The Wheeler Centre

Napoleon Bonaparte is credited with saying that ‘history is a set of lies agreed upon.’ But whose lies are they? And who agreed upon them? For the second annual E.W. Cole Lecture, presented as part of the Wheeler Centre’s Spring Fling, historian and author Santilla Chingaipe asks, ‘who gets to write history?’ Drawing on her work exploring settler colonialism, slavery, and post-colonial migration in Australia, Chingaipe scrutinises the process of writing history, questioning what is considered historical truth and whose histories may be erased as a result. Following a thought-provoking address, Chingaipe will be joined by Zoe Laidlaw, Professor of History in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at University of Melbourne. Together they will interrogate the process of recording the past and ask what needs to change to stop history from repeating itself. Supported by The E. W. Cole Foundation.