DISCUSSION PANEL
Bias in Historical Research, Education and Memory
Moderator: Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz, Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Poland
Dr. G. C. Lakmini Gamage is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of History and Archaeology at the University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka, with nearly 22 years of service. Her expertise lies in modern history and conflict resolution studies. She has published several research papers in these
areas and has received numerous national and international training opportunities related to these themes. Her work focuses on understanding the complexities of historical conflicts and exploring pathways to peace, contributing to both academic discourse and practical applications in conflict resolution. Gamage is committed to advancing knowledge and fostering dialogue in these critical fields.
Prof. Yosanne Vella is a Professor at the University of Malta and History Coordinator at the Faculty of Education. She is a historian and an expert in history pedagogy. Her research and publications mainly focus on finding effective history teaching methods. Vella is one of the associate editors of the “International Journal of Historical Learning, Teaching and Research”, published by the British Historical Association. She has also been active in the international community through her work with EuroClio (the European History Educators’ Network) for a number of years. She is presently one of EuroClio’s Ambassadors. She is the president of Malta’s History Teachers’ Association and she was vice president of Malta’s Historical Society till 2019.
Dr. Jeff Fynn-Paul (PhD Toronto) is a Professor of Economic History at Leiden University in the Netherlands. His research focuses on cities, economics, and slavery in the Mediterranean and the Spanish Atlantic Empire during the Renaissance period. His work has appeared in journals such
as Past & Present and Urban History. He has published monographs and edited volumes with Cambridge, Routledge, and Brill. His work has appeared in the Cambridge World History of Slavery and An Economic History of the Iberian Peninsula, 700-2000. As a popular historian, he has written for outlets such as The Spectator, the Daily Telegraph, UK, The Hill, USA, and appeared on many podcasts and radio shows. A popular history book called Not Stolen: The Truth About
European Colonialism in the New World appeared in 2023. It spent more than a year in Amazon’s top 10 titles on colonialism in the United States and Canada. Fynn-Paul is editor of the Oxford Online Bibliography for “Slavery and the Slave Trade, 1350-1650”. He co-edits the Brill Studies in