Session 5 - Thursday 23 July, 6-8pm - Emeritus Professor Mark McKenna - History, ANU

Mark writes mainly about the history of Australian republicanism and monarchy, and Aboriginal history. This session will focus particularly on his biography of Manning Clark. What did Clark’s public impact reveal about Australian society during the second half of the twentieth century? Why was his approach to research and writing questioned so severely by fellow historians?

Dr Daniel Connell - Interviewer

Daniel’s background includes time at the Crawford School ANU, the Murray-Darling Basin Commission (now Authority), the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (Social History Unit) and Papua New Guinea's National Broadcasting Commission.

His PhD focused on the political history of the Murray-Darling Basin and made recommendations for its future governance which were very different from those subsequently incorporated into the MDB Basin Plan.

He has recorded many interviews for the Australian National University, the War Memorial, the Bureau of Statistics and the National Library of Australia’s Oral History Collection.

Recording of the conversations

With the generous support of the National Library of Australia, transcription-quality recordings of the conversations between the guest historians and Daniel Connell will be made and placed in the NLA's Oral History Collection for future reference.

Series 2 of Historians In Conversation will be conducted in October and November 2026.

Bookings for Series 2 will open in July.

The guest historians for Series 2 will be:

Thursday 29 October, 6-8pm - Bill Gammage, Humanities Research Centre ANU

Thursday 5 November, 6-8pm - Professor Nicholas Brown - Centre for Biography, ANU

Thursday 12 November, 6-8pm - Distinguished Professor Ann McGrath AM - History, ANU

Thursday 19 November, 6-8pm - Associate Professor Romain Fathi – History, ANU

Thursday 26 November, 6-8pm - Dr Ruby Ekkel – History, ANU

Tickets: https://www.trybooking.com/DLXLY