Takeaways from Race and Reinscription
Jennifer Morgan, 2023 On October 19th, 2023, Jennifer Morgan presented a talk surrounding her recent book, Reckoning with Slavery: Gender, Kinship and Capitalism in the Early Black Atlantic . Not unlike Saidiya Hartman’s “Venus in Two Acts,” she explained the problem of the archive and the omission of thousands of women from modern history, but one would be wrong in saying that this is just a restatement of Hartman’s argument. Morgan’s dignified presentation of kinship and refusal is more of a continuation of where Saidiya left off, asking what’s next. Dr. Morgan is a historian and professor at NYU, which shines through her presentation of knowledge through constructive storytelling, writing, traditional history, and at times art history as well. She addresses her position as a historian in the talk, as well as her journey into the world of art history by researching the background of a certain clock depicted in the painting she used to show an example of a woman of color in luxury. At...