What's on

'Slavery and material culture. Clarkson and the campaign against slavery'

Thurs 6 May 2021

2pm - 3pm

About this Event

Wisbech & Fenland Museum and the Cambridgeshire Association for Local History are delighted to welcome Professor James Walvin to speak on ‘Slavery and material culture. Clarkson and the campaign against slavery’.

Slavery has, in the past 12 months, become a subject of widespread public interest. Yet it is all around us - hidden in a host of objects and social customs - many of which we do not associate with slavery. Thomas Clarkson’s famous chest of African objects - used in his tireless campaign against the slave trade – offers just one entree to the way we can consider the presence of slavery in everyday things.

This talk will be an attempt to illustrate slavery through the world of material culture. And the ambition is to encourage us to think more widely about the impact of slavery.

James Walvin is Professor of History Emeritus at the University of York, and former visiting Fellow at Yale University. He has published widely on slavery and modern social history. In 2008, he was appointed OBE for services to scholarship. Among his recent books are, Sugar. A World Corrupted. From Slavery to Obesity (2018), and Resistance, Rebellions and Revolt: How Slavery was Overthrown (2020.)

This event is part of a programme of events and community engagement developed by Articles for Change, a project funded by the Museums Association Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund and is brought to you in partnership with the Cambridgeshire Association for Local History.

The Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund is run by the Museums Association, funding projects that develop collections to achieve social impact. The fund has awarded over £10m to 145 projects since it launched in 2011.

www.museumsassociation.org/collections

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