Clare Short and Trevor Phillips to speak in University slavery debates
Posted on 14 September 2007
The MP for Birmingham Ladywood, will talk on ‘Slavery and its Aftermath’, in the Tempest Anderson Hall, York, on 20 September.
This free event will be an opportunity for York residents to discuss the legacy of slavery in modern Britain. Despite the abolition of the slave trade in Britain in 1807, the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade still has an impact on British society.
These are subjects that are bound to evoke controversy and debate
Professor Helen Weinstein
Professor Helen Weinstein, Director of the Institute for the Public Understanding of the Past (IPUP) at York, said: "Slavery also still exists in other forms, either as child slavery or sex trafficking, throughout Britain and the wider world. The lecture will address these issues, as a traumatic past and painful present are considered. These are subjects that are bound to evoke controversy and debate."
The lecture is part of a series which also includes Trevor Phillips, chair of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, speaking in York on 4 December on ‘Abolition of the slave trade: atoning for the past, providing for the future’.
Professor Weinstein added: "These debates will enable the further discussion of issues such as the way slavery has impacted upon British society, the subject of apologies and reparations for the damage inflicted in the past and the actions that can be taken against modern slavery."
The way in which the 1807 Abolition Act is remembered in Britain is also the subject of the ‘1807 Commemorated’ project, led by IPUP with a grant of £325,860 from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). Working with five national museums, the project aims to help museums and policy-makers represent traumatic and painful periods of our history.
The project will also use the York slavery lectures to introduce the issues to students at local schools and colleges. They will have a series of debate workshops, where the issues can be considered and students’ debating and public-speaking skills improved.
ENDS
Notes to editors:
- Lectures - Clare Short MP: 'Slavery and its Aftermath’; Tempest Anderson Hall, Museum Gardens, York on 20 September at 6.30pm. Trevor Phillips -‘Abolition of the slave trade: atoning for the past, providing for the future’; Tempest Anderson Hall, Museum Gardens, York on 4 December at 6.30pm.
- More information at: www.york.ac.uk/conferences/abolitions2007/ and http://www.york.ac.uk/admin/eo/Events/yorklectureposter.pdf.
- IPUP York is a new institute at the University of York founded this year to promote academic partnership projects across the media, museum, galleries and heritage sectors. IPUP draws together researchers, practitioners and audiences to establish and embed new methodologies and findings relating to the matrix of knowledge, education and culture that informs individual, community and ‘public’ understandings of the past.