The Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften: Events
Thursday, 19 October 2023, 11:00
Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften, Am Wingertsberg 4, 61348 Bad Homburg
Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften of Goethe UniversityFellow colloquium
Andrew Apter (University of California, Los Angeles)
»Atlantic Slavery and the Spirits of Racial Capitalism«Abstract
In this presentation I problematize the shrines, rituals, festivals and spirit-worlds that are historically associated with Ghana’s slave forts and castles and remain active arenas of ritual exchange and community renewal. Juxtaposing European archives and travel narratives that identify fort and castle deities against contemporary forms of spirit-possession embodied by their devotees, I sketch the contours of an Afrocentric ritual archive that enshrines repressed historical memories of Atlantic slavery and those fetishized pathways of commodified human life linking hinterland captives to the plantations of the Americas. Rethinking Atlantic slavery through the ritual archive (focusing on Cape Coast Castle, Fort Anamabo, Fort Amsterdam and Fort James) helps us highlight the African parameters of racial capitalism and radically revise the standard narrative of its historical development.
The speaker
Andrew Apter is Professor of History and Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he co-founded the Atlantic History Colloquium and directed the African Studies Center. In October 2023 he is, on the invitation of the Frobenius Institute for Research in Cultural Anthropology at Goethe University a Fellow at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften.
Participation
Closed event. Contact: Beate Sutterlüty; email: b.sutterluety@forschungskolleg-humanwissenschaften.de).
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