Black History Month 2022:
CSIS Postgraduate Lunch: Meet and Eat with International Historian of Slavery, Prof Catherine Clinton
Tuesday 4th October 2022 (12pm - 1:30pm)
19 Abercromby Square in the SOTA Library
Watch this session via the CSIS YouTube Channel
CSIS held an informal lunch to introduce University of Liverpool Postgraduates to Professor Catherine Clinton; a prestigious scholar specialising in studies surrounding the American South and the Civil War. During the lunch, Prof Clinton introduced her work and discussed the evolution of slavery studies in American History. Participants had the chance to ask her questions and speak about graduate level studying outputs that can assist them as they navigate their own studies and programmes as well as meeting other MA and PhD students.
Film Screening: Free Renty and a Live Q&A with Director David Grubin
Tuesday 11th October 2022 (5pm - 8pm)
Lecture Theater 1 (LT1), Yoko Ono Lennon Centre, University of Liverpool
To celebrate Black History Month CSIS hosted a film screening of Free Renty: A story of slavery, Harvard University and decolonising the archives.
Free Renty (2021) is an American documentary film centring on the debate surrounding ownership of historic artefacts associated with slavery, are they the property of the enslavers or the enslaved? The film follows Tamara Lanier, an African American woman who has filed a lawsuit against Harvard University to acquire daguerreotypes (a historic form of photography) of her enslaved ancestor (her great-great-great grandfather) named Renty. These daguerreotypes were commissioned by a Harvard professor to use in their research and teachings in order to “prove the superiority” of the white race. This documentary, and the continued court case, advances contemporary debates around decolonising the archives and university curriculum.
For more details about the film, see: https://www.freerentyfilm.com/
Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine
Wednesday 12th October 2022 (5pm - 7pm)
502 Building Teaching Room 4, University of Liverpool
Watch this session via the CSIS YouTube Channel
The Centre for the Study of International Slavery (CSIS) and the Centre for Health, Medical and Environmental Humanities (CHMEH) presented a public book talk featuring Dr Jim Downs, Professor of Civil War and History at Gettysburg College, Pennsylvania. His newest publication, Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine re-examines the evolution of modern medicine to further investigate the advances made through the contributions of non-consenting subjects, including enslaved men, women, and children. This publication demonstrates a seminal methodology when articulating the history of medicine with glowing reviews from numerous academics, including:
To purchase the book, see https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674971721
Dr Ama Biney presents ‘Britain’s history of mistreating asylum seekers & the Windrush’
Wednesday 12th October 2022 (6pm - 9pm)
Palm House, Sefton Park
Watch this session via the CSIS YouTube Channel
Dr Ama Biney (University of Liverpool) led a discussion of ‘Britain’s history of mistreating asylum seekers & the Windrush’ as part of the programme for Black History Month organized by the Liverpool Black Men’s Group.
The British public has become accustomed to seeing images of flimsy boats perilously making their way across the Mediterranean Sea for Britain. Such boats are largely filled with black and brown bodies who the British government recently declared will have their asylum application processed in the East African country of Rwanda. These individuals continue to be treated unfairly, just as the Windrush Generation have been obstructed in seeking compensation for the denial of their British citizenship, despite the Home Office having destroyed their landing cards. Dr Ama Biney argued that the current abuse of asylum seekers and the Windrush Generation must be considered within a historical context of the British government’s disdain for the racialised “other” that goes back to 1596 and Queen Elizabeth I, as well as the 1787 catastrophic Sierra Leone resettlement scheme. In looking at the past we can see how it informs the present and shapes the future.
Women, Gender, Slavery, and Abolition in Brazil
Friday 21st October 2022 (5pm - 7:30pm)
The Bluecoat, 8 School Ln, Liverpool L1 3BX
Watch this session via the CSIS YouTube Channel
As part of BHM, CSIS held a public talk with Prof Maria Helena Machado in conversation with Prof Emily West. Professor Maria Helena Machado is a historian dedicated to the study of the social history of slavery, abolition, and post-abolition era in Brazil.
‘In conversation’ with Prof Emily West (University of Reading) Professor Machado discussed the significance of a gendered history of slavery within Brazil, shedding light on an important historiography that has often been overlooked in more Anglocentric accounts of Atlantic slave regimes. She also considered the importance of interdisciplinarity for the study of women and slavery (including visual cultures) and explored some of the sources (and archival absences) that historians of women and slavery in Brazil have encountered. Finally, she offered potential avenues for future research on women and slavery in Brazil and within the history of transnational Atlantic slavery more broadly.
Closing Reception – Jupiter’s Song by Khaleb Brooks
Saturday 22nd October 2022 (5pm - 8pm)
MLK Jr Building
ISM in collaboration with CSIS held a special evening on Liverpool's historic Waterfront to commemorate the closing of the Jupiter's Song exhibition with a special performance lecture by artist Khaleb Brooks.
Jupiter’s Song explored perspectives, exchange and humanising experiences, connecting visitors with NML collections and confronting the narratives to consider identity and how the experiences of the past manifest today.
The Amazing Life of Margot Heuman
Friday 24th February 2023 (5pm - 8pm)
Everyman Theatre, Hope Street, Liverpool, L1 9BH
To honour LGBTQ+ History Month, CSIS collaborated with the History department to host 'The Amazing Life of Margot Heuman'.
