University of Florida Homepage
Loading Events

« All Events

  • This event has passed.

Commemorate the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation

February 22, 2013 - February 23, 2013

On Friday, February 22 and Saturday, February 23, 2013, the Milbauer Program in Southern History will host a conference commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. This conference is entitled “The Shadow of Slavery: Emancipation, Memory, and the Meaning of Freedom.” Scholars from around the country will present original work focusing on the process, meaning, and memory of emancipation in America. The process through which disparate Americans remembered and remember emancipation will provide an overarching theme. This conference is designed to be a workshop for participating scholars and seeks to create an intimate environment ripe for discussion. Accordingly, panels will take place in Conference Room 219, located in Dauer Hall. It is our hope that all participants will leave with more questions than with which they came.

The conference will be organized into five panels, two on Friday and three on Saturday. The conference begins Friday morning by focusing on the de jure end of slavery in America, the 13th Amendment. The afternoon panel places American emancipation into a broader context by focusing on emancipations outside the United States and the implications of emancipation for those living in the American North. This first day is designed to pose big questions and get the creative juices flowing by forcing participants to think about old questions in new ways. Saturday will emphasis alternative interpretations and meanings of emancipation. By exploring the experiences of various Native American societies during the morning session a retelling, and even redefining, of emancipation is possible. After being reinvigorated by lunch, we will be asked to re-remember and reimagine emancipation during the final two panels.

Before reimagining, however, we will first recall emancipation’s long and disputed memory. At 4 P.M. on Friday, February 22, Yale historian David W. Blight will deliver a keynote address entitled “The Historical Memory of Emancipation, Then and Now, 1963 and 2013.” His talk will be held in Smathers Room 1A on the bottom floor of Library East. Dr. Blight is an author and editor of numerous books on emancipation, including Union and Emancipation: Essays on Politics and Race in the Civil War Era (1997) and A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Narratives of Emancipation (2007). He is also the leading figure on how American’s remember the Civil War era. His work in this area includes the multiple award-winning Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (2001) and American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era (2011).

If you plan on attending the conference workshops in Dauer, we need to know, as space is limited. Please RSVP to Brenden Kennedy no later than February 1st at brendenekennedy5@ufl.edu if you plan on attending.

Details

Start:
February 22, 2013
End:
February 23, 2013

Venue

219 Dauer Hall
University of Florida Campus + Google Map