Events - Other
Is there a material signature for slavery and colonialism? The West African coast, with its European forts and castles that were involved in the transatlantic slave trade (15th–19th century), is one such place. In this talk, Christian Mader and Philip Atta Mensah, will present the initial findings of a recent collaborative project at Fort William in Ghana, a pivotal site in the British slave trade. The project takes an interdisciplinary approach to Fort William, integrating material culture studies, digital archaeology, historical research, community-based methods, and multi-sensory ethnographic techniques. By foregrounding the material, phenomenological, and sensory dimensions of slavery and colonialism, this research reconceptualises the European forts not only as logistical nodes of imperial commerce and violence, but as enduring architectures of exploitation that continue to shape social, spatial, and political realities in postcolonial contexts.
We cordially invite you to join us for a Special Issue Lunch Talk with the editors Pia Wiegmink and Jutta Wimmler and authors of the Special Issue “Beyond Slavery and Freedom,” published a few weeks ago in the Journal of Global Slavery. It also features work by Sinah Kloß, Ricardo Márquez García, Christian Schwermann, Elena Smolarz & Julia Winnebeck. The Special Issue demonstrates the variety of research done at the cluster. This will be an informal event to discuss openly the content of the contributions, the different approaches to the topic, and the overall framing and we are particularly interested in hearing how other BCDSS researchers rethink the binary slavery/freedom in their work. The introduction to the Special Issue is freely available, but you can also access the individual contributions from within the university network/via VPN. https://brill.com/view/journals/jgs/9/1-2/jgs.9.issue-1-2.xml
Please note: registration for both parts of the event is required by 22 October (link below) as there is only limited space! Join us for the opening of our BCDSS Exhibition "Verstrickt und Verwoben: Texturen der Abhängigkeit"/"Enmeshed and Entwined: Fabrics of Dependency" at the Bonn University and State Library (ULB). The Launch is followed by a Semester Kick-off Reception at the BCDSS (Niebuhrstr. 5) at 19:30. Everyone is welcome! Fabrics play a key role in the history of dependency. The production, distribution and use of textiles and their raw materials had and still has a huge impact on societies around the globe. In our digital exhibition, we reveal the underlying power structures that are responsible for the manifold "strong asymmetrical dependencies" related to fabrics. By drawing on more than 30 exhibits from around the world, our "story patches" will take you on a journey across time, regions and cultures, from the earliest settlements to today’s consumer societies.
With Henriette Rødland, Sean Kelley and Bahar Bayraktaroglu. Marking the INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY (2 December), the three researchers will share interesting insights into their projects and discuss slavery and abolition from a global perspective. The presentations will be moderated by David B. Smith. Henriette Rødland: “The rise and fall of slavery on the Swahili coast of East Africa” Sean Kelley: "The Ambiguities of US Slave Trade Abolition" Bahar Bayraktaroglu: “The Demise of Slavery in the Ottoman Empire”
Exhibition curator Beatrix Ihde-Hoffmann will give a short introduction to the current BCDSS exhibition. The exhibition presents many different and varied stories that we have put together – just like a patchwork quilt that has been stitched together from many patches of different origins, patterns and textures. The stories tell of unequal – asymmetrical – dependencies and of resistance to them, by looking at the production, use and distribution of textiles and their raw materials. Please note that the presentation will be held in German.
Congratulations to Postdoctoral Researcher Dr. James Harland for his new article in the upcoming book "Cremation in the Early Middle Ages," edited by Femke Lippok and Howard Williams. We invite you to join the online launch, during which Dr. Harland will give a brief speech, on 12 December, 18:15 CET. On the book: When, where, how and why did early medieval people cremate their dead? The brand-new edited collection published with Sidestone – "Cremation in the Early Middle Ages" – draws together the latest research and thinking on early medieval cremation practices. The book takes you on a journey through 19 chapters exploring cremation practices from the fifth to the eleventh centuries CE in Fennoscandia, the UK and Ireland, Frisia, Denmark, Germany, Belgium, and France. In this way, the book aims to be a central resource for anyone interested in early medieval cremations, or indeed funerary practices more generally.
Join Jean Pfaelzer for the reading and discussion of her book "California, A Slave State" with Damian Pargas (Professor of the History and Culture of North America), moderated by Luvena Kopp (BCDSS). "California, A Slave State" breaks with the common perception of California as a place of endless sunshine, long coastlines, and rich harvests. It does so by exposing the multifold ways in which different forms of slavery and dependency were – and continue to be – constitutive of a state that is one of the largest economies in the world. In an accessible and poetic language that neither simplifies nor euphemizes this history and its brutality, Pfaelzer uncovers the co-existence of traditional and new systems of bondage in a land shaped by the genocide, indenture, and rape of Native Americans, the coerced labor of captive Alaska Natives, African American enslaved labor, the prostitution of Chinese girls, the unpaid labor of convicts, and ecological exploitation.
