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Lorena Allam, Dirk Moses and Ümit Kurt reflect on what can be learned from histories of genocide, and locate their discussion between journalism, history and processes of truth-telling.
This History Now session, chaired by Associate Professor Nancy Cushing, is a compelling exploration of truth-telling and genocide, featuring insights from award-winning journalist Lorena Allam, and renowned genocide scholars Dr Umut Kurt and Professor Dirk Moses. What responsibilities do historians have in addressing the harsh realities of genocide and colonisation, and how does this impact First Nations people in Australia and other global communities? We tackle these challenging questions and more, examining the interconnectedness of past atrocities with current conflicts, such as the ongoing violence in Palestine, through diverse perspectives.
Lorena Allam is a multiple Walkley award winning journalist, descended from the Gamilaraay and Yawalaraay nations of north west NSW . Lorena is the Guardian's Indigenous affairs editor.
She was awarded a 2023 Churchill fellow to investigate the role of the media in Indigenous truth telling.
Professor Dirk Moses teaches international relations at the City College of New York. He is the author and editor of books on genocide and memory. Two anthologies appearing this year are The Holocaust Museum and Human Rights: Transnational Perspectives on Contemporary Memorials (University of Pennsylvania Press) and The Russian Invasion of Ukraine Victims Perpetrators Justice and the Question of Genocide (Routledge). He edits the Journal of Genocide Research.
Dr. Ümit Kurt is an historian and award-winning researcher at the University of Newcastle, digging into hidden stories to better understand the transformations of imperial structures in the Modern Middle East and late Ottoman Empire – and their role in constituting the republican regime. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, he is the author of The Armenians of Aintab: The Economics of Genocide in an Ottoman Province (Harvard University Press) and coauthor of The Spirit of the Laws: The Plunder of Wealth in the Armenian Genocide (Berghahn).
Chair: Associate Professor Nancy Cushing
Nancy Cushing is Associate Professor in History, Director of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Deputy President of Academic Senate (Research) at the University of Newcastle on Awabakal and Worimi country. An environmental historian whose interests range from coal mining to human-other animal relations, she is co-editor of Animals Count: How Population Size Matters in Animal-Human Relations (Routledge 2018) and author of A History of Crime in Australia: Australian Underworlds. Current projects are a New History of Australia in 15 Animals (for Bloomsbury) and a history of humans and other animals in the urban area of Sydney, Australia funded by the Coral Thomas Fellowship (2024 - 25) at the State Library of New South Wales. Nancy is on the executives of the Australian Aotearoa NZ Environmental History Network and the Australian Historical Association and on the NSW Working Party for the Australian Dictionary of Biography.
This session of History Now was produced as an online special event, by the History Council of NSW in partnership with the Centre for the Study of Violence, University of Newcastle.
History Now 2024 is programmed by Dr Jesse Adams Stein (Vice President of HCNSW / Member of ACPH).
Recorded on 31 July 2024.
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