Revolutionary Lives: Characters with a cause - Q&A with Professor Peter McPhee

The interview will incorporate discussion on Professor McPhee’s most recent book, Robespierre: a Revolutionary Life (2012), and other characters and notions highlighted in the exhibition. Larger than life, these personalities were part of creating some of the greatest social & political changes in western history. Is the audacity and valor that was embodied in these times prevalent in our leaders today? In modern times are we honoring the values of The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen? How does virtue become terror and where do they start and end?

Professor McPhee specializes in French History research and the French Revolution, and has published widely on the subject. He was appointed to a Personal Chair in History at the University of Melbourne in 1993. In 2003 he was appointed to the position of Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) and was the University's first Provost in 2007-09. He is a Fellow of both the Australian Academy of the Humanities and the Academy of Social Sciences. Professor McPhee became a Member of the Order of Australia in 2012.