Dr Judith Spicksley is a Lecturer in the Wilberforce Institute and leads the curation of our annual Public Lecture Programme. In this blog, she introduces the diverse range of lectures on both historic and modern slavery that she has brought together for the next academic year, and shares news of an exciting new partnership with Hull Museums.
This year, we are teaming up with Hull Museums to offer attendees at our public lectures the opportunity to visit Wilberforce House Museum next door before they join us for the lecture. As a result, all our lectures will begin at 4.30 pm, directly after the Museum closes, and all will take place at our home in Oriel Chambers, 27 High Street, Hull, HU1 1N.
We are very grateful for the financial support Hull Museums is providing, and we hope that some of you will take the opportunity to have a look around their exhibitions and displays in advance of the lectures. Please join us for refreshments from 4.15 pm onwards, and if you can, stay afterwards for a glass of wine and a chance to talk with our speaker.
If you can’t make it in person, you can still enjoy the lectures by streaming online – to register, simply click on the title of the talk and follow the instructions. onscreen.
For more details of how to stream lectures or directions to the Institute, please contact Sophie Blanchard at Sophie.Blanchard@hull.ac.uk
November 2024
On 6 November, we switch focus to the twentieth century to welcome Jean Allain, Professor of International Law at Monash University, Australia. Professor Allain, who is also an Adjunct Professor at the Universitas Padjadjaran, Bandung, Indonesia, and an Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, has been a Leverhulme Visiting Professor at the University of Nottingham from 2023 and 2024. This talk is one of the products of that fellowship.
Book: A Struggle for the Soul of Anti-Trafficking at the League of Nations with Prof Jean Allain
December 2024
On 4 December, we welcome Louise Gleich, a Senior Policy Researcher in the Joint Modern Slavery Policy Unit led by the anti-slavery charity Justice and Care, and the think tank the Centre for Social Justice. Louise, who has worked in anti-slavery policy for a number of charities since 2013. We look forward to her talk on this very timely issue.
Book: Slavery in our Communities with Louise Gleich
January 2025
After the Christmas break, we return with not one but two talks in January. Our first, on 15 January, is our regular look at the work of our Postgraduate Research community.
Our speakers will be two former PhD students who successfully defended their theses in Spring 2024 - Dr Isabel Pilar Arce Zelada and Dr Jen Nghishitende.
Dr Zelada will talk about 'Art, Asylum and Alienhood: Narrative Inequality in the UK Asylum Process', and Dr Nghishitende about '“Freedom is a constant struggle”: Women’s journeys after modern slavery in the United Kingdom'.
Book: What’s going on at the Wilberforce Institute? with Dr Isabel Pilar Arce Zelada and Dr Jen Nghishitende
February 2025
In February, we hear from Dr Nicholas Evans, Senior Lecturer in Diaspora History at the University of Hull and a longstanding member of the Wilberforce Institute. His talk on 12 February, is held in conjunction with the Cultures of Incarceration Centre.
Dr Evans, who is a founding member of the Wilberforce House Museum Advisory Board, champions work to decolonise heritage and amplify the experiences of Black people living in contemporary Britain. Since 2023 he has served on the National Centre for Teaching Black History Educator's Steering Group at the International Slavery Museum.
Book: Robben Island and the challenging cultural heritage of incarceration with Dr Nick Evans
March 2025
On 12 March 2025, we will turn the focus back towards issues of contemporary slavery as we welcome Dr Marija Jovanovic, Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Essex.
Dr Jovanović's research focuses on modern slavery and the way it interacts with different legal regimes, such as human rights law, criminal law, labour law, immigration law, international trade law, and business regulation. Recent work includes a legal analysis of the compatibility of the Rwanda Treaty and Act 2024 and Illegal Migration Act 2023 with the UK’s international obligations.
Book: The UK’s Immigration Legislation and a Hierarchy of Modern Slavery Victimhood with Dr Marija Jovanovic
April 2025
On 9 April, we welcome Dr Michael Bennett from the Department of History at the University of Sheffield. His talk will take us back to the history of slavery and sugar in the English colonies.
Dr Bennett, who lectures in Early Modern British History, is writing the first systematic study of the English merchants who financed the development of sugar plantations and African slavery on the Caribbean island of Barbados in the mid-seventeenth century. He was also the lead researcher on the Bank of England's project into its historical links to slavery, which resulted in the Slavery & the Bank exhibition (April 2022 - February 2024).
Book: London Merchants, the English Civil War, and the Origins of the Barbados Sugar Boom, 1642-60 with Dr Michael Bennet
May 2025
For our final lecture of the season, on 14 May, we welcome Chris Evans, Professor of History at the University of South Wales, who will be discussing aspects of his latest book.
Professor Evans, who is head of the History Research Group at the University of South Wales, works on industrial history from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, as well as the history of Atlantic slavery. His current interests include abolitionism in the British world in the nineteenth century, the links between European industry and the Atlantic slave trade, eighteenth-century whaling, and Swansea copper as an agency of global change in the nineteenth century.
Book: Slavery’s Long Goodbye: Capitalism, Nationalism, and Christianity in the Age of British Emancipation with Prof Chris Evans
We hope you will find something in this varied programme of talks to interest you. Summaries of the content of the talks are available on the relevant Eventbrite pages - click on the title of the talk to read more.
If you have any questions about the programme or would like more information, please contact Judith Spicksley judith.spicksley@hull.ac.uk