Indigenous people's history of London

If you have ever seen the biopic of Gandhi by Richard Attenborough starring Ben Kingsley, there is a very striking sequence wherein Mr. Gandhi travels to England and meets with government officials but also visits with working people. It's an interesting juxtaposition and it seems sure that the visitor developed some very specific ideas about the city and its people. The Institute for Native American Studies welcomes a speaker next week who will lecture on a very similar topic.

On Monday, March 4, at 4 PM, in 148 MLC, historian Coll Thrush of the University of British Columbia will give a talk entitled "London Entangled: Indigenous Histories at Empire's Centre."

Thrush describes his talk this way: "Is it possible to write an Indigenous peoples' history of the centre of empire? This talk explores the story of London through the experiences of Indigenous people who came to the city - willingly or otherwise - from territories that became the US, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, beginning in 1502. Bringing together both urban and Indigenous histories and methodologies, it also calls for a intervention in notions of "center" and "periphery" that undergird much of the way we talk about global and world history." 

Sounds terrific. Mark your calendars.