History of the Slave Ship Is Schonberger Peace and Social Justice Lecture Topic Oct. 11
Contact: Liam Riordan, 581-1913; George Manlove, 581-3756
ORONO — The history of the slave ship as a floating dungeon is the topic of this year’s Howard B. Schonberger Peace and Social Justice Lecture at UMaine on Thursday, Oct. 11.
The annual lecture is held in memory of Howard Schonberger, a UMaine professor of history from 1971 until his death in 1991. The lecture is scheduled at 7:30 p.m. in Room 100 of the D.P. Corbett Business Building, behind the UMaine Center for the Arts.
Speaker Marcus Rediker, a University of Pittsburgh history professor and early American scholar, also is a poet, author and social activist in Pennsylvania. He is a published authority on Colonial America, Atlantic history, the global history of piracy, and theory and method in social and cultural history.
His evening talk is titled “The Floating Dungeon: A History of the Slave Ship.” Rediker also will speak at the Socialist and Marxist Studies Luncheon Series earlier in the day, at 12:30 p.m. in the Bangor Room of the Memorial Union. The title of his mid-day lecture is “Written in Blood and Fire: ‘Primitive Accumulation’ and the History of Capitalism.”
Both lectures are free and open to the public.
Rediker is the author of many articles, papers and several books, including “The Slave Ship: A Human History,” “The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic” and “Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age.” Rediker will be available to sign his books following his lectures.
Rediker describes his approach to studying history as “people’s history, social history or history from below.” Rediker writes from the perspective that “working people and their movements have, over time, been active, creative forces in the making of history.”
In addition to his work as a UMaine faculty member, Howard Schonberger also was active in both the Peace and Justice Center in Bangor and the Maine Peace Action Committee on campus. He was a founder of the Bangor Area Central America Solidarity Committee, now known as PICA (Peace through Interamerican Community Action).
For more details, contact Liam Riordan (581-1913) or Ann Schonberger (581-1229).