Black History Month celebrated at University of York
Posted on 14 October 2005
Black History Month has been observed in America since 1926, and in Britain since the late 1980s and provides an opportunity to reflect on the past, present and future of black history.
'Black in time' is the theme for a series of four lectures beginning on 18 October with 'Thinking in black and white: is there any point in black history?', by historian of slavery, Professor Jim Walvin. The lecture will look at whether history can be divided into different ethnic experiences.
Professor Walvin says, "it has become clear that Africans (mainly in the form of slaves) have helped shape the development and material wellbeing of the modern western world. By looking at that black experience, we learn more about Western history itself".
On 25 October, Professor Peter Biller, an expert in the history of science in the period up to the early fourteenth century, will speak on 'The Black in medieval science'. He will discuss the long chronology in black history and the significance of the 'black' in medieval science.
The Borthwick Institute will also be presenting an exhibition of documents, 'Black History in the Archives', illustrating black history in the 18th and 19th centuries and running until 18 November.
Dr Robert Blyth, a curator at the National Maritime Museum, will discuss 'Museums and the slave trade: the challenges and opportunities of display and interpretation' in his lecture on 1 November. He will consider the approaches to and controversies surrounding the display and interpretation of the transatlantic slave trade and its legacies.
The series will end with literature scholar, Dr Jane Elliott exploring the way that two major African-American women writers, Toni Morrison and Alice Walker, have used the idea of the mother/daughter relationship as to come to terms with the traumatic nature of African-American history. The lecture, 'Mothers and daughters: bearing black history in the work of Alice Walker and Toni Morrison', will be held on 8 November.
An exhibition of African arts and clothing is on display in the University's Norman Rea Gallery. Student, Bukky Ojo, a member of the University's Afro-Caribbean Society, has helped to co-ordinate the event which ends on 20 October.
Notes to editors:
- All lectures in the 'Black in time' series will take place at the University in Physics, room P/L001 at 7pm. Admission is free and lectures are open to all. The display of African arts will be on show in the Norman Rea Gallery, Langwith College, University of York.
- Documents from the Borthwick archives will be displayed in the Raymond Burton Library, University of York, Monday to Friday 9am to 10pm and Saturday and Sunday 11am to 6pm.