Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice

People gathered around a tableThe inaugural seminar theme in 2019 was "Slavery's New Materialism," led by faculty fellow Professor Seth Rockman.

Slavery’s New Materialism is an interdisciplinary course that seeks to explore an emerging dynamic in Slavery Studies: a move away from an older materialist history that had foregrounded modes of production, class struggle, and capitalist transformation; and toward a new(er) materialism organized around human/non-human entanglements and drawing on recent theoretical work on things, networks, and assemblages. 

Seminar Guests include

  • Laura Edwards, Professor from Duke University