Frederick Douglass, Emigration, Empire, and the Beginnings of Pan-Africanism, 1850–1920
Jesse Olsavsky (History & Gender Studies, Duke Kunshan University)
with a response by Janet Pritchard (Art and Art History, UConn)
Wednesday February 12, 2025, 3:30pm, Humanities Institute Conference Room (HBL 4-209)
The event will also be livestreamed with automated captioning.
This talk will explore the influence Frederick Douglass had upon the development of Pan-Africanism. Though Douglass is often viewed as an American nationalist with little interest in Africa, this talk will contrarily show the ways that intellectuals in West Africa, the West Indies and the US circulated and reinterpreted Douglass’s thought in order to understand the horrendous changes in the world resulting from the overthrow of Reconstruction and the partition of Africa. Out of these transatlantic discussions, in which Douglass figured heavily, emerged the ideas and practices of Pan-Africanism, which eventually became the principal ideology of African decolonization in the twentieth century
Jesse Olsavsky is an assistant professor of history at Duke Kunshan University, Jiangsu Province, China. He is author of The Most Absolute Abolition: Runaways, Vigilance Committees, and the Rise of Revolutionary Abolitionism, 1835-1861.
Janet L. Pritchard is a Professor of Art, Photography/Video Area Coordinator, and Affiliated Faculty Member of the Center for Environmental Sciences & Engineering and Institute of the Environment at the University of Connecticut. Her creative research interests focus on landscape photography, using a methodology described as historical empathy. She is the author of More than Scenery: Yellowstone, an American Love Story.
Access note
If you require accommodation to attend this event, please contact us at uchi@uconn.edu or by phone (860) 486-9057. We can request ASL interpretation, computer-assisted real time transcription, and other accommodations offered by the Center for Students with Disabilities.
