Friday, September 9, 2022

The Antislavery Moment: Capitalism, Democracy, and Abolition

Abolitionist Coins (NYPL)
 [We have the following announcement. DRE.]

The Antislavery Moment: Capitalism, Democracy, and Abolition in the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Princeton University

This conference will feature prominent scholars who work on abolition, anti-slavery politics, capitalism, and slavery, and will attempt to revisit the classic questions about the relationship between the marketplace and abolition in light of the new historiographical trends.

This conference is organized by Professor Matthew Karp, Professor Peter Wrizbicki and the Center for Collaboration History at Princeton University.

Friday, October 7
1:30 – 3:15 p.m.

    Introductory Remarks; Peter Wirzbicki, Princeton University

    Keynote “Conversation”
        James Oakes, The Graduate Center, CUNY
        Manisha Sinha, University of Connecticut
        Amy Dru Stanley, University of Chicago
        Moderator: Sean Wilentz, Princeton University

3:30 – 5:15 p.m. | Panel 1 | The Antislavery Struggle
    Chris Bonner, University of Maryland | “Moses Grandy’s Pursuits of Freedom”
    Sean Griffin, Manhattan College | “Antislavery Struggle, Labor Struggle: Recovering Lost Connections and Missed Opportunities in the Labor-Abolitionist Coalition”
    Kate Masur, Northwestern University | “Poor Laws and Black Codes: Problems of Race, Class, and Mobility in the 19th Century United States”
    Comment: Matthew Karp, Princeton University

Saturday, October 8
9 – 10:45 a.m. | Panel 2 | Antislavery & Democracy
    Sarah Gronningsater, University of Pennsylvania | “Gradual Abolition in Practice: Law, Experience, and the Local Archive”
    Ariel Ron, Southern Methodist University | “The Republicans’ Grassroots Leviathan”
    Alex Gourevitch, Brown University | “Servitude and Self-Emancipation After Slavery”
    Comment: Anton Jäger, KU Leuven

11 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. | Panel 3 | Antislavery & Capitalism
    Yesenia Barragan, Rutgers University | “Free Womb Captives and Slavery’s Capitalism in Nineteenth-Century Colombia and Spanish South America”
    John Clegg, Harvard University | “The Real Wages of Whiteness: Fear of Slave Competition in the Abolitionist Imagination”
    Comment: Wendy Warren, Princeton University

1:15 – 2:30 p.m. | Panel 4 | Antislavery & Violence
    Kellie Carter Jackson, Wellesley College | “Forcing Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence”
    Isadora Moura Mota, Princeton University | “Radicalizing Atlantic Antislavery: Insurgent Abolitionism in Nineteenth-Century Brazil”
    Comment: Corinna Zeltsman, Princeton University

2:45 – 4 p.m. | Panel 5 | Antislavery & Revolution
    Lenora Warren, Cornell University | “Insurrection and the Oceanic Imaginary”
    Angela Zimmerman, George Washington University | “Conjure and Colonization: Fighting the Empire of ‘Lincoln and them other big emancipator men’”
    Comment: Reena Goldthree, Princeton University

4 – 5 p.m. | Closing Remarks & Conversation
Moderated by Matthew Karp and Peter Wirzbicki