





Black Europe: Olivette Otele & SA Smythe
Keynotes
Past dates
10/1/21
7:00 PM
OLIVETTE OTELE AFROEUROPEANS – AN ORDINARY HISTORY
In her keynote, Olivete Otele, Professor of History of Slavery and Memory of enslavement at the University of Bristol shows that highlighting uniqueness of Black histories is counterproductive to recognising Black presence in Europe. She traces a long Afropean heritage through ordinary and not so ordinary stories of individual Black people in Europe back to the 3rd century. For exceptionality, she argues, is a staple of (white) European thinking, which uses the relative uniqueness of Black presence and its achievements to marginalise its importance. But don’t worry, these ordinary histories will still amaze you. The keynote will take place together with SA Smythe’s keynote on the Black Mediterranean. It will be followed by a joint discussion.
SA SMYTHE BLACK POSSIBILITY ACROSS THE MEDITERRANEAN
Dr. SA Smythe is a poet, writer, performer and an extraordinary scholar. In their keynote BLACK MEDITERRANEAN, Smythe introduces the Black Mediterranean as a way of thinking and knowing Black life within and beyond the geographical space of the Mediterranean and the African and European nation states surrounding it. In doing so Smythe explores relational aspects of Black belonging across borders and draws on Black Radical Tradition and Black imaginative practices to show how fragments of past (mis)remembered history can be used to envision new futures and. Smythe is Assistant Professor of Black European Cultural Studies, Contemporary Mediterranean Studies and Black Trans Poetics at UCLA. The keynote will follow the keynote by Olivete Otele with a subsequent joint discussion.
Part of the event series OTHER EUROPE.