Reflecting on Imtiaz Habib's Black Lives in the English Archives: An Online Symposium

Overview

Imtiaz Habib's Black Lives in the English Archives, 1500-1677: Imprints of the Invisible (Routledge, 2008) is a touchstone for studying race and racialisation in early modern England. Through a careful analysis of “black citations”, Habib traces an “arc of invisibility” that begins with the unrecognition of Black lives in the sixteenth century and concludes in the seventeenth century with the “politicized racial subject”, a figure ensnared within English colonialism and racial slavery (p. 18). He upends this invisibility with an accompanying “Chronological Index” that rigorously details references to Black lives in parish records, state papers, newspapers, treatises, and diaries. For early modernists working on Black life, race, and the problem of archives, Habib's work has been foundational.

Over the past year, our Symposium has brought together scholars working in Premodern Critical Race Studies, Early Modern Studies, and Social History to think with Habib's text. In the winter, we hosted a series of online reading groups in preparation for a presentation (to be held at the London Metropolitan Archives on 19th May) and a blog series, published by the many-headed monster blog. The series reflects on the importance of Habib's contribution and pushes his work in new directions.

On 19th May we will gather at the London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) to launch our blog series. Contributors will present their blogs and attendees will be able to take a tour around the LMA's "Unforgotten Lives" exhibition. To attend, please sign up via our Eventbrite.

If you have any questions about our Symposium, please reach out via our Contact Form. We wish to thank CEMS KCL, the many-headed monster blog, the London Metropolitan Archivesthe Royal Historical Society, KCL's Medicine and the Making of Race Project, and the Society for Renaissance Studies for supporting our Symposium.

Convenors

Rebecca Adusei

Rebecca Adusei is a PhD student at King's College, London. Her project locates and analyses depictions and characterisations of Sub-Saharan Africans in Early Modern literature and drama. Trained in Literary Studies, Rebecca's research has become increasingly interdisciplinary. Drawing together Literary Studies and History, she looks at Black individuals in the Early modern archives and scrutinises their characterisations in literature.

Rebecca runs a book blog on Instagram where she sometimes discusses the Early Modern period. She has previously conducted tours for KCL's Visible Skin Project. She has spoken at the London Shakespeare Centre and the Shakespeare's Globe's Home and Early Modernity Conference. In 2021/2022, she was awarded the SRS Scholars of Colour Bursary for her work in Early Modern Studies.

Jamie Gemmell

Jamie Gemmell is a historian of race and power in the early modern Anglo-Atlantic World. He is an AHRC-funded PhD student at King’s College, London. His project traces how London life changed in the wake of England’s development of racialised systems of enslaved labour across the Americas in the late seventeenth century. His project is titled “Reckoning with Race in Early Modern London, 1655-1712”. Jamie is Assistant Editor at the University of Maryland’s Slavery, Law, and Power Project and Project Director of jamesknightjamaica.com. He is former Editor-in-Chief of Retrospect Journal, where he co-edited “Race in Retrospective” with RACE.ED.

Events

LMA Presentations (19th May)

Join us to celebrate the publication of our blog series reflecting on Imtiaz Habib's Black Lives in the English Archives. This symposium brings together academics and archivists to discuss England's early modern Black History. There will be a series of presentations from researchers working at the forefront of early modern Black History and premodern race studies. This will be followed by tours around the London Metropolitan Archive's "Unforgotten Lives" exhibition.

Please sign up via our Eventbrite.

We will begin with a set of presentations and Q&A based on our blog series, published by the many-headed monster blog. This will be followed by a lunch and tours around the London Metropolitan Archive's "Unforgotten Lives" exhibition. This exhibition presents the stories of Londoners of African, Caribbean, Asian and Indigenous heritage who lived and worked in the city between 1560 and 1860 and are recorded in London’s archives.

This event is co-hosted by KCL's Centre for Early Modern Studies and the London Metropolitan Archives. It has been generously supported by the Royal Historical Society, the Society for Renaissance Studies, and KCL's Medicine and the Making of Race Project.

Schedule

11:15 - Doors Open

11:30-13:00 - Presentations

13:00-14:00 - Lunch

14:00-15:00 - Exhibition Tours

Reading Sessions

Between October and December 2022, we held monthly online reading sessions. These sessions focused on specific sections of Black Lives in the English Archives.

If you have any questions about our events, please reach out via our Contact form.

Blog Series

Our blog series with the many-headed monster blog has officially launched. Over the next few weeks, we will be releasing blog posts. We hope you enjoy reading them.

If you would like to hear from some of our contributors, please join us for our in-person launch at the London Metropolitan Archives on 19th May. Sign up via our Eventbrite.

Recommended Readings

We have compiled a short list of readings on race and Black life in early modern England. You can find an annotated bibliography on histories of premodern race here.

If you have any questions about the blog series, please reach out via our Contact Page.

Schedule

10/2022 - 12/2022:Online Reading Sessions

28/10/2022: Introducing Black Lives and the Sixteenth Century (Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 2)

28/11/2022: The Seventeenth Century (Chapter 3)

15/12/2022: Beyond Black London Lives (Chapter 4 & 5, Afterword)

19/05/2023 Presentations at the LMA

05/2023 - 06/2023: Publication of Online Symposium

Contact

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