An asterisk in the grand narrative of history’: Black History Month Workshop
Summary
A reading group discussion of Saidiya Hartman's essay 'Venus in Two Acts' followed by a work-in-progress followed by chapter reading by Désha Osborne and Ben Bateman.
Join us on Thursday 16 October from 15.00 to 18.00 in the Project Room, 1.06, 50 George Square.
15.00-18.00, Thursday 16 October, 2025
Project Room, 1.06, 50 George Square
‘How does one revisit the scene of subjection without replicating the grammar of violence?’ asks Saidiya Hartman in her influential essay ‘Venus in Two Acts’, published in the journal Small Axe in 2008. Join us for an afternoon workshop where we will work together to unpack Hartman’s seemingly unanswerable question, then hear how this question connects to the work-in-progress of two LLC colleagues doing research.
15.00 – 15.50 Reading Group Discussion on ‘Venus in Two Acts.’ Please come prepared to discuss.
15.50 – 16.00 Break
16.00 – 17.30 Work-in-Progress and Chapter Reading
- ‘Contested Kinship: Enslaved “Families” in the Caribbean’: A work-in-progress paper from Désha Osborne (English and Scottish Literature) on writing about African-descended women in forced sexual relationships in the eighteenth-century Caribbean.
- ‘Disappearing Flesh in Shola von Reinhold’s Lote’: Benjamin Bateman (English and Scottish Literature) will read selections from his latest book Queer Disappearance in Modern and Contemporary Fiction (OUP, 2023).
Followed by a Q&A
