Join us on Tuesday, April 16, 2024 at 5:00 pm in the Cox classroom of the Reeder Media Center, lower level of Swem Library, as we welcome Simon Newman.

Professor Newman will discuss “Taken Not Given: the end of slavery in Britain.”

England’s Somerset v Stewart (1772) and Scotland’s Knight v Wedderburn (1778) have often been interpreted as ending racial slavery within Britain. In this paper, Newman argues that rather than initiating change these court cases acknowledged a change that had already occurred. Slavery within Britain had been all but nullified, primarily by resistance through escape.

Simon Newman is the emeritus Brogan Professor of History at the University of Glasgow, and an honorary fellow at the Institute for research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Last year he published Freedom Seekers: Escaping from Slavery in Restoration England. He is collaborating with Gloria Whiting, Billy Smith, and Tony Bly on a project about escaping slavery, creating (and soliciting) hundreds of stories of alternative narratives of freedom and independence in time for 2026.

The OI holds between three and six colloquia per semester to discuss projects (usually a postdoctoral book chapter or article) in progress. The paper is pre-circulated and available by request. Although only postdoctoral work is presented, graduate students at all levels are warmly encouraged to attend the sessions and participate in the discussions.

To receive a copy of the pre-circulated paper you must register in advance. All colloq participants are expected to have read the paper before the discussion and are asked to refrain from sharing the papers with others. We thank you for your observance of this request.

REGISTER HERE