The Precariousness of Freedom: Slave Resistance and Experience, Process, and Representation
When: Monday, June 17th, 2024: 12:00pm – 1:30pm CEST
Where: Hauptgebäude/Room XIb, Universität zu Köln (University of Cologne), Germany
What: Public Lecture: “The Precariousness of Freedom: Slave Resistance and Experience, Process, and Representation”
Cost: Free
Organizer: Prof. Dr. Judith Rauscher as part of the seminar “African and African American Literature,” taught by Dr. Habil. Johanna Pitteti-Heil, American Literature and Culture, Department of English, Universität zu Köln
Contact & Registration: american-studies@uni-koeln.de
Transatlantic Slavery was an institution that sought to turn human beings into chattel. This race-based slavery spanned four hundred years and was characterized by physical brutality, psychological torment, material deprivation, cultural prohibitions, and terror. However, the enslaved did not submit meekly to their racial debasement and institutionalized brutality. Despite all the dimensions of enslaver control, the enslaved sought actively to maintain their dignity and humanity, and to seize their liberty. Therefore, although slavery was a product of white brutality, it was also characterized by ongoing black resistance. Enslaved Africans and their descendants often resisted through work slow-downs, feigning illness, damaging, or burning the enslavers’ property, practising their cultures, preserving kinship bonds, and demanding the right to independently access economic markets. Working comparatively with examples from Canada, the USA, and tropical regions, this lecture explores the profound obstacles that the enslaved faced in securing their freedom and in resisting the everyday indignities and onslaughts of slavery.
Learn More:
Blog: Kanye West was Writing: Slavery Wasn’t a Choice and the Enslaved Resisted
Book: The Precariousness of Freedom: Slave Resistance and Experience, Process, and Representation (Captus Press, forthcoming 2024)
Click here to Join