Academic Sessions: London 2003
The Topography of Slavery: Re–Membering Metropolitan Space.
Convenor:
Dr Annie E. Coombes, School of History of Art, Film and Visual Media 43 Gordon Square, London WC1H OPD UK. a.coombes@hist-art.bbk.ac.uk
Abstract:
This session aims to build on the research which has been produced as part of the UNESCO Slave Routes project and by colonial historians and literary historians of travel and other literature (including slave narratives) by focusing on the visual evidence and representation of the impact of the slave trade in the colonial and contemporary city. Itwill contain contributions which address both the historical dimension of the slave trade – the various transactions and exchanges between people, places and material culture – and current concerns about how to The commerce of slavery has indelibly transformed both the demography and topography of metropolitan centres in Europe, North America, the Caribbean and the African continent. There is a growing literature on various aspects of the history of the slave trade, in particular the Trans–Atlantic trade. This literature includes important new research on abolitionism, the experience of and technologies involved in the trans–Atlantic crossing, the involvement of various African states in the trade and its economic and cultural impact on those states, the survival and experience of slavery and rebellion and resistance. However, the ways in which slavery has marked and continues to mark metropolitan spaces has received less attention. adequately represent the more complex aspects of this history to a contemporary audience in heritage sites, museum exhibitions and film, without diminishing an acknowledgment of the horrors of the trade.
Nigel Worden (University of Cape Town) Tracing Slavery in the City: The Recovery of Slave Pasts in Cape Town, South Africa.
Simon Schaffer (Cambridge University) Enlightenment Knowledge and the Slave Networks.
Joy Gregory (London College of Printing) Memory and Skin Carmen Fracchia (Birkbeck College) Representing the Slave Trade in Early Modern Spanish Urban Space.
Anthony Tibbles (Merseyside Maritime Museum, Liverpool)Assessing the Transatlantic Slavery Gallery Project.
Ana Lucia Araujo (Laval University, Quebec) Representing Slavery in Rio de Janeiro During the 19th Century: The Contradictory Images of Debret, Rugendas and Biard.
Nigel Rigby (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich) Assessing the Gallery of Trade and Empire.
James Walvin (York University) – respondent.
Dr Annie E. Coombes, School of History of Art, Film and Visual Media 43 Gordon Square, London WC1H OPD UK. a.coombes@hist-art.bbk.ac.uk
Abstract:
This session aims to build on the research which has been produced as part of the UNESCO Slave Routes project and by colonial historians and literary historians of travel and other literature (including slave narratives) by focusing on the visual evidence and representation of the impact of the slave trade in the colonial and contemporary city. Itwill contain contributions which address both the historical dimension of the slave trade – the various transactions and exchanges between people, places and material culture – and current concerns about how to The commerce of slavery has indelibly transformed both the demography and topography of metropolitan centres in Europe, North America, the Caribbean and the African continent. There is a growing literature on various aspects of the history of the slave trade, in particular the Trans–Atlantic trade. This literature includes important new research on abolitionism, the experience of and technologies involved in the trans–Atlantic crossing, the involvement of various African states in the trade and its economic and cultural impact on those states, the survival and experience of slavery and rebellion and resistance. However, the ways in which slavery has marked and continues to mark metropolitan spaces has received less attention. adequately represent the more complex aspects of this history to a contemporary audience in heritage sites, museum exhibitions and film, without diminishing an acknowledgment of the horrors of the trade.
Nigel Worden (University of Cape Town) Tracing Slavery in the City: The Recovery of Slave Pasts in Cape Town, South Africa.
Simon Schaffer (Cambridge University) Enlightenment Knowledge and the Slave Networks.
Joy Gregory (London College of Printing) Memory and Skin Carmen Fracchia (Birkbeck College) Representing the Slave Trade in Early Modern Spanish Urban Space.
Anthony Tibbles (Merseyside Maritime Museum, Liverpool)Assessing the Transatlantic Slavery Gallery Project.
Ana Lucia Araujo (Laval University, Quebec) Representing Slavery in Rio de Janeiro During the 19th Century: The Contradictory Images of Debret, Rugendas and Biard.
Nigel Rigby (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich) Assessing the Gallery of Trade and Empire.
James Walvin (York University) – respondent.