water into synchrony with its supply, while providing water security in terms of its availability and quality. He raised the debate about the balance between sustaining environmental flows, utilizing water for agriculture and secondary industry, and maintaining the health of communities. Munro hoped equitable decision making would emerge from public engagement on these issues. 2. Twentieth century science biography in Australia is the province of a group of elite male scientists, whose interests cover wide disciplinary fields; it is focused on popular imagination: health, food and adventure (Antarctica) accounting for fifteen of the seventeen scientists. Empathy for the subject is a significant feature of the nineteen biographers, of whom five are scientists. This small genre is often supported by institutions in small print runs. A key role of biography is to place through science history a more epistemologically plausible version of events. Public discourses of science treated in the essay include conflict about the attribution of scientific discovery, the vocation of the scientist as a contributor to a wider social polity, the light biography sheds on sources of creativity and the evolution of the research and culture of institutions. The biographer attempts to generate a personal portrait of the scientist which conveys authority about the significance and origins of his or her scientific discoveries and their impact in the wider social context. Daniel Söderqvist’s affirmation of the existential approach which ‘emphasizes the freedom and responsibility of the human individual’ resonates with the candidate as expressing characteristics of the lives of many Australian scientists in their passion for intellectual discovery, their motivation to self-empowerment, and their readiness top step outside their social conditioning. This essay extends Söderqvist’s paradigm to the context of Australian science biography and indicates some constraints on its depiction which arise in the practice of writing science biography. Some epistemological issues are raised in the texts, especially when dealing with oral history and family mythology, and thematic, thematic within a chronological framework or chronological structures of the text are compared. The level of detail and context influence the sustainability of the reader’s interest. Case studies of the biographies written by the candidate (Ian Clunies Ross, Samuel Wadham, Allan Callaghan, Victor Trikojus, Raymond Hoffenberg and Crawford Munro) illustrate issues which arise in the writing of science biography. The dominant question is the relationship of the biographer to the subject, and this determines the voice the reader hears. The motivation of the biographer may arise in varying degrees of empathy felt for the subject. The high affinity the candidate had for Clunies Ross and Hoffenberg causes him to offer a defence against the charge of hagiography, and the selectivity and subjectivity of the biographer is evident in the arrangement and presentation of factual material. The motivation of the biographer is additionally directed to the communication of the subject’s research outputs to the wider Australian community, and in the case of Callaghan, Wadham and Clunies Ross there was a specific programmatic function of advancing the status of agricultural science. It is argued that the description of the public life of the subject needs to be complemented from the private life if the biographer is ‘to view the world through the eyes of the subject’.

1. The biography of Crawford Munro (1904-76) describes his early life in Toowoomba and Sydney, and his maturation as an engineer, working for Sydney Water, Sydney Technical College and in the production of Cruiser tanks in World War II. He was a large confident man with a big voice and an optimistic, humorous personality. As the Foundation Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of New South Wales Munro was liberal, fostered humanist studies and developed the School of Engineering with a unique emphasis on water engineering. He recruited excellent staff for research and postgraduate education who led the nation across all phases of hydrology and hydraulics. Munro developed a remarkable, rational solution for flood mitigation at Launceston, and actively promoted research, partly through the Australian Water Research Foundation and the Institution of Engineers, Australia. He was much involved with predicting flood runoff, developing benefit/cost relations for irrigation schemes, which led him into public controversy, and other hydrological projects. Munro’s attempts to raise social consciousness about water problems, his multi-disciplinary approach to the evaluation of water resources and his campaigns for the collection of stream and rainfall data helped provide a better basis for proper planning. In his later years he undertook the first Australian environmental impact study. The concluding chapter outlines a vision for the current management of Australia’s water. Munro posed necessary questions about measuring the supply of water and bringing the demand of water into synchrony with its supply, while providing water security in terms of its availability and quality. He raised the debate about the balance between sustaining environmental flows, utilizing water for agriculture and secondary industry, and maintaining the health of communities. Munro hoped equitable decision making would emerge from public engagement on these issues. 2. Twentieth century science biography in Australia is the province of a group of elite male scientists, whose interests cover wide disciplinary fields; it is focused on popular imagination: health, food and adventure (Antarctica) accounting for fifteen of the seventeen scientists. Empathy for the subject is a significant feature of the nineteen biographers, of whom five are scientists. This small genre is often supported by institutions in small print runs. A key role of biography is to place through science history a more epistemologically plausible version of events. Public discourses of science treated in the essay include conflict about the attribution of scientific discovery, the vocation of the scientist as a contributor to a wider social polity, the light biography sheds on sources of creativity and the evolution of the research and culture of institutions. The biographer attempts to generate a personal portrait of the scientist which conveys authority about the significance and origins of his or her scientific discoveries and their impact in the wider social context. Daniel Söderqvist’s affirmation of the existential approach which ‘emphasizes the freedom and responsibility of the human individual’ resonates with the candidate as expressing characteristics of the lives of many Australian scientists in their passion for intellectual discovery, their motivation to