Schedule for May 6, 2023 | Abolitionism and the Arts

The Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University

10:00 am Coffee

10:15 am Welcome

10:30 am Opening Remarks (Chair: Stephanie Hershinow, English, Baruch College, CUNY)

11:15 am Panel 1: "Staging Abolitionism" (Chair: Christopher Leslie Brown, History, Columbia University)

Callum Blackmore (Music, Columbia University), "The Limits of Anti-Slavery Messages on the Operatic Stage in Colonial Saint-Domingue: Enlightenment, Representation, and the Code Noir"
Shruti Jain (English, Binghamton University, SUNY), "Caste-ing Abolition: Race and Caste in Mariana Starke’s The Sword of Peace"
Scott M. Sanders (French, Dartmouth College), "An Uneasy Republican Marriage: Bordeaux’s Afro-French Community with the Jacobins"
Q&A with all three panelists begins at 12:15 pm

12:45 pm Lunch Break

1:45 pm Panel 2: "Abolitionism in Literature and Art" (Chair: Kathleen Alves, English, Queensborough Community College, CUNY)

Frank Felsenstein (English, Ball State University), "An Ekphrastic Interlude: From Mainland Liberty to Island Enslavement in the Story of Inkle and Yarico"
Srividhya Swaminathan (English, St. John's University), "Anti-blackness, Caricature and the Tropes of Abolition"
Kaushik Tekur (English, Binghamton University, SUNY), "'Wonder': An Abolitionist Aesthetic Category"
Q&A with all three panelists begins at 2:45 pm

3:15 pm Coffee Break

3:30 pm Plenary: "Fraught: On Sculpting Abolition" (Moderator: Patricia A. Matthew, English, Montclair State University)

5:00 pm Walk Break

5:30 pm Concert: "Musical Abolitionism"

6:30 pm Post-Concert Panel: "Performing Abolitionist Music in the Present Day" (Chair: Berta Joncus, Music, Goldsmiths, University of London)

7:00 pm Reception