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Imaginative geographies of the black/white Atlantic

Posted on 16 June 2017

Join Catherine Hall (UCL) to explore the way Edward Long's imagined geographies of white power and enslaved black labour underpin racisms, 5.30pm Tuesday 20 June.

A black man in an expanse of water, one half of which is dark, the other light.

Catherine Hall (University College London) will be giving the annual Aylmer lecture on the topic of 'Imagination geographies of the black and white'. Tuesday 20 June, 5.30pm.

Catherine's research focuses on English imperialist identities in the 18th and 19th-centuries. In this lecture she will be examining how the pro-slavery politics Edward Long expounded in his History of Jamaica (1774) created imagined geographies to support his theories of racial difference. In particular, he conceived of the Atlantic as a place of white power, made productive by enslave black labour.

Catherine argues that the racial binaries his politics relied on could only be sustained by 'disavowel' - the practice of both knowing and not knowing the humanity of others - a practice central to an understanding of racisms in the present.

Location: Bowland auditorium, Berrick Saul Building.

Admission is free and no booking is required.