August Meeting
7.30 pm Tuesday, 15 August, Palmerston North Central Library, George Street, Palmerston North

Lenses onto the Local:
Reflections of a Born Again Local Historian

Margaret Tennant

Palmerston North Heritage Trust
Why does history matter?

In our August talk, Emeritus Professor Margaret Tennant will talk about her own historical journey from
undertaking research for the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit
Sector Project to a blogpost on Radio 2ZA’s ‘Morrie the Mouse’.
Using Palmerston North examples, she will reflect on why, at a time
academic history departments are being decimated, local history is
flourishing in many forms, and in response to various dynamics. Her
talk will feature not only the city’s most famous rodent, but a 1925
death in the railway shunting yards, the significance of naming places,
and the multiple ways in which non-historians can contribute to our
understanding of place, using a historical lens.
Margaret Tennant is a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi and
formerly Professor of History at Massey University. Her publications
mainly focus on the history of social policy, but in 2020 she co-edited
and wrote for City at the Centre: A History of Palmerston North.

All warmly welcome!

7.30 pm Tuesday, 18 April, Three Minute Thesis finalists. Palmerston North Central Library. All welcome.

This month we are delighted to be able to present four short talks from finalists in Massey University’s
Three Minute Thesis competition.

Reconciling paid work and caregiving responsibilities among older workers in Aotearoa New Zealand
Shanika Koreshi

Shanika is a PhD student in psychology. Her work focuses on precarious
employment, work-life balance, and retirement.

Lessons from the bored room: Applying concepts of boredom to animals
Morgan Heslop
Morgan is a PhD student in Massey’s Animal Welfare Science and Bioethics
Centre. When we keep animals, we design their environments for them and
often make them as stable and unchanging as possible – we make them
boring. But what is boring to a dog, or to a chicken?

Digestion of complex food systems containing health-promoting compounds
Haroon Qazi
Haroon is a PhD student at the Riddet Institute at Massey University. His
research interests are delivering bioactive ingredients, functional foods,
nutrition, and product development.

Automated vehicles and society: Why do social meanings matter?
Moayad Shammut
Moayad is a PhD candidate in the School of People, Environment and
Planning at Massey University. His PhD research looks at the future of
autonomous vehicles in New Zealand by placing considerable focus on the
interface between technology, policymaking, social acceptance, and business development.