Akrivi Chaimala

• Historical Legacies and the Politics of Memory: Examining the Oglethorpe Pledge
• BA Hons Politics and International Relations

Calling into question what the collective ‘we’ chooses to remember and what to forget, recent activism on university campuses has resisted the memorialisation of contentious historical figures. Beyond starting a productive dialogue on the far-reaching implications of the selective construction of a necessarily multi-directional past, this project aims to establish a guidance model for universities to follow
in responsibly handling complex legacy donations. After all, the legacies that a university endorses reflect said university’s values. As such, the theoretical framework of the Politics of Memory is applied to the case-study examination and proposed interpretation of the recently pledged James Edward Oglethorpe (1696-1785) legacy to Newcastle University. Emerging from this research is the conclusion that legacy donations ought to be understood as offering to universities the valuable opportunity to effectively materialise their vision for the future in a way that dynamically reaffirms their core values in the present.

Funded by: Newcastle University Research Scholarship

Project Supervisor: Dr Nicola Mulkeen