Room 2017 in Dunton Tower starting at 1:00pm followed by a reception at 2:30pm.

Abstract

This year’s co–ordinator of the Shannon Lectures, Charlotte Gray, will open the series by discussing how contemporary writers are tackling the challenge of engaging non-academic audiences in Canadian history. She will talk about her new book Murdered Midas, about the life and death of Sir Harry Oakes, using a crime story to illuminate Canadian mining history. She will also explore the way the Oakes story had been covered by previous authors to illustrate how writer bias creeps into accounts of the past.

Speaker Bio

Charlotte Gray, author and adjunct research professor of history at Carleton University, has written ten bestsellers of popular history and biography, including The Promise of Canada, Sisters in the Wilderness and The Massey Murder. Her award-winning Gold Diggers: Striking It Rich in the Klondike was the basis of both a Discovery Channel miniseries and a PBS documentary.