Slavery North invites you to the sixth in our series of eight Fellow Talks in Spring 2026. Novelist and historian Jamie McGhee discusses her process for writing fiction that analyzes how racial paranoia and social control converged during the Conspiracy of 1741.
This hybrid talk is open to students, faculty, staff, and members of the public.
Date/Time: Thursday, April 23, 2026, 2:30-3:30 PM (EDT)
Location: Room 301, Herter Hall, 161 Presidents Drive, UMass Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003
Online via Zoom:
https://umass-amherst.zoom.us/j/91818595959
Meeting ID: 918 1859 5959
Speaker: Jaime McGhee, Artist-in-Residence Fellow, Spring 2026
Moderator: Dr. Charmaine Nelson, Provost Professor of Art History & Founding Director Slavery North
Lecture: The Hunted and the Hanged: Racial Paranoia and the “Great Negro Plot” of 1741
Lecture abstract: How do you (re)present a tragedy through art? In 1741, terrified of an uprising, paranoid white New Yorkers demanded that 100 enslaved Africans be exiled, hanged or burned at the stake. In this talk, I discuss my process of bringing this tragedy into fiction, asking: “How does one avoid blindly reproducing violence? Which details are sacred, and which can be changed? What is the responsibility of a writer?”
Bio: Jamie McGhee is a novelist and historian. Her books include You Mean It or You Don’t: James Baldwin’s Radical Challenge (co-authored with Dr. Hollowell of Duke University) and What I Must Tell the World: The Story of Lorraine Hansberry (with director Lena Waithe). The latter won a national 2025 Stonewall Book Honor for LGBTQ+ literature.
McGhee’s work has been supported by art and research fellowships from Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Emory University and Zürich University of the Arts. She has also been awarded grants from the Folger Shakespeare Institute, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and the New York Public Library.
McGhee has received artist residencies at Instituto Sacatar (Brazil), Künstlerdorf Schöppingen (Germany), La Maison Baldwin (France), Nawat Fes (Morocco), Vermont Studio Center (United States) and AIRY Västernorrland (Sweden). Her interdisciplinary work has appeared in exhibitions in Helsinki, Berlin, Lisbon and Sofia.
