This symposium will explore Penn’s relationship with the institution of slavery. Presentations by undergraduates currently conducting research as part of the Penn and Slavery Project, will be accompanied by roundtable and panel discussions by some of the nation’s leading scholars of slavery, race, and medicine. Especially in 2019, given the significance of the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans to British North America, this symposium affirms Penn’s commitment to engaging with the history of slavery and responds to President Gutmann’s call to offer educational and cultural programming that illuminates Penn’s connections to slavery.
Co-Hosted by the Penn & Slavery Project and the Program on Race, Science & Society (housed in the Center for Africana Studies) with support from the Office of the Provost, the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, The Penn Medicine Office of Inclusion and Diversity, and the McNeil Center for Early American Studies.
& the Program on Race, Science, and Society
Wednesday, April 3, 2019
4:00-4:15p Welcome: Dr. Wendell Pritchett, Provost of the University of Pennsylvania
4:15- 5:45p Introductions: William Noel, Director of the Kislak Center & the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies
Plenary roundtable:
Kathleen Brown, David Boies Professor of History; Director of the Alice Paul Center for Research on Gender, Sexuality and Women; Director of the Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies Program, University of Pennsylvania
Dorothy Roberts, George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology; Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights; Professor of Africana Studies; Director of the Program on Race, Science & Society, University of Pennsylvania
Deirdre Cooper Owens, Associate Professor of History, Queens College, CUNY; Director for the Program in African American History, Library Company of Philadelphia
5:45- 6:45p Reception
Thursday, April 4, 2019
9:30-10:00a Registration, Coffee provided
10:00-11:15a Session 1: Penn & Slavery Project Research Findings
Research presentation by current undergraduate seminar students
11:15-11:30a 15-minute break, refreshments provided
11:30- 12:30p Session 2: Working on the Penn & Slavery Project: Current Research Areas, Strategies, and Ideas for the Future
Moderator: Daniel Richter, Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Professor of American History; Richard S. Dunn Director of the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania
Arielle Julia Brown, Cultural Planning Consultant for the Penn & Slavery Project; Public Programs Developer, Penn Museum
Alexis Broderick Neumann, Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellow for the Penn & Slavery Project and the University of Pennsylvania Libraries
Paul Mitchell, PhD Candidate in Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania
VanJessica Gladney, Public History Fellow for the Penn & Slavery Project
Breanna Moore, Independent Scholar
12:30-1:00p Session 3: Reimagining Penn’s History through Augmented Reality
VanJessica Gladney
Laurie Allen, Director of Digital Scholarship, University of Pennsylvania Libraries
Paul Farber, Artistic Director of Monument Lab; Lecturer in Fine Arts/Urban Studies, University of Pennsylvania
1-2:30p Lunch (provided)
2:30-4:30p Session 4: Slavery and Medicine: What was Penn’s Role?
Moderator: Dorothy Roberts
Daina Ramey Berry, Oliver H. Radkey Regents Professor of History, University of Texas at Austin
Sowande’ Mustakeem, Associate Professor of History and of African and African-American Studies, Washington University in St. Louis
Rana Hogarth, Assistant Professor of History, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Christopher Willoughby, Lapidus Center Postdoctoral Fellow, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library
4:30- 5:30p Reception