Renowned philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah will give a guest lecture at the BCDSS on "Identities in History," inspired by his latest book "Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity." This book is an outgrowth of four lectures Professor Appiah gave for BBC Radio. His aim was to provide a broad audience with a comprehensive understanding of social identities, drawing on philosophy, history, literature and the social sciences. In his original lectures he examined four specific identities: religion, nationality, race and culture, with the addition of the category of class in the book. In this lecture, he will focus in particular on the relationship between identity and race.
We are carrying on with the "WHO'S GOT THE POWER?" series in cooperation with Förderverein Filmkultur at Brotfabrik, Bonn! Our second film this year, THE EMPTY GRAVE (original: 'DAS LEERE GRAB'), a German-Tanzanian co-production by Agnes Lisa Wegner and Cece Mlay, was launched at the Berlinale Film Festival earlier this year. It addresses the legacy of the German colonial rule in Tanzania: the search for the physical remains of family members, the intergenerational trauma, the quest for justice, the question of any future coexistence. Everyone is warmly welcome to join us for the post-screening talk and reception with drinks and fingerfood in the informal setting of Studio 5. On the panel representing the BCDSS: Mary Aderonke Afolabi-Adeolu, PhD Researcher Boluwatife Akinro, PhD Researcher Dr. Mercy Mashingaidze, Postdoctoral Researcher & Lecturer
This talk explores the life of Crispina Peres, the most powerful trader in Cacheu, a key West African slave port, who was arrested by the Inquisition in 1665. Accused of using treatments from Senegambian healers, she became a target in a broader struggle over faith and power. Professor Green transports us to seventeenth-century Cacheu, revealing its daily life, culture, and the brutal realities of the expanding slave trade. Through Peres’s case, we uncover a globally connected world where women defied imperial patriarchy, challenging the narratives of European dominance. This talk has been organised by BCDSS fellow Ana Lucia Araujo.
Join us on April 8, 2025, for the next edition of the "WHO'S GOT THE POWER?" film and discussion series at Kino in der Brotfabrik, Bonn, in collaboration with Förderverein Filmkultur. We are thrilled to present The Illusion of Abundance, a powerful documentary by Matthieu Lietaert and Erika Gonzalez Ramirez. This gripping film tells the inspiring stories of Maxima Acuña (Peru), Berta Cáceres (Honduras), and Carolina (Brazil)—three courageous women who have risked everything to stand up against environmental destruction caused by profit-driven transnational corporations. Following the screening, engage in a thought-provoking discussion with BCDSS members Carla Jaimes Betancourt, Christian Mader and Aline Pereira from the Global Heritage Lab.
Join us to the launch of "Versklavung im Atlantischen Raum: Orte des Gedenkens, Orte des Verschweigens in Frankreich und Spanien, Martinique und Kuba (Enslavement in the Atlantic World Sites of Remembrance, Sites of Silence in France and Spain, Martinique and Cuba)", the latest work by Ulrike Schmieder, professor at Leibniz University Hannover. This book explores the memories of Atlantic slavery in museums, public spaces, and historical sites in France and Spain, as well as in Martinique and Cuba. Using oral history methods, it investigates the topography of memory and the social context of remembrance sites.
Julia Hegewald is professor of Oriental Art History at the University of Bonn and principal investigator at the BCDSS. She works on artistic and architectural expressions of different forms of dependency in Asia, particularly South Asia, art and architecture. In her lecture she explores "Vīra-Śaiva and Jaina Rivalries in Medieval South India. Creating and Overcoming Structures of Dependency". Her lecture marks the start of the second part of the lecture series organized by the Centre for Religion and Society (ZERG) and the BCDSS, Research Area C: "Control, Coercion, and Constraint II. The Role of Religion in Overcoming and Creating Structures of Dependency". The lecture series tackles the role of religion in both overcoming existing and creating new forms and types of dependencies. This is a hybrid event. The lectures series will also be streamed via youtube.
