Reparative Histories: Radical Narratives of 'Race'
and Resistance
An interdisciplinary conference inaugurating the Research Cluster, ‘Representation: ‘Race’, Culture
and Identity’
University of Brighton 11-12th of September 2014
This interdisciplinary conference addresses the role of historical representation in shaping
radical cultural, aesthetic, and political meanings of ‘race’. Celebratory conceptions of
identity, e.g. ‘hybridity’, ‘transnationalism’, and the ‘global’, developed within the abstracted
frames of postmodernism often fail to account for the nature and complexity of contemporary
processes of identity formation, or for their contested political mobilisations and contexts. The
conference is interested in critical historical and cultural representations that are rooted in
particular histories and cultures and their legacies in the contemporary moment.
The conference questions what it means to turn to history to appeal for recognition and
redress in the present. It will address why the appeal to ‘origins’ remains such a powerful tool
of oppression and of resistance, and how traditions of political struggle are currently being
rearticulated. We are interested in why certain forms of resistance to oppression are often
framed within the context of trauma rather than historical agency.
The conference aims to contribute to current debates concerning the ethics and limits of
representation in questioning constructions of 'race' and their re-workings in, for example,
specifically Black and diasporic aesthetic and intellectual traditions, e.g. archival absences
and traces; the politics of historical commemoration; twentieth century African American
aesthetics and Communism; the legacies of transatlantic slavery; colonial legacies and
postcolonial identities; 'race', agency and the politics of identity; trauma and representation;
the historical and contemporary intersections of ‘race’ gender and sexuality; the politics of
reparations; interracial anti-racisms and African Atlantic cultural formations.
Questions for consideration might include (but are not limited to the following):

How are histories of transatlantic slavery, anti-slavery, colonialism and anti-colonialism
mobilised to support contemporary and conflicting political arguments about diversity,
immigration and ‘race’?

What roles can contested, radical and resistant narratives play within dominant and/or
redemptive historical, cultural or literary discourses?

How do we construct histories of transatlantic slavery, anti-slavery and movements for
racial redress in order to strengthen arguments against racial injustice ‘from below’?

What are the consequences of replacing historical narratives structured by the universalism
of liberal sentiment with those founded in 'rage', resistance and redress?

What role does imaginative fiction, film or other forms of artistic representation have in
reconstructing contested pasts?

How do contemporary representations of slavery challenge the plantation myth?

How do we account, historically, for the case that there has been a recent burgeoning of
public memorialisation of slavery at the same time as increasingly conservative public
discourse about racial justice?

How have the intersections of ‘race’, class, gender and sexuality within historical and
contemporary labour struggles been theorized and/or represented?

How might historical chronologies defined by forgetting, absence or denial be disrupted
through aesthetic, theoretical, or conceptual intervention.

How do we further specify and conceptualise the ‘legacies’ of imperialism, colonialism and
slavery? Does the term ‘legacy’ help or hinder an understanding of the relations between
the past and the present?

What is, or what might be, the shape of reparative history?
Confirmed keynote speakers: Dr Priyamvada Gopal (University of Cambridge), and Dr
Brian Kelly (Queen’s University, Belfast).
We invite proposals from across the disciplines. They may concern historical and/or
contemporary issues or moments and address any representational form. We welcome
proposals for single papers, panels, or for plenary discussions. (Please provide a brief
rationale for a panel or a plenary.) If your proposal speaks to one of the conference questions
listed above, please specify this in your submission. Postgraduate submissions are of course
welcome.
Proposals of 250 words and a brief biography/CV should be sent to Anita Rupprecht
(A.Rupprecht@brighton.ac.uk) and Cathy Bergin (C.B.Bergin@brighton.ac.uk). Closing date
for proposals: 7th July 2014
The conference fee is £90. There is a fee of £45 for graduate students and for those with no
institutional affiliation.
The conference will be held at the Grand Parade Campus, University of Brighton on
September 11th & 12th 2014