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“From Slave Cabin to Monument to the Slave Past”
Wednesday, April 14 @ 3:30pm EST
Dr. Renée Ater, Provost Visiting Professor, Africana Studies, Brown University
All are welcome! Registration is required.
https://auburn.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_6FQ3itArRBqkL5DZTSvAFQ (Links to an external site.)
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Abstract:
The remains of slave cabins dot the American landscape in the South and Middle Atlantic. Hiding in plain sight, slave cabins are reminders of the painful legacy of slavery in the United States including the presence of enslaved labor on colleges and university campuses. These simple architectural structures disrupt the narratives of “progress, enlightenment, and the unfettered pursuit of knowledge” that have come to symbolize our institutions of higher education. Through archival research and archaeology, educational institutions are revealing their historic entwinement with slavery. This paper considers two efforts to memorialize slave cabin remains on campuses and the differing institutional approaches and interpretative paths that underscore their engagement with this difficult history: The Slave Cabin at Sweet Briar College in Virginia and The Commemorative to Enslaved Peoples of Southern Maryland at St. Mary’s College on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
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Co-Sponsored by:
Department of Art, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga; Department of History, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga; Department of History, Auburn University; Caroline Marshall Douglas Center for the Arts and Humanities, Auburn University