Howard University’s Ana Lucia Araujo to deliver 2023 Reckford Lecture
December 14, 2022 | Kristen Chavez
Register now for the Reckford Lecture.
Howard University professor Ana Lucia Araujo will deliver the 2023 Mary Stevens Reckford Memorial Lecture in European Studies on Feb. 23 at 4:00 p.m. in Hyde Hall with a presentation titled “Slavery as History and Memory.”
Araujo is a full professor in the department of history at the historically Black Howard University whose work explores the history and memory of the Atlantic slave trade and slavery. Her work has also explored the visual culture and material culture of slavery and the history of symbolic and material reparations for slavery.
“Dr. Araujo’s work challenges us to think about the implications of racial slavery not just in the context of American history, but also the lasting impacts internationally, including for European countries,” said Patricia Parker, director of the Institute.
The lecture will examine the recent international developments surrounding the fall of pro-slavery monuments and demands of symbolic and material reparations for slavery and colonialism. By exploring the history of the public debates about slavery and the Atlantic slave trade, the lecture aims to illuminate why and how these debates have gained growing importance not only in the United States but also in other slave societies and societies that were deeply involved in perpetuating these human atrocities.
Araujo has authored or edited 13 books, including Slavery in the Age of Memory: Engaging the Past (2020), Museums and Atlantic Slavery (2021), and Reparations for Slavery and the Slave Trade: A Transnational and Comparative History (2017).
To expand on the themes Araujo will explore in the Reckford Lecture, the Institute will offer additional programming with assistance from its Race, Memory, and Reckoning Initiative.
“I look forward to building on Dr. Araujo’s visit with additional programming through our Race, Memory, and Reckoning initiative,” said Parker. “With the help of our campus partners, this is an opportunity for us to bring the initiative to the wider community as we grapple with belonging, place, and memory as it relates to reckoning with the Atlantic slave trade.”
The Reckford Lecture will also complement the Universities Studying Slavery’s spring conference in Chapel Hill March 15-18. UNC-Chapel Hill is a member of the international consortium, and the University’s Commission on History, Race, and a Way Forward, of which Parker is co-chair, will serve as the conference’s host.
Since 2017, Araujo is a member of the International Scientific Committee of the UNESCO Slave Route Project. She serves on the Board of Editors of the American Historical Review (the flagship journal of the American Historical Association), the editorial board of the journal Slavery and Abolition and the editorial review board of the African Studies Review.
Araujo’s current book projects are Humans in Shackles: An Atlantic History of Slavery in the Americas (under contract with the University of Chicago Press) and The Gift: How Objects of Prestige Shaped the Atlantic Slave Trade and Colonialism (under contract with Cambridge University Press).
The Institute hosts the annual Mary Stevens Reckford Memorial Lecture in European Studies, established in 1990 by classics professor emeritus Kenneth J. Reckford to honor his wife, Mary Stevens Reckford. Speakers are asked to provide “pleasure, instruction, an interdisciplinary approach and a sense of shared humanity.”
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