2024 Jackon Lecture: Lianne Leddy

Department of History, University of Manitoba

Fresh off her award winning book, Serpent River Resurgence: Confronting Uranium Mining at Elliot Lake, the University of Manitoba hosted Dr. Lianne Leddy, to deliver the 2024 James A. Jackson Memorial Lecture, titled: “Challenging Histories: How Prioritizing Indigenous Experiences Can Help US Understand Our Shared Past”.

The talk was a fascinating melding of geopolitics, the Cold War, colonization and the Indigenous experience. Listening to a scholar walk the line between academic rigour, and narrating the story of their own family caused much reflection to those of us listening.

The talk was a great compliment to the book, which led me to reflect that: “Of course Indigenous people were taken advantage of for the sake of Uranium to build ICBMs...”