As part of commemoration of Black History Month, we are delighted to invite you to a panel discussion on “Slavery in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA),” which is part of a series of university-wide conversations about anti-racism and our collective quest for a more just, inclusive and equitable university and society.
The panel discussion will be held on February 22 at 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm via zoom. To register for this event, click here. After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
We have a distinguished panel of scholars who discuss slavery and racialization/racism from a historical perspective and reflect on contemporary developments in the MENA region and globally. The panel consists of the following scholars:
Panelists:
Moyagaye Leverett is the Mellon Sawyer Race and the Middle East/North Africa Postdoctoral fellow. Her research lies at the intersection of Middle East and African histories. Her first manuscript, ‘They say that we are from Africa’: Race, Slavery and Haratin Nationalists in 20th Century Colonial Morocco, examines the largely unrecognized role that so-called “black Haratin” Moroccans played in the making of the modern Moroccan state. Her research has been funded by the Center for Arabic Studies Abroad (CASA), the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, the Penn Predoctoral Fellowship, the American Insitute for Maghrib Studies (AIMS), and Fulbright, among others. Moyagaye received her doctorate from Rutgers University and her Bachelors in History and Political science from CUNY Queens College.
Oluwamayowa Willoughby is a PhD Candidate in the field of Africana Studies at Cornell University. They received their B.A in Comparative Literature from Dartmouth College in 2014. Bam is interested in black historiographies of Ottoman and post-Ottoman worlds, proletarianization of Africans in the Ottoman Empire, geographies of African-descended populations in contemporary Turkey, slavery, and how approaching historiography in new ways can challenge prevailing notions about the emergence of race, sex, and gender within a nation-state context. Their current research project analyses Turkish historiography through the 1892 manumission of enslaved Africans in Northern Africa and their subsequent relocation into Southwestern Anatolia for the express purpose of land cultivation—all within the context of their “freedom”. This research project seeks to understand this historiographic moment as a driver for “black” identity formation in contemporary Turkey and to provide a scaffolding for contextualizing the kinds of conditions that have made “black” Aegean, rural living, livelihood, and survival possible in contemporary Turkey.
The forum will be moderated by Dr. Augustine Lado (Senior Advisor to the President on Anti-racism, and Professor/Richard C. ’55 & Joy M. Dorf Endowed Chair in Innovation and Entrepreneurship) Currently on leave from the deanship of the David D. Reh School of Business, Dr. Lado is working to advance a vision of Clarkson University to become an anti-racist and more inclusive, equitable, and just institution of higher learning. https://www.clarkson.edu/people/augustine-lado
The forum is open to the public who may attend only via zoom (registration is required) and will be recorded and distributed via the university social media.
We look forward to your attendance and participation.
Thank you!