Fall: Dialogue 1

Dialogue One: Slavery, Racialization, and Gender

Date: October 5 - 6, 2023

Location: Grand Hall in the Gayle Karch Cook Center at Maxwell Hall 

For this two-day event, eight eminent scholars will deliver lectures addressing various aspects about how gender and processes of racialization have indelibly shaped histories of slavery around the world. Invited speakers represent a variety of disciplinary backgrounds and will discuss different geographical areas and periods. Commentary by Indiana University professors will be offered after each of the lectures, except for the keynote address. Questions by the audience are welcome and encouraged after the discussants’ comments. The central aim of Dialogue One is to foster critical engagement with the theme of slavery, racialization, and gender.  

Day One: Thursday, October 5th

• Introductory Remarks: Pedro Machado (History) and Olimpia Rosenthal (Spanish & Portuguese)
• Speakers’ Introductions: Nana A. Amoah-Ramey (African American and African Diaspora Studies).
• Indrani Chatterjee (University of Virginia)
  • “From Khawass to Subaltern: the transformation of royally owned African female slaves into the working poor of Faizabad.”
• Tatiana Seijas (Rutgers University)
  • “Claiming Freedoms in the Streets and Carriage Houses of Seventeenth-Century Mexico City.”
• Sasha Turner (Johns Hopkins University)
  • “Wages, Incentives, and the Division of Reproductive Labor.”
• Discussants’ Comments: Amrita Myers (History) and Genie Yoo (Sawyer Postdoctoral Fellow).

• Speakers' Introductions: Laís Lara Vanin (Sawyer Dissertation Fellow)
• Ananya Chakravarti (Georgetown University)
  • “Slavery, caste and historical amnesia: the case of the Kudumbi of Kerala.”
• Alys Weinbaum (University of Washington)
  • “Hortense Spillers, Racial Capitalism, and Reproductive Justice.”
• Discussants’ Comments: Olimpia Rosenthal (Spanish & Portuguese) and Alex Lichtenstein (History/American Studies) 

Day Two: Friday, October 6th

• Speakers’ Introductions: Charles Exdell (Sawyer Dissertation Fellow)
• David Doddington (Cardiff University)
  • “Age, Gender, and Power in Slavery”
• Sue Peabody (Washington State University)
  • “Gender and the Afterlives of Slavery in the Indian Ocean: Microhistory as Method.”
• Discussant’s Comments: Pedro Machado (History) and Liza Black (History)