Mellon Sawyer Seminar in Salvador, Bahia
Diasporic Cultures of Slavery: Engaging Disciplines, Engaging Communities
Centro de Estudos Afro-Orientais | Programa de Pós-Graduação em História | Universidade Federal da Bahia
Salvador, Bahia, Brazil
April 24 and 25, 2023
Monday, April 24 – First seminar day
Auditório Agostinho da Silva, Centro de Estudos Afro-Orientais (CEAO), Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA), Praça Gen. Inocêncio Galvão, 42 - Dois de Julho, Salvador - BA, 40060-055, Brazil.
13:00 Welcome remarks by Daniel B. Domingues da Silva, Rice University
13:15 Roundtable 1: Preserving and telling histories of diasporic communities
Description: This roundtable will foster a discussion among people living, working and worshiping in sites with deep cultural resonance for the histories of slavery and the African Diaspora about the challenges they face as they balance demands for preservation, for engagement with the public, and for protecting the lives and prerogatives of descent communities. To what degree do they (or would they like to) draw upon the work of scholars in asserting and defending community rights and prerogatives, and in presenting their communities’ pasts and presents to a broader public.
Panelists:
- Sam Collins III, Texas Historical Commission
- Chief Michael Grizzle, Trelawny Town/Flagstaff Maroons
- Emerson Luis Ramos, Quilombo do Bracuí, Rio de Janeiro
- Colonel Wallace Sterling, Moore Town Maroons
Moderated by James Sidbury, Rice University
15:15 Break
15:30 Roundtable 2: What role(s) should scholars play?
Description: This roundtable will discuss how the work of scholars can or builds off of the work and needs of community activists, the ways it can or informs such work, and the ways it is or could be in tension with such work. Among the questions likely to be addressed are how scholars do (and how scholars should) balance the demands of scholarship and the desires of descent communities when their findings and interpretations conflict with or raise troubling questions for those communities. The roundtable will also discuss what influences descent communities’ interests do and should have on scholarship.
Panelists:
- Kofi Baku, University of Ghana, Legon
- Kenneth Bilby, Smithsonian Institution
- Monica Lima, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
- James Sidbury, Rice University
Moderated by Jeffrey Fleisher, Rice University
17:30 Closing remarks by Daniel B. Domingues da Silva, Rice University
Tuesday, April 25 – Second and last seminar day
Auditório Agostinho da Silva, Centro de Estudos Afro-Orientais (CEAO), Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA), Praça Gen. Inocêncio Galvão, 42 - Dois de Julho, Salvador - BA, 40060-055, Brazil.
13:00 Welcome remarks by Daniel B. Domingues da Silva, Rice University
13:15 Roundtable 3: Public history at museums and historic sites
Description: This roundtable will focus on museums and public historical sites as the institutions where the questions raised in the previous roundtables are brought to the fore. It will explore the ways that institutions whose mission is to mediate among the worlds of descendant communities, scholars and their communities, and a broader interested if sometimes-ignorant public set about balancing different stakeholders’ investments in the stories museums and historical sites tell and the perspectives and interpretations that inevitably get shorter shrift. The goal will not be to solve problems arising from these different perspectives—it will never be possible to tell the “full” story of any site. The roundtable will, instead, seek to open a discussion about best ways to engage stakeholders, both those who get much of what they want from a given exhibit and those who feel their perspectives have been slighted.
Panelists:
- Samuel Acquaah, Ghana Museums and Monuments Board
- Miriam Bondim, Municipal Museum of Mangaratiba, Rio de Janeiro
- Chief Michael Grizzle, Trelawny Town/Flagstaff Maroons
- Portia Hopkins, Rice University
Moderated by Molly Morgan, Rice University
15:15 Break
15:30 Roundtable 4: Open discussion of seminar and path forward
Description: This will be a closing discussion of what, if anything, participants are taking from their participation in the Mellon Sawyer Seminar and what (again, if anything) we should do to keep the discussion moving forward in the wake of the seminar.
Moderated by Hermann von Hesse, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
17:30 Closing remarks by Daniel B. Domingues da Silva, Rice University
End of Seminar