Public lecture promises Colenso controversy

A controversial biography of William Colenso by an award-winning author promises to be an interesting start to the 2012 Massey University Public Lecture Series in Auckland. The first lecture is at the Albany campus on Wednesday July 4.

Novelist, non-fiction writer and film director Peter Wells (MNZM) has produced a book on colonial maverick William Colenso which views him through a slightly different lens.

The Hungry Heart: Journeys with William Colenso (Vintage, 2012) has been praised as ‘an exhilarating tour de force’ by the New Zealand Herald, and ‘among the finest biographies ever produced in New Zealand’ by Metro magazine. It is also highly unconventional, as Mr Wells has written himself into the biography.

Mr Wells argues that Aotearoa New Zealand in the 19th century was a lot more complex than the tired clichés trotted out over the last thirty years in a climate focused on the wrongs and evils of colonisation.

The public lecture will explore Wells’ vision of Colenso as a dissenter and troubled conscience during a tumultuous period of New Zealand’s colonisation, and ponder how to interpret this missionary, scientist, radical and adulterer.

The lecture starts at 6pm at the Sir Neil Waters Lecture Theatre, at Massey University on the Albany Expressway, SH 17, and is expected to be finished by 7.30pm.

Tea and coffee will be available before the lecture, so RSVP by contacting Marianne Mannering: email: m.mannering@massey.ac.nz or phone: 09 414 0800 ext 9555.

The 2012 Massey University Public Lecture Series is free and anyone is welcome to attend.

Future lectures:
August 1: Diane Robertson, Auckland City Missioner: “Being Poor is Hard Work”

September 3: Richard Shaw,  Associate Head of the School of People, Environment & Planning: “There is no depression in New Zealand: Are Blam Blam Blam still right about politics in New Zealand?”

October 3: Mojo Mathers, New Zealand’s first deaf MP: “Hearing-impaired New Zealanders – what does the future hold?”