Sydney Ideas

How does the past shape the present? Should history play a role in shaping politics today? Should we be held accountable for the wrongs of the past? Does history divide or unite us? Join prominent Australian and American scholars for an open discussion of these and other issues. Panellists will also explore how and what we remember collectively, and how this contributes to our sense of patriotism, nationalism, or indeed, alienation. With: Bob Carr, former Premier of New South Wales; Professor David Blight, Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University; Professor W. Fitzhugh Brundage, University of North Carolina; Profesor James T. Campbell, Stanford University; Professor Jonathan Hansen, Harvard University; and Professor Glenda Sluga, the University of Sydney, For more info and speaker's biography see this page: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2009/why_history_matters.shtml