The Future of History

Abstract

Thanks for the Deputy Vice Chancellor Academic Affairs’ (DVCAA) introduction and thanks to you all for coming. I do not get many opportunities to speak to such an audience; I am more accustomed to having captive students under my authority who have no choice but to listen. So, I am grateful that you took time out of your busy schedules at this odd mid-week hour, which keeps you away from your homes, in order to be here. Of course, it would natural and expected that you are thinking already nevertheless that the odds of learning anything new from the one who stands before you, this ‘fossil’ (as Leonard Ngcongco referred to our generation or what Thomas Tlou termed ‘we antiques’) –yes, the odds of picking up something worthwhile are likely pretty slim. But the good organisers of this event insisted I give this address, and I can only hope that what I have to say will give you one or two things to mull over.