The History Council of Victoria Annual Lecture 2026 takes place on September 24, just a couple of weeks away! The Annual Lecture is our most prestigious event, featuring a noted scholar offering insight and provocation from history and historiography. In anticipation of the HCV event of the year we asked our speaker for 2026, Professor Sean Scalmer, all about his upcoming talk.

Sean Scalmer is a Professor of History at the University of Melbourne and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. He is the author of seven books, including, most recently, A Fair Day’s Work: The Quest to Win Back Time (2025). He is also the co-editor of six books on social movements, labour history, and democracy.

You can read more about the Annual Lecture and book your ticket here.

Hello Sean. We are excited to have you speak at the Annual Lecture this year! How long have you been researching the history of activism, protest and democracy, and why do you think you cultivated an interest in this aspect of history?

I first began studying these topics, broadly conceived, thirty years ago, in an Honours and PhD thesis that examined Australian labour activism. In the years since, that interest has extended to book-length studies of activism and the media (Dissent Events, 2002), the campaigning knowledge produced by political activists (Activist Wisdom, 2006), trade unionism (The Little History of Australian Unionism, 2006).  Gandhian nonviolence (Gandhi in the West, 2011),  campaign oratory (On the Stump, 2017), 19th century Victorian democracy (Democratic Adventurer, 2021), and the struggle over working time (A Fair Day’s Work, 2025). It also underpins a current research project, on the history of ‘Direct Action’ and its relationship to ‘Democracy’.

Why have these topics interested me? As a concerned citizen, I have been interested in social and political change, and have taken part in campaigns that seek change. This has often led me back to history: to recover past experiences; to trace and explain past successes and failures; to better understand the processes that drive change. Historical study hasn’t always elicited clear answers, of course, and sometimes my research has in turn led me on to new topics of investigation. But broadly speaking, my impulse to study the history of ‘democracy’ reflects my experience as a citizen in a ‘democracy’, and my desire to contribute to democratic change.

Why is it important that we engage with historical perspectives on activism and democracy as well as their contemporary iterations? 

Historical perspectives are valuable for many reasons. Sometimes, they can disclose a substantial and important difference between the past and the present, thereby underlining the novelty of contemporary political challenges. Sometimes, they can uncover recurrent problems and tensions and trajectories, so that apparent novelties emerge as much more familiar than is widely understood. Historical study can recover traditions and past actions that have been marginalised, but might enrich contemporary discussion. It can also help us to understand the circumstances that lie behind political conflicts; this can clarify the conditions and structures that shape politics. Finally, history provides us with an opportunity to examine efforts to win change, and to try to explain past succcesses and disappointments. This has an intrinsic fascination—at least for me—while also offering guidance to those seeking a different world today.

Which case studies and/or histories will you be discussing in the lecture, and what it is that caught your attention about these histories?

My lecture explores the history of ‘Direct Action’ as an idea and a practice. It begins with the invention of this term, in the last decade of the 19th century, among radicals based in the trade-union or ‘syndicalist’ movement in France. The lecture then traces how this concept was shared, understood and reinterpreted over subsequent decades, and in many different campaigns around the globe. These include: the Gandhian movement for Indian self-government; the suffragette movement in Britain; the American civil rights movement; the global peace movement; the ‘New Left’ of the 1960s; and more contemporary movements around environmentalism and against neoliberalism. The framework of this investigation is global.

What caught my attention about these movements? Each took up the methods and language of ‘Direct Action’ in some way. Each also meditated on the meaning, limits, and possibilities of ‘Democracy’. Each reshaped the repertoire of ‘Direct Action’ politics, adapting and applying it in new ways. Finally, each wielded some influence: all of the campaigns I examine became models for later activists.

Why is it important we come together in a public event to speak about history rather than just read it in a book at home? 

A public lecture provides an opportunity for a scholar to try to connect their research to themes of wide or general interest or controversy, as I try to do in my planned lecture. Public events of these kinds also provide an opportunity for questions and for discussion, so that they themselves can be expressions of democratic life. They don’t seek to replace the activity of reading or quiet contemplation, but they are a valuable accompaniment.