In this History Now/Wood Memorial Lecture event, Dr. Sophie Loy-Wilson from the discipline of History at the University of Sydney sits down with three extraordinary scholars who have drawn on lived experiences and diverse methodologies to produce creative histories that have made an impact on how we think about and do history.

Shauna Bostock, André Dao, and Katerina Teaiwa discuss their past and future projects, challenging us to imagine new ways of approaching, practicing, and presenting history in Australia today.

The Wood Memorial Lecture is funded by a generous endowment to the discipline of History in the School of Humanities at the University of Sydney to facilitate a public Lecture in Australian History.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:

Dr Shauna Bostock is currently the Indigenous Australian Research Editor at the National Centre of Biography at ANU. A former primary school teacher, Shauna Bostock's curiosity about her ancestors took her all the way to a PhD in Aboriginal history, which turned into a book entitled Reaching Through Time: Finding my family’s stories(Allen & Unwin). The book was awarded the NSW Community and Regional History Prize in 2024, and praised as a 'compelling blend of Indigenous history, community history and the history of colonial settlement.'

André Dao is an author and researcher from Naarm/Melbourne, Australia. His debut novel, Anam, won the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction, the NSW Premier’s Literary Award for New Writing, and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Voss Literary Award. In 2024, he was named a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist. André was awarded the 2024 Pascall Prize for Cultural Criticism for essays published in The Saturday Paper, Meanjin and Liminal. He is a postdoctoral fellow with the ARC Laureate Program in Global Corporations and International Law at Melbourne Law School, where is working on a history of how the computing company, IBM, travelled to the Global South.

Katerina Teaiwa is Professor of Pacific Studies in the School of Culture, History and Language at the Australian National University. She is a scholar, artist, activist and nationally award-winning teacher of Banaban, I-Kiribati (Tabiteuean) and African American heritage born and raised in Fiji. Her exhibition "Dance Protest" is currently showing at the Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney.

This event is in the 2025 History Now series. History Now is presented by the History Council of NSW in conjunction with the Chau Chak Wing Museum and the Vere Gordon Childe Centre.

History Now 2025 has been supported by Create NSW.

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In this conversation led by two leading history educators, we will examine the challenges and complexities of history teaching in the 21st century and explore the important role history teachers play in engaging, informing and shaping the future of history and history adjacent fields.

How can we help nurture the next generation of historians? Two leading history educators, Jonathon Dallimore (HTANSW and University of New South Wales) and Professor Tim Allender (University of Sydney), will take us through some of the current issues in contemporary history education.

This presentation is part of the History Council of New South Wales’ 2025 History Now series, and presented by the History Council of New South Wales, the Chau Chak Wing Museum, and the Vere Gordon Childe Centre at the University of Sydney.

The History Council of New South Wales has been supported by the NSW Government through a grant from Create NSW.

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This discussion will feature contemporary case studies of cultural heritage destruction from abroad and locally, including recent damage to the National Museum of Sudan. However, it is not just conflict scenarios, the conversation will cover case studies of damage due to earthquake and natural damage and wilful damage. We will also consider how sites of historical trauma become historical sites themselves, and how they are reflected in contemporary perspectives.

With presentations by Dr Julien Cooper (Macquarie University), Professor Richard Mackay (Australia ICOMOS and Deakin University) and Dr Charlotte Feakins (University of Sydney), this wide-ranging talk will take us around the world and examine a range of issues around the fight to preserve the past, international obligations to protect historic sites and traditions and what we may be able to contribute from Australia.

The History Council of NSW and the Chau Chak Wing Museum, and the Vere Gordon Childe Centre at the University of Sydney are pleased to present the 2025 History Now series.

The History Council of NSW has been supported in 2025 by the NSW Government through a grant from Create NSW.

Send us a text

Support the show