Tulane University

The Tulane and New Orleans communities are invited to join the Newcomb College Institute (NCI) for a day-long symposium In the Shadows of Slavery and Colonialism: A Symposium on Intersectionality and the Law, which provides an opportunity for researchers affiliated with NCI to engage with distinguished scholars in their field around the legal and political legacies of slavery and colonialism through an intersectional lens.

The researchers for the 2019 symposium are scholars who have been NCI postdoctoral fellows in the past two years. The Symposium theme was selected based on shared issues in the work of these researchers. They are Dr. Bonnie Lucero of the University of Houston and Dr. Emma Shakeshaft of the ACLU of Wisconsin, both of whom were Law & Society Fellows at NCI from 2017-2018, and Dr. Maria R. Montalvo, NCI’s 2018-2019 Bonquois Fellow in Women’s History in the Gulf South.

NCI has been awarded a Carol Lavin Bernick Faculty Grant from Tulane to host this inaugural symposium with the hope and intention that it will become a biennial event. In 2016 the Carol Lavin Bernick Family Foundation initiated this unique grant program to support the research and teaching of Tulane faculty.

This year’s symposium will consist of three sessions, each of which includes a discussion between one NCI researcher, her chosen distinguished scholar, and the audience. The researchers will prepare papers in advance for these sessions. (RSVP below to receive copies of pre-circulated materials.)

The symposium will also include a Fridays at Newcomb lunchtime panel with all three invited scholars. The panel will be moderated by Tulane Professor Laura Rosanne Adderley and will explore the usefulness of intersectionality as a theoretical framework for revealing the legacies of slavery and colonialism. Fridays at Newcomb is a lecture series with speakers across disciplines that provides students with the opportunity to learn about subjects outside of their majors. Lunch is provided at every Fridays at Newcomb lecture and they are each free and open to the public.

The schedule will be as follows:

8:30 – 8:45 AM – Tulane President Michael Fitts has been invited to give opening remarks

8:45 – 10:00 AM – Bonnie Lucero and Deirdre Cooper Owens, a conversation about Dr. Lucero’s paper, “Reproducing Racial Hierarchy in Cuba’s Slave Society.” RSVP recommended.

10:15 – 11:30 AM – Emma Shakeshaft and Dorothy Roberts, a conversation about Dr. Shakeshaft’s paper, Race, Membership, and Sovereignty: the Benefits of Using a Comparative Approach When Analyzing Race in Transracial Adoption Cases. RSVP recommended.

12:00 PM – 1:00 PM – Fridays at Newcomb, In the Shadows of Slavery and Colonialism: The Uses of Intersectionality, Dorothy Roberts, Marisa Fuentes, and Deirdre Cooper Owens, moderated by Laura Rosanne Adderley, Associate Professor of History and Director of Africana Studies at Tulane University

1:30 PM – 2:45 PM – Maria R. Montalvo and Marisa J. Fuentes, a conversation about Dr. Montalvo’s paper, The Burden of Proof: Race, Freedom, and Litigation in the 1800s. RSVP recommended.

RSVP Information

In order to ensure the highest quality of engagement with each scholar’s work, NCI will collect RSVPs and will make the research essays available in advance to those who plan to attend the symposium sessions. Note that no RSVP is necessary for attendance at the Fridays at Newcomb lunchtime panel.

RSVP HERE