History of Slavery and Material Culture: Can Objects Help Us Understand the Lives of Enslaved People?
Stanford Global Studies presents:
REFRAMING ENSLAVED PASTS SERIES (part of Stanford Global Studies Research Workshops Program)
“Reframing enslaved pasts” series plan to discuss critical data practices around enslaved pasts, focusing on the methods and choices that underlie digital data projects.
OPEN TO ALL
About the Speaker
Ana Lucia Araujo (Professor of History - Howard University, Washington DC)
She is a current member of the School of Historical Studies at the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton NJ, funded by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation. She authored or edited thirteen books on topics related to the history and memory of Atlantic slavery. Her three recent single-authored books include Slavery in the Age of Memory: Engaging the Past (2020), Museums and Atlantic Slavery (2021), and Reparations for Slavery and the Slave Trade: A Transnational and Comparative History (2017).
About the Talk
This talk will explore how the study of material culture can contribute to understanding the history of the Atlantic slave trade and slavery and the lives of enslaved people. Although there is no specific digital repository focusing on the material culture of slavery, this talk will point to existing collections that could contribute to the creation of such a database. Ultimately I will argue that depending on the approach objects can illuminate our understanding of lives of enslaved people and provide opportunities to establish connections between the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean systems.