Symposium on religion and slavery at Miami March 25-26

A symposium, "Religion, Enslavement, and Anti-Slavery in Africa and the Americas" will be held March 25-26 at Miami University's Hamilton and Oxford campuses.

The goal of the symposium is to explore roles played by missionaries as participant-observers or opponents of the slave trade across time and space. Keynote speakers include John Thornton and Linda Heywood, professors of history at Boston University, and Carla Pestana, W.E. Smith Professor of History at Miami.

The symposium begins at 2:15 p.m. Thursday, March 25, at the Wilks Conference Center, Hamilton campus, with a keynote talk and panel presentations. It concludes with a keynote talk at 4:30 p.m. Friday, March 26, in 212 MacMillan Hall, Oxford campus. Symposium highlights include:

An advertisement for runaway slaves. C. C. Pinckney of South Carolina recognized that the adoption of the fugitive slave clause in the Constitution handed slaveholding states a new right—"to recover our slaves in whatever part of America they may take refuge." (Library of Congress)

* Keynote and Michael J. Colligan History Project Lecture: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 25, at the Wilks Conference Center, Hamilton campus, by John Thornton, professor of history at Boston College, on "African Christians Meet the Catholic Reformation: Caphuchins and the Kongo Church, 1645-1835." Thornton is author of several books on African history including Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles, and the Foundation of the Americas, co-authored with Linda Heywood and winner of the 2007 Melville J. Herskovits Award for the best scholarly work on Africa published in English. * Keynote: 2:30 p.m., Thursday, March 25, at the Wilks Conference Center, Hamilton campus, by Carla Pestana, W.E. Smith Professor of History at Miami on “The Missionary Impulse in the Early Modern Atlantic World (1500-1800).”

* Keynote: 4:30 p.m. Friday, March 26, in 212 MacMillan Hall, Oxford campus, by Linda Heywood, professor of history and director of the African American studies program at Boston University, on “Queen Njinga of Natamba (Angola) and the Tortured Road to Christianity.” She is co-author with John Thornton on Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles, and the Foundation of the Americas, winner of the 2007 Melville J. Herskovits Award for the best scholarly work on Africa published in English. She was also one of the history consultants for and appeared in the PBS series “African American Lives” (2006) and “Finding Oprah’s Roots” (2007).

The talks are free and open to the public. The symposium is sponsored by the office of multicultural services, Miami University Hamilton; the Michael J. Colligan History Project; the Center for American and World Studies; the black world studies program; and the office of the campus dean, Miami University Hamilton.

For a schedule, go to www.cawc.muohio.edu.

For more information contact organizers John Cinnamon at cinnamjm@muohio.edu or 785-3270 or Oleta Prinsloo at prinslo@muohio.edu or 785-3287.

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