This event will examine early modern formations of race and their enduring presence in the contemporary world. While the intertwined operations of settler colonialism and the mass enslavement of Africans still shape the experiences of Indigenous people and those of the African diaspora today, so do the multiple historical and present-day resistances to these actions. Desire for freedom and justice and defense of their culture always have and continue today to move Indigenous and Afro-diasporic artists and activists around the world to reclaim their time and space.

Friday, May 14, 2021

Lectures – Friday afternoon (4-6pm EDT)

Tamar Dougherty (Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell), moderator

Ayanna Thompson (Arizona State University/ Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies), “On Protean Acting in Shakespeare: Race & Virtuosity”

Jennifer Morgan (New York University), “Reproducing Race: Kinship and the Market in the Early Black Atlantic”

Saturday, May 15, 2021

Lectures – Saturday afternoon (1-3pm EDT)

Ernesto Bassi Arevalo (Department of History, Cornell), moderator

Anna More (Universidade de Brasília), "The Iberian Company: The Early Slave Trade and War Capitalism"

Farid Azfar (Swarthmore College), "Racial Leviathan: Making Peace with the Asiento, 1518-1857."

[Sunday, May 16, from 1-3pm EDT, a workshop will provide the opportunity for graduate students at the host institutions (Cornell and Syracuse) to present their work in progress.]

Co-Sponsored by the CNY Humanities Corridor, the Department of Romance Studies, the Global Early Modern Studies Colloquium (GEMS), and the Society for the Humanities