CFP: Imagining Transatlantic Slavery And Abolition (Chawton House Library in Hampshire, England)
16-17 MARCH 2007
Chawton House Library in Hampshire, England
Deadline: Spetember 15, 2006
2007 will be the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the British transatlantic slave trade. To mark this event, Dr John Oldfield (University of Southampton) and Professor Cora Kaplan (Southampton and Queen Mary, University of London) are organizing a 2 day international conference on 16 and 17 March, 2007 that will explore cultural and historical representations of slavery and abolition from the eighteenth century through the present. The conference will focus on the relationship between history, cultural memory and transatlantic slavery. It will highlight both historical and contemporary examples, and welcomes papers on all those geographical areas involved in transatlantic slavery, including Africa and the United States, which in 2008 will celebrate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the American transatlantic slave trade.
Plenary speakers/panels include: Professor Beth Kowaleski-Wallace, Professor Moira Ferguson, and Professor Catherine Hall.
The conference, co-sponsored by Chawton House Library and the University of Southampton, will be held at Chawton House Library in Hampshire, an Elizabethan manor house that once belonged to Jane Austen’s brother. An independent research library and study centre, it focuses on women’s writing in English from 1600 to 1830 and houses a magnificent collection of early editions.
We are particularly interested in contributions on the following topics:
• Cultural representations of slavery and anti-slavery-- literature, visual art, theatre, performance, film.
• Women’s writing on anti-slavery—18th/19th century and its 20th and 21st century legacies.
• Women’s participation in anti-slavery campaigns.
• Slave narrative.
• Teaching the history and representation of slavery and abolition.
• Critical and historiographical debates on slavery and abolition.
• Contemporary debates over reparations and/or apologies for transatlantic slavery.
• Contemporary debates over the representation of slavery in museums and other public spaces, particularly with 2007 in mind.
• The treatment and interpretation of historical sites associated with slavery in Africa, the Caribbean and the United States.
• Historical examples of how transatlantic slavery has been commemorated in the past; and contemporary debates surrounding how it might be commemorated in the present and the future.
Abstracts should be no more than one page. Papers should be no more than 15-20 minutes long. Please send abstracts to Ms. Sandy White, e-mail: sw17@soton.ac.uk by 15 September 2006.
