Ana Lucia Araujo with Herman L. Bennett: Humans in Shackles: An Atlantic History of Slavery
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Author and professor Ana Lucia Araujo joins us to discuss her new book, Humans in Shackles: An Atlantic History of Slavery, with fellow scholar Herman L. Bennett.
This event will take place in person at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library on the 7th Floor.
During the era of the Atlantic slave trade, more than twelve million enslaved Africans were forcibly transported to the Americas in cramped, inhumane conditions. Many of them died on the way, and those who survived had to endure further suffering in the violent conditions that met them onshore. Covering more than three hundred years, Humans in Shackles grapples with this history by foregrounding the lived experience of enslaved people in tracing the long, complex history of slavery in the Americas.
Based on twenty years of research, this book not only serves as a comprehensive history; it also expands that history by providing a truly transnational account that emphasizes the central role of Brazil in the Atlantic slave trade. Additionally, it is deeply informed by African history and shows how African practices and traditions survived and persisted in the Americas among communities of enslaved people. Drawing on primary sources including travel accounts, pamphlets, newspaper articles, slave narratives, and visual sources such as artworks and artifacts, Araujo illuminates the social, cultural, and religious lives of enslaved people working in plantations and urban areas, building families and cultivating affective ties, congregating and re-creating their cultures, and organizing rebellions.
Humans in Shackles puts the lived experiences of enslaved peoples at the center of the story and investigates the heavy impact these atrocities have had on the current wealth disparity of the Americas and rampant anti-Black racism.
At this event, author and professor Ana Lucia Araujo will discuss her new book with fellow scholar Herman L. Bennett.
To join the event in person | Doors will open 30 minutes before the program begins. For free events, we generally overbook to ensure a full house. Priority will be given to those who have registered in advance, but registration does not guarantee admission. All registered seats are released shortly before start time, and seats may become available at that time. A standby line will form 30 minutes before the program.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Ana Lucia Araujo is Professor of History at the historically Black Howard University in Washington DC. Her recent books are Reparations for Slavery and the Slave Trade: A Transnational and Comparative History (second edition, 2023), The Gift: How Objects of Prestige Shaped the Atlantic Slave Trade and Colonialism (Cambridge University Press, 2024), and Humans in Shackles: An Atlantic History of Slavery (University of Chicago Press, 2024). Her work has been published or translated in English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, German, and Norwegian. She is a member of the International Scientific Committee of the UNESCO Routes of Enslaved Peoples Project. Her articles have appeared among others in the Washington Post, Slate, Times Magazine, Newsweek, Africa is a Country, and The Conversation.
Herman L. Bennett is Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Center (CUNY) and Director of the Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean (IRADAC). Notable publications include: Africans in Colonial Mexico: Absolutism, Christianity, and Afro-Creole Consciousness, 1570–1640 (2003); Colonial Blackness: A History of Afro-Mexico (2009); and Africans Kings and Black Slaves: Sovereignty & Dispossession in the Early Modern Atlantic (2019). Professor Bennett is the recipient of two National Endowment for the Humanities Grants, a Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities, a two-year Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at The Johns Hopkins University, an ACLS Burkhardt Fellowship, Membership at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton and a Mellon Sawyer Seminar for “The Histories & Cultures of Freedom.” In the fall of 2024, the Mellon Foundation awarded him and his co-PI a grant for project centered on climate justice entitled “CUNY Utopia Now: Immanent Critique, Radical Imaginaries, and Regenerative Democracies." Professor Bennett is a member of the Social Text Editorial Collective, the African-Atlantic Research Group in Berlin, the Mellon-supported African/Black Diaspora Group at the University of Maryland, Humanities New York, and the External Board of Cornell’s Society for the Humanities. He currently is on the board of the Hispanic American Historical Review and the Americas and has also served on the editorial board of the American Historical Review. In the spring of 2024, he was elected President of Renaissance Society of America (RSA).
GET THE BOOK
- Borrow: NYPL Catalog
- E-Book app: SimplyE, available on iOS and Android
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ACCESSIBILITY NOTES
In-Person
- Assistive listening devices and/or hearing loops are available at the venue.
- You can request a free ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation or CART (Communication Access Real-Time Translation) captioning service by emailing your request at least two weeks in advance of the event: email accessibility@nypl.org or use this Gmail template.
- This venue is fully accessible to wheelchairs.
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All programs are subject to change or cancellation. All programs are subject to recording and photography.
The 7 Stories Up Series at SNFL is made possible by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).