self-empowerment, and their readiness top step outside their social conditioning. This essay extends Söderqvist’s paradigm to the context of Australian science biography and indicates some constraints on its depiction which arise in the practice of writing science biography. Some epistemological issues are raised in the texts, especially when dealing with oral history and family mythology, and thematic, thematic within a chronological framework or chronological structures of the text are compared. The level of detail and context influence the sustainability of the reader’s interest. Case studies of the biographies written by the candidate (Ian Clunies Ross, Samuel Wadham, Allan Callaghan, Victor Trikojus, Raymond Hoffenberg and Crawford Munro) illustrate issues which arise in the writing of science biography. The dominant question is the relationship of the biographer to the subject, and this determines the voice the reader hears. The motivation of the biographer may arise in varying degrees of empathy felt for the subject. The high affinity the candidate had for Clunies Ross and Hoffenberg causes him to offer a defence against the charge of hagiography, and the selectivity and subjectivity of the biographer is evident in the arrangement and presentation of factual material. The motivation of the biographer is additionally directed to the communication of the subject’s research outputs to the wider Australian community, and in the case of Callaghan, Wadham and Clunies Ross there was a specific programmatic function of advancing the status of agricultural science. It is argued that the description of the public life of the subject needs to be complemented from the private life if the biographer is ‘to view the world through the eyes of the subject’.

1. The biography of Crawford Munro (1904-76) describes his early life in Toowoomba and Sydney, and his maturation as an engineer, working for Sydney Water, Sydney Technical College and in the production of Cruiser tanks in World War II. He was a large confident man with a big voice and an optimistic, humorous personality. As the Foundation Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of New South Wales Munro was liberal, fostered humanist studies and developed the School of Engineering with a unique emphasis on water engineering. He recruited excellent staff for research and postgraduate education who led the nation across all phases of hydrology and hydraulics. Munro developed a remarkable, rational solution for flood mitigation at Launceston, and actively promoted research, partly through the Australian Water Research Foundation and the Institution of Engineers, Australia. He was much involved with predicting flood runoff, developing benefit/cost relations for irrigation schemes, which led him into public controversy, and other hydrological projects. Munro’s attempts to raise social consciousness about water problems, his multi-disciplinary approach to the evaluation of water resources and his campaigns for the collection of stream and rainfall data helped provide a better basis for proper planning. In his later years he undertook the first Australian environmental impact study. The concluding chapter outlines a vision for the current management of Australia’s water. Munro posed necessary questions about measuring the supply of water and bringing the demand of water into synchrony with its supply, while providing water security in terms of its availability and quality. He raised the debate about the balance between sustaining environmental flows, utilizing water for agriculture and secondary industry, and maintaining the health of communities. Munro hoped equitable decision making would emerge from public engagement on these issues. 2. Twentieth century science biography in Australia is the province of a group of elite male scientists, whose interests cover wide disciplinary fields; it is focused on popular imagination: health, food and adventure (Antarctica) accounting for fifteen of the seventeen scientists. Empathy for the subject is a significant feature of the nineteen biographers, of whom five are scientists. This small genre is often supported by institutions in small print runs. A key role of biography is to place through science history a more epistemologically plausible version of events. Public discourses of science treated in the essay include conflict about the attribution of scientific discovery, the vocation of the scientist as a contributor to a wider social polity, the light biography sheds on sources of creativity and the evolution of the research and culture of institutions. The biographer attempts to generate a personal portrait of the scientist which conveys authority about the significance and origins of his or her scientific discoveries and their impact in the wider social context. Daniel Söderqvist’s affirmation of the existential approach which ‘emphasizes the freedom and responsibility of the human individual’ resonates with the candidate as expressing characteristics of the lives of many Australian scientists in their passion for intellectual discovery, their motivation to self-empowerment, and their readiness top step outside their social conditioning. This essay extends Söderqvist’s paradigm to the context of Australian science biography and indicates some constraints on its depiction which arise in the practice of writing science biography. Some epistemological issues are raised in the texts, especially when dealing with oral history and family mythology, and thematic, thematic within a chronological framework or chronological structures of the text are compared. The level of detail and context influence the sustainability of the reader’s interest. Case studies of the biographies written by the candidate (Ian Clunies Ross, Samuel Wadham, Allan Callaghan, Victor Trikojus, Raymond Hoffenberg and Crawford Munro) illustrate issues which arise in the writing of science biography. The dominant question is the relationship of the biographer to the subject, and this determines the voice the reader hears. The motivation of the biographer may arise in varying degrees of empathy felt for the subject. The high affinity the candidate had for Clunies Ross and Hoffenberg causes him to offer a defence against the charge of hagiography, and the selectivity and subjectivity of the biographer is evident in the arrangement and presentation of factual material. The motivation of the biographer is additionally directed to the communication of the subject’s research outputs to the wider Australian community, and in the case of Callaghan, Wadham and Clunies Ross there was a specific programmatic function of advancing the status of agricultural science. It is argued that the description of the public life of the subject needs to be complemented from the private life if the biographer is ‘to view the world through the eyes of the subject’.

1. The biography of Crawford Munro (1904-76) describes his early life in Toowoomba and Sydney, and his maturation as an engineer, working for Sydney Water, Sydney Technical College and in the production of Cruiser tanks in World War II. He was a large confident man with a big voice and an optimistic, humorous personality. As the Foundation Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of New South Wales Munro was liberal, fostered humanist studies and developed the School of Engineering with a unique emphasis on water engineering. He recruited excellent staff for research and postgraduate education who led the nation across all phases of hydrology and hydraulics. Munro developed a remarkable, rational solution for flood mitigation at Launceston, and actively promoted research, partly through the Australian Water Research Foundation and the Institution of Engineers, Australia. He was much involved with predicting flood runoff, developing benefit/cost relations for irrigation schemes, which led him into public controversy, and other hydrological projects. Munro’s attempts to raise social consciousness about water problems, his multi-disciplinary approach to the evaluation of water resources and his campaigns for the collection of stream and rainfall data helped provide a better basis for proper planning. In his later years he undertook the first Australian environmental impact study. The concluding chapter outlines a vision for the current management of Australia’s water. Munro posed necessary questions about measuring the supply of water and bringing the demand of water into synchrony with its supply, while providing water security in terms of its availability and quality. He raised the debate about the balance between sustaining environmental flows, utilizing water for agriculture and secondary industry, and maintaining the health of communities. Munro hoped equitable decision making would emerge from public engagement on these issues. 2. Twentieth century science biography in Australia is the province of a group of elite male scientists, whose interests cover wide disciplinary fields; it is focused on popular imagination: health, food and adventure (Antarctica) accounting for fifteen of the seventeen scientists. Empathy for the subject is a significant feature of the nineteen biographers, of whom five are scientists. This small genre is often supported by institutions in small print runs. A key role of biography is to place through science history a more epistemologically plausible version of events. Public discourses of science treated in the essay include conflict about the attribution of scientific discovery, the vocation of the scientist as a contributor to a wider social polity, the light biography sheds on sources of creativity and the evolution of the research and culture of institutions. The biographer attempts to generate a personal portrait of the scientist which conveys authority about the significance and origins of his or her scientific discoveries and their impact in the wider social context. Daniel Söderqvist’s affirmation of the existential approach which ‘emphasizes the freedom and responsibility of the human individual’ resonates with the candidate as expressing characteristics of the lives of many Australian scientists in their passion for intellectual discovery, their motivation to self-empowerment, and their readiness top step outside their social conditioning. This essay extends Söderqvist’s paradigm to the context of Australian science biography and indicates some constraints on its depiction which arise in the practice of writing science biography. Some epistemological issues are raised in the texts, especially when dealing with oral history and family mythology, and thematic, thematic within a chronological framework or chronological structures of the text are compared. The level of detail and context influence the sustainability of the reader’s interest. Case studies of the biographies written by the candidate (Ian Clunies Ross, Samuel Wadham, Allan Callaghan, Victor Trikojus, Raymond Hoffenberg and Crawford Munro) illustrate issues which arise in the writing of science biography. The dominant question is the relationship of the biographer to the subject, and this determines the voice the reader hears. The motivation of the biographer may arise in varying degrees of empathy felt for the subject. The high affinity the candidate had for Clunies Ross and Hoffenberg causes him to offer a defence against the charge of hagiography, and the selectivity and subjectivity of the biographer is evident in the arrangement and presentation of factual material. The motivation of the biographer is additionally directed to the communication of the subject’s research outputs to the wider Australian community, and in the case of Callaghan, Wadham and Clunies Ross there was a specific programmatic function of advancing the status of agricultural science. It is argued that the description of the public life of the subject needs to be complemented from the private life if the biographer is ‘to view the world through the eyes of the subject’.