Legacies of European Colonial Slavery

Legacies of European Colonial Slavery

12th March 2014, 6.00pm, Chadwick B05 Lecture Theatre, UCL, Gower Street, WC1E 6BT

Professor Catherine Hall from the LBS project and Professor Myriam Cottias of the CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique) in France lectured on the Legacies of European Colonial Slavery.

Colonial slavery profoundly shaped modern Europe – in France as well as in Britain. Yet while its legacies clearly reach into our world today, the extent and limits of slavery’s role in shaping history in different European imperial contexts has only relatively recently begun to attract scholarly attention. How have these histories been situated within national and public histories of slavery and the slave-trade in France and Britain? How can we map and analyse economic, social and cultural historical aspects of enslavement in both countries? How were national identities in Europe constituted in relation to the multiple ‘others’ of the colonies and their descendants?

Following the lecture, on Thursday 13 March, there was a workshop for postgraduate doctoral students from London and Paris with Catherine Hall, Myriam Cottias and research staff from the associated projects.

The event was organised by the UCL European Institute. A video of the two lectures is here.