The Amazing Life of Margot Heuman is a play about the first, and possibly the last, lesbian Holocaust survivor to bear testimony. Margot Heuman (1928-2022) was a survivor of the resienstadt ghetto, Auschwitz, Neuengamme, and Bergen-Belsen. The play, which takes its text from interviews conducted by Warwick University historian Anna Hájková in 2019, offers a poignant look at coming of age as a Jewish queer woman in the concentration camps and reflects on love, choices, sexual violence and sexual barter, homophobia, and survival. Moving, funny, pragmatic, and original, Margot Heuman reminds us of humanity within the society of Holocaust victims, but also of the stories that have been erased by homophobia. Today, Heuman will probably remain the only lesbian voice to speak about her experience in the Holocaust. “I am amazing,” she tells her interviewer, and our audience. This work of documentary theatre layers Heuman’s testimony with archival imagery and projection. The Amazing Life of Margot Heuman premiered at Brighton Fringe Festival in 2021 and has since been screened by museums and universities around the world including the Wiener Holocaust Library, the GLBT Historical Society San Francisco, the Jewish Museum Vienna, and the biannual Lessons and Legacies conference in Holocaust studies.
International Women’s Day Event – The Inspiring Women of the International Slavery Museum
Thursday 9th March 2023 (5pm - 7pm)
502 Teaching Hub, University of Liverpool
To celebrate International Women’s Day 2023, we celebrated our unique partnership and the inspiring women of the world-renowned International Slavery Museum.
Founded as a partnership between the University of Liverpool and National Museums Liverpool, the Centre works together with universities and organisations locally, domestically and globally to develop scholarly and public activities related to slavery in its historical and contemporary manifestations. Liverpool is a stimulating home for CSIS activities. In the past, Liverpool was a major slaving port with ships and merchants dominating the transatlantic slave trade in the second half of the eighteenth century. Today, the city’s International Slavery Museum (ISM) serves as a starting point for different forms of engagement with slavery and abolition across time and space.
‘Stories We Tell: History, Mythologies, Memories and Monuments’
Friday 24th March 2023 (5pm - 7:30pm)
Museum of Liverpool
The fourth instalment of the ‘Unfolding Our Shared Future: Challenge, Possibility and Potential in the 21st Century’ series
Watch this session via the CSIS YouTube Channel
CSIS hosted a panel for the ‘Unfolding Our Shared Future: Challenge, Possibility and Potential in the 21st Century’ series – a traveling festival across the UK organized by the American Politics Group of the UK Political Studies Association with support from the US Embassy (London) and the British Association for American Studies and generously hosted by the University of Liverpool.
This event focused on how history is interpreted and represented in the US and the UK, the Stories We Tell. Our panellists discussed with the audience how “History, Mythologies, Memories and Monuments” as well as the national and international narratives on both sides of the Atlantic heavily influenced how history is taught, represented, interpreted and also used to mould current political rhetoric and future ideas. More broadly, the project addresses issues facing the US and UK in domestic, trans-Atlantic and global contexts, including asking the essential question: what is the value of democracy?
CSIS Panel for Chevening School
Wednesday 26th April 2023 (12pm - 3pm)
A panel of doctoral and post-doctoral researchers in modern slavery and human trafficking presented a short overview of their research, then engaged in a round table discussion addressing some of the key questions within the research field. This included themes such as the ethics of research in developing countries, critical approaches to policymaking, engaging with businesses and survivor support.
Emancipatory Narratives and Enslaved Motherhood
Wednesday 3rd May 2023 (5pm - 7pm)
The Bluecoat, Liverpool
CSIS and the Liverpool University Press hosted Dr Jane-Marie Collins (University of Nottingham) as she discussed her publication Emancipatory Narratives & Enslaved Motherhood: Bahia, Brazil, 1830-1888
Emancipatory Narratives & Enslaved Motherhood examines three major currents in the historiography of Brazilian slavery: manumission, miscegenation, and creolisation. It revisits themes central to the history of slavery and race relations in Brazil, updates the research about them, and revises interpretations of the role of gender and reproduction within them. First, about the preponderance of women and children in manumission; second, about the association of black female mobility with intimate inter-racial relations; third, about the racialised and gendered routes to freed status; and fourth, about the legacies of West African female socio-economic behaviours for modalities of family and freedom in nineteenth-century Salvador da Bahia, Brazil.
The central concern within the book is how African and African descendant women navigated enslaved motherhood and negotiated the divide between enslavement and freedom for themselves and their children. The book is, therefore, organised around the subject position of the enslaved mother and the reproduction of her children in enslavement, while the condition of enslaved motherhood is examined through overlapping historical praxis evidenced in nineteenth-century Bahia: contested freedom, racialised mothering, and competing maternal interests - biological, ritual, surrogate. The point at which these interests converged historically was, it is argued, a conflict over black female reproductive rights.
Decolonizing Place: In Conversation with Malik Al Nasir
Tuesday 23rd May 2023 (6pm - 8:30pm)
502 Teaching Hub, University of Liverpool
This event, supported by CSIS and the Department of English, University of Liverpool, explored the concept of decolonization from the perspective of "place" and the role of literature, in particular, in thinking through the connections between place (and especially Liverpool) and decolonization. Malik Al Nasir was in conversation with Dr. Sreya Datta (University of Liverpool). The author spoke about his own relationship with Liverpool over the years, how that has shaped his thinking, and how he understands the concept of literature and literacy itself. The conversation drew on Malik's research on the legacies of transatlantic slavery.
Decolonising Liverpool: An event for 6th formers
Thursday 29th June 2023 (10am - 3pm)
FACT Liverpool and the Victoria Gallery and Museum, University of Liverpool.
The Centre for Study of International Slavery is always working to engage young people in a better understanding of Liverpool’s history of slavery, its legacies, and its representation in the city’s infrastructure and organisations.
This event focused on transnational conversations surrounding archival material and the ongoing effort to decolonize collections in the US and UK. The event supported the development of resources, as well as advanced the international antiracism conversation.