CFP Gulf Coast Symposium on Slavery, Abolition, and Emancipation

Jimmy L. Bryan Jr. Announcement
Location
Texas, United States
Subject Fields
African American History / Studies, Borderlands, Latin American and Caribbean History / Studies, Slavery, Race / Ethnic Studies

The upper Gulf Coast occupies a unique yet contradictory place in the history of North American slavery. Encompassing the western fringe of the slave-owning South, the region was the site of both oppression and refuge. Weak enforcement along the coast and within the Sabine borderlands permitted Jean Lafitte, James Bowie, Timothy Meaher, and others to smuggle enslaved people. Conversely, it created opportunities for freedom as it did in 1832 for three escapees who sought asylum with the Mexican garrison at Anahuac, or for the Ashworths, free Black siblings who established a prosperous ranching enterprise on the lower Neches River before the Texas Revolution. These contradictions persisted through the waning years of slavery. In 1860 at Mobile, the Clotilda illegally imported the last enslaved Africans into the United States. Five years later at Galveston on June 19, 1865, Gen. Gordon Granger issued orders that declared freedom for the enslaved people of Texas, a date later celebrated as Juneteenth. Potential topics for the study of slavery in the Gulf region include interactions between Indigenous and enslaved communities, the coastwise trade, borderlands, Caribbean and Latin American connections, sugar production, ranching, the promises and failures of emancipation, and many others.

The Center for History and Culture of Southeast Texas and the Upper Gulf Coast will convene a symposium at Lamar University, Beaumont, Texas, on April 19, 2022, to consider the many experiences and expressions of slavery, abolition, and emancipation in the region's past and publish this work in The Texas Gulf Historical and Biographical Record. The Center invites proposals from established and emerging scholars who actively seek disciplinary intersections between art, economics, ethnicity, gender, history, literature, material culture, sociology, and other fields. The Center and The Record welcome projects connected to broadly defined Gulf South and Southeast Texas regions.

To apply, submit a 300-word proposal for a single paper and a brief c.v. (2 pages maximum) by November 1, 2021. Selected participants will submit drafts for pre-circulation by March 15, 2022. They will meet at Lamar University on April 19, 2022, share their work in a brief presentation, and workshop it with their fellow participants, Center-affiliated faculty, and a small number of invited scholars. After the symposium, participants will revise their papers and submit final drafts of about 8,000 words (notes included) by November 1, 2022, for publication in The Record.

The Center will provide lodging, food, and a travel stipend and will assist participants with their arrangements. Each author will receive contributors' copies of The Record.

The Center opened in September 2016 as one of former Lamar University president Kenneth Evans's "Visionary Initiatives." Charged with the mission to promote the study of the Gulf Coast region, the Center has sponsored numerous programs highlighting the work of scholars and creatives from varied disciplines and backgrounds. In addition, the Center funds original research through its fellowship program and awards two annual book prizes.

Issued annually since 1965 by the Texas Gulf Historical Society and jointly with the Lamar University History Department since 2011, The Record publishes multidisciplinary articles and edited primary sources focused on the history and culture of Southeast Texas and the upper Gulf Coast. The work appears in EBSCO's abstract databases.

Send proposals as email attachments and direct your inquiries about the symposium, the Center, and The Record to Jimmy L. Bryan Jr. at jlbryan@lamar.edu.

 

Contact Information

Jimmy L. Bryan Jr.

Director, The Center for History and Culture of Southeast Texas and the Upper Gulf Coast

Professor of History, Lamar University

Contact Email
jlbryan@lamar.edu