BEGIN:VCALENDAR
PRODID://WordPress//Event-Post-V6.1.2//EN
VERSION:2.0
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Nov 10 – Guest Lecture: Freedom, Slavery and Urban Development in the Northern British Atlantic World, 1660-1760
UID:http://www.obama-institute.com/nov-10-guest-lecture-freedom-slavery-and-urban-development-in-the-northern-british-atlantic-world-1660-1760/
LOCATION:
DTSTAMP:20261110T161500Z
DTSTART:20261110T161500Z
DTEND:20261110T174500Z
DESCRIPTION:[et_pb_section admin_label="section"][et_pb_row
admin_label="row"][et_pb_column type="4_4"][et_pb_text admin_label="Text"]
Guest Lecture by Andrew Wells (Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel)
Freedom, Slavery and Urban Development in the Northern British Atlantic
World, 1660-1760
Nov 10, 2026, 4:15-5:45 pm, room P 103 (Philosophicum)
England’s imperial expansion after the chaos of the mid-seventeenth
century and its increasing involvement and later domination of the
transatlantic slave trade had major consequences for urban development on
both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Some cities became major hubs of the
slave trade (Bristol), others received and employed slaves in large numbers
(New York), while others grew rich from the profits of slave-produced
commodities (Glasgow) or the provisioning trade for vessels making the
journey to Africa and America (Cork). In this lecture, I will explore all
four of these cities, which I am studying for a Habilitation project on
concepts of freedom in the urban British Atlantic, and show how theories of
freedom and practices of slavery profoundly shaped the development of these
urban areas. From new market spaces to improved riverine navigation, from
remodelled streets to dedicated burial grounds for the enslaved, the
interplay of concepts and practices of freedom, liberty, and slavery not
only shaped the political and cultural lives of these cities but also their
physical spaces and the architectural and topographical traces of this
history, many of which persist to the present.
Andrew Wells is a cultural and intellectual historian of the early modern
British Empire and is completing his Habilitation thesis at the
Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel. He is the author of Generating
Difference: Race and Reproduction in the British Empire, 1660-1840 (Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2026) and has co-edited two books, on
animal-human relations in the early modern period and on representing Cold
War Europe in contemporary British writing. He holds degrees from the
Universities of Bristol, British Columbia and Oxford, and has held academic
positions at the Universities of Edinburgh, Göttingen, and Kiel.
You can download the poster for the event here.
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR