2021 Lapidus Center Conference: Pandemic Legacies

Michelle Commander Announcement
Subject Fields
African American History / Studies, Colonial and Post-Colonial History / Studies, History of Science, Medicine, and Technology, Latin American and Caribbean History / Studies, Slavery

Pandemic Legacies: Health, Healing, and Medicine in the Age of Slavery and Beyond 

(October 6-8, 2021)

Just as the slave trade tied together the cultures and populations of four continents, it also wed together distinctive disease ecologies. The lack of local populations with exploitable labor in the Americas compelled an increase in the volume of Africans that Europeans forced into the transatlantic slave trade, setting the stage for epidemic diseases and other health issues that shaped the cultural, social, and material life of Atlantic slavery. Genocidal warfare and the destructive effects of Eurasian African epidemic diseases caused the near decimation of Indigenous populations. Yellow fever, a virus native to tropical West Africa, became a common scourge to American ports. Doctors theorizing about the virus developed racial stereotypes that posited that people of African descent were inherently immune to the virus, setting the stage for a range of healthcare disparities that reverberate today.

Taking its cue from compelling new directions in slavery studies as well as our current health crisis, the 2021 Lapidus Center Conference will explore a variety of critical issues in the history of health, healing, and medicine in the age of Atlantic slavery via a combination of keynote conversations, book chats, and panel sessions. This fully virtual and FREE conference will run October 6-8, 2021.

Please share widely with your colleagues and students!!

Full Conference Schedule: https://www.lapiduscenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Conference-Schedule-as-of-September-15.pdf

Register for each conference day you plan to attend on Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/schomburg-center-for-research-in-black-culture-1711628110

About the Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery 
The Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery, founded in 2014 with a generous $2.5 million gift from Ruth and Sid Lapidus, generates and disseminates scholarly knowledge and works on the slave trade, slavery, and anti-slavery pertaining to the Atlantic World. The Center supports the work of researchers with long-term and short-term fellowships. Given the centrality of Atlantic slavery to the making of the modern world, Lapidus fellowships ensure that slavery studies are a cornerstone of the Schomburg Center’s broader research community. The Center engages the public with a variety of programs, an annual nonfiction book prize, exhibitions, conferences, and partnerships with local, national, and international institutions. To learn more about the Lapidus Center, please visit lapiduscenter.org.

About the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Founded in 1925 and named a National Historic Landmark in 2017, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is one of the world’s leading cultural institutions devoted to the preservation, research, interpretation, and exhibition of materials focused on African American, African Diasporan, and African experiences. As a research division of The New York Public Library, the Schomburg Center features diverse programming and collections totaling over 11 million items that illuminate the richness of global black history, arts, and culture. Learn more at schomburgcenter.org.

About The New York Public Library 
For over 125 years, The New York Public Library has been a free provider of education and information for the people of New York and beyond. With 92 locations—including research and branch libraries—throughout the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island, the Library offers free materials, computer access, classes, exhibitions, programming and more to everyone from toddlers to scholars, and has seen record numbers of attendance and circulation in recent years. The New York Public Library receives approximately 18 million visits through its doors annually and millions more around the globe who use its resources at www.nypl.org. To offer this wide array of free programming, The New York Public Library relies on both public and private funding. Learn more about how to support the Library at nypl.org/support.