History is not solely about the past but about the ways in which the past links to the present. It interests us then, in part, because it allows us to build on that platform and speculate about the future. If that is true, then a series of interesting questions arise. Among them; how does the present free or imprison historians when writing history? What are the perils of attempting to write history in contemporary South Africa and what exactly is ‘South African’ history? Why should historians allow their interrogation of the past to be imprisoned largely with the entity of the ‘nation-state’ – a somewhat arbitrary geographical unit of comparatively recent vintage? In writing Southern African history should we not be more alert to the dangers of adopting as our basis a unit of analysis – the ‘nation-state’ – something that might not only artificially constrain our ability to accurately reconstruct the past, but also, unintentionally, play in the hands of heritage-peddlers, politicians and fellow travellers who are anxious to harness historical projects to ‘nation-building’ and racially-predicated nationalism? There are no simple answers to such questions and, as will become apparent from my talk, I probably have fewer than most historians and social scientists.

At present I am attempting to write the biography of John McLoughlin an ‘Irish-Catholic’ bandit born within the shadows of Manchester textile mills in 1858 and who, after extensive travels and criminal adventures in England, Australia, India and New Zealand was found guilty of murder and executed in Pretoria Central Prison in 1910. I hope to use his life as a vehicle to illustrate, amongst other things, the hemispheric and global connectivity of the late 19th century industrial and mining revolutions.

Date: Friday 26 August
Time: 19:30
Place: Café Riche, Kerkplein
Speaker and theme to be announced

Come and take part in this conversation and meet fellow orators.

RSVP Dricky vd Merwe at
012 328 3173 or [email protected]

For more information:
Lamé Ebersöhn
[email protected]
http:/filosofiekafee.blogspot.com