Join Jutta Wimmler's public lecture "On Mentally Subduing Africa. The Concept of the Devil in European Writings 15th–19th Centuries"? Jutta Wimmler is BCDSS Research Group Leader with a focus on "The Concept of Slavery in African History”. Her lecture is part of the public ZERG public lecture series, organized by the Centre for Religion and Society (ZERG) and the BCDSS, Research Area C: "Control, Coercion, and Constraint II. The Role of Religion in Overcoming and Creating Structures of Dependency". The lecture series explores the role of religion in both overcoming existing and creating new forms and types of dependencies. This is a hybrid event. The lectures series will also be streamed via youtube.
Michael Schulz is professor of Philosophy of Religion at the University of Bonn. His research focus is on Latin American philosophy. In his lecture he explores "Bartolomé de las Casas’ Cultural Turn in his Interpretation of Aristoteles for Overcoming Slavery in the West Indies". His lecture is part of the public ZERG lecture series, organized by the Centre for Religion and Society (ZERG) and the BCDSS, Research Area C: "Control, Coercion, and Constraint II. The Role of Religion in Overcoming and Creating Structures of Dependency". The lecture series tackles the role of religion in both overcoming existing and creating new forms and types of dependencies. This is a hybrid event. The lectures series will also be streamed via youtube.
Karoline Noack is professor for Anthropology of the Americas at Bonn University as well as co-speaker and principal investigator at the BCDSS. She focuses on the categories of social dependency of the Inca Empire: resettled persons (mitimaes), specialists (camayoc), dependent employees (yanaconas) and “selected women” (aqllakuna). In her lecture she explores "The Relationship between Rituality and New Forms of Dependency in the Late Inka State". Her lecture is part of the ZERG public lecture series, organized by the Centre for Religion and Society (ZERG) and the BCDSS, Research Area C: "Control, Coercion, and Constraint II. The Role of Religion in Overcoming and Creating Structures of Dependency". The lecture series tackles the role of religion in both overcoming existing and creating new forms and types of dependencies. This is a hybrid event. The lecture will also be streamed via youtube.
Stephan Conermann is professor for Islamic Studies at the University of Bonn and he is spokesperson and principal investigator at the BCDSS. In his research he compares different forms of slavery in pre-modern societies. His starting point are different forms of dependency in the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt and Syria (1250–1517). In his lecture he explores "Slavery in the Mamluk Sultanate (1250–1517)". His lecture is part of the public ZERG lecture series, organized by the Centre for Religion and Society (ZERG) and the BCDSS, Research Area C: "Control, Coercion, and Constraint II. The Role of Religion in Overcoming and Creating Structures of Dependency". The lecture series tackles the role of religion in both overcoming existing and creating new forms and types of dependencies. This is a hybrid event. The lecture will also be streamed via youtube.
Reinhard Zöllner is professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Bonn and principal investigator at the the BCDSS. He researches the role of slavery and slave trade in early modern East Asia. In his lecture he explores "Christian Contributions to the Debate on Slavery in East Asia". His lecture is part of the public ZERG lecture series, organized by the Centre for Religion and Society (ZERG) and the BCDSS, Research Area C: "Control, Coercion, and Constraint II. The Role of Religion in Overcoming and Creating Structures of Dependency". The lecture series tackles the role of religion in both overcoming existing and creating new forms and types of dependencies. This is a hybrid event. The lecture will also be streamed via youtube.
John Coffey is professor for Early Modern History at the University of Leicester, with a particular interest in the rich and complex history of Protestantism in Britain and America. In his lecture he explores "William Wilberforce and the Ambiguities of Christian Antislavery". His lecture is part of the public ZERG lecture series, organized by the Centre for Religion and Society (ZERG) and the BCDSS, Research Area C: "Control, Coercion, and Constraint II. The Role of Religion in Overcoming and Creating Structures of Dependency". The lecture series tackles the role of religion in both overcoming existing and creating new forms and types of dependencies. This is a hybrid event. The lecture will also be streamed via youtube.
Michael Zeuske is principal investigator at the BCDSS and was professor for Iberian and Latin American History at the University of Cologne. Michael Zeuske focuses on different forms of dependency in the Atlantic slavery (1450-1886), in the global history of slavery and in different local slaveries as well as slave trades on a micro-historical level (life histories of enslaved people and slave traders). In his lecture he explores "Slave Religions and Industrial Revolutions at the Times of Second Slavery (19th/20th Centuries)". His lecture is part of the public ZERG lecture series, organized by the Centre for Religion and Society (ZERG) and the BCDSS, Research Area C: "Control, Coercion, and Constraint II. The Role of Religion in Overcoming and Creating Structures of Dependency". The lecture series tackles the role of religion in both overcoming existing and creating new forms and types of dependencies. This is a hybrid event. The lecture will also be streamed via youtube.