Slavery North invites you to the third in our series of five Fellow Talks in Spring 2025. Professor Julia Jorati analyzes the philosophical arguments employed by Black activists and their allies to envision post-abolition futures in New England in the late 18th century.
This hybrid talk is open to students, faculty, staff, and members of the public.
Date/Time: Tuesday, April 15, 2025, 3-4 PM (EDT)
Location: Room 118, Ground Floor, 472 North Pleasant Street, UMass Amherst, Amherst, MA, USA, 01003
Online via Zoom:
https://umass-amherst.zoom.us/j/99682753805
Meeting ID: 996 8275 3805
Speaker: Julia Jorati, Visiting Research Professor Fellow, 2024-25
Moderator: Dr. Charmaine A. Nelson, Provost Professor of Art History & Founding Director Slavery North
Lecture: Visions for Life after Slavery and Racial Justice in Eighteenth-Century New England
Lecture abstract:
Slavery was legal throughout New England until the late 18th century, when Black activists and their allies pushed for abolition and succeeded in some states. How did these Black activists envision life after slavery? What measures did they propose to repair the harms caused by Transatlantic Slavery and enable formerly enslaved people and their descendants to live good lives? What argumentative strategies did they employ? And what kind of future did their white allies and critics envisage? In her talk, Jorati gives partial answers to these questions by exploring historical proposals that range from full integration to separatism and reparations.
Bio:
Julia Jorati is Professor of Philosophy at UMass Amherst. Her research focuses on philosophical debates about slavery in Europe and the Americas in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. She received an MA from the University of Göttingen (Germany) in 2008 and a PhD from Yale in 2013. In her most recent books Slavery and Race: Philosophical Debates in the Eighteenth Century and Slavery and Race: Philosophical Debates in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Oxford University Press, 2024), Jorati surveys the philosophically most central portions of antislavery and proslavery texts composed between 1500 and 1800 in Europe and the Americas, with a focus on the role of race. In doing so, she explores the association between Blackness and slavery during this period and examines how common it was for white people to view Black people as naturally destined for slavery.
For more information, please contact Emily Davidson (Director of Research and Engagement, Slavery North): [email protected]
