Scenes of Subjection

A discussion in celebration of Saidiya Hartman’s Scenes of Subjection: Slavery, Terror, and Self-Making in 19th Century America, co-presented with the Institute for Research in African-American Studies of Columbia University.

This event will be live streamed on the GSAPP YouTube channel.

Registration is required via this form. Space capacity is limited. Registration does not guarantee seating. Seating will be first come, first seated basis

The event includes a conversation among:

• Saidiya Hartman, Columbia University
• Torkwase Dyson, Artist & Scholar
• Marisa Fuentes, Rutgers University
• Sarah Haley, Columbia University
• Cameron Rowland, Artist & Scholar
• Alex Weheliye, NorthWestern University
  

In Scenes of Subjection, Saidiya Hartman’s first book, now revised and expanded—her singular talents and analytical framework turn away from the “terrible spectacle” and toward the forms of routine terror and quotidian violence characteristic of slavery, illuminating the intertwining of injury, subjugation, and selfhood even in abolitionist depictions of enslavement. By attending to the withheld and overlooked at the margins of the historical archive, Hartman radically reshapes our understanding of history, in a work as resonant today as it was on first publication, now for a new generation of readers. This 25th anniversary edition features a new preface by the author, a foreword by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, an afterword by Marisa J. Fuentes and Sarah Haley, notations with Cameron Rowland, and compositions by Torkwase Dyson.

Free and open to the public. GSAPP is committed to providing universal access to all of our virtual events. Please contact events@arch.columbia.edu to request disability accommodations. Advance notice is necessary to arrange for some accessibility needs.