There are an estimated 36 million slaves alive today, including in the United States and Europe – more than at any point in human history. In this open lecture, guest speaker, Professor Zoe Trodd will explore how over the past 15 years, a growing antislavery movement has achieved some successes, including new legislation and increased public awareness. But it is repeating mistakes of the past and often starts from scratch, rather than learning from earlier antislavery successes, failures, experiments and strategies. After laying out the facts, figures and definitions for global slavery, Zoe Trodd will examine this contemporary antislavery movement. What might an antislavery usable past look like? What strategies, literary devices, images and opinion-building activities were useful to earlier antislavery generations, and how might they be useful for contemporary abolitionists in adapted form?

Professor Trodd’s lecture takes place on Thursday 3 December at 18.00 in Grimond Lecture Theatre 2. It is hosted by the University’s Centre for American Studies and is open to all.

About the speaker
Zoe Trodd is Professor of American Literature in the Department of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Nottingham. She received her PhD from Harvard University and has taught at Harvard, UNC Chapel Hill and Columbia University. She researches protest literature and visual culture, especially of antislavery, and her books include American Protest Literature (2006), To Plead Our Own Cause (2008), Modern Slavery (2009), The Tribunal (2012), Civil War America (2012), and Picturing Frederick Douglass (2015). She recently addressed the European Parliament about its antislavery policy, and works with antislavery NGOs on their campaigns, especially their use of slaves’ testimonies and their visual culture.