All Events

Is it true that Global Value Chains (GVCs) 'boost incomes, create better jobs, and reduce poverty', as commonly claimed? In this upcoming lecture Benjamin Selwyn will discuss his new book, co-authored with Christin Bernhold, which challenges this mainstream view by introducing the concept of Capitalist Value Chains (CVCs).

We invite you to join our five BCDSS pre-doctoral fellows for their joint presentation at Dies Academicus: "Understanding Dependency and Slavery Studies: A Multidisciplinary Approach". They will each give a short talk on what sparked their interest in their research topic, why it matters, and what they hope to achieve. From the industrial heartlands of India to the oral traditions of the Gold Coast, their talks explore the multifaceted nature of strong asymmetrical dependency across time and geography.

During her lifetime, Emma Kolbe/Forsayth/Farrell (née Coe, 1850–1913), known as ‘Queen Emma of New Guinea’, was one of the most powerful private individuals and economically successful entrepreneurs in the Pacific – a woman of colour in a world dominated by men. Using the figure of ‘Queen Emma’ and her networks as a starting point, this international workshop seeks to examine practices of coerced labour and forced migration and pays special attention to gendered lives on plantations in Western Pacific (including Papua New Guina, Fiji, Samoa, Pohnpei, and Queensland) and the means to gain knowledge about these lives today. The material traces and histories of these in the Anglo-German Western Pacific and in PNG in particular at the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth century will be a key focus.

This lecture commemorates Juneteenth as a living tradition of freedom and memory. Professor Tsitsi Jaji traces collaborations between Black poets and concert musicians — from the Jubilee Singers to Grammy-nominated contemporary works — to show how art carries the history of enslavement into collective memory. The event bridges historical fugitive slave advertisements and modern musical settings, culminating in a communal singing of Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing.