University of Exeter: Review: ‘The “Not Yet” of the Nineteenth-Century U.S.’, BrANCA Symposium

Primarily literary in focus, the panellists nevertheless marshalled current political and institutional debates through and alongside their readings of texts, demonstrating the ways in which nineteenth-century U.S. scholarship often hinges on interdisciplinary methodologies. Continue reading

“A Scene of Tumult and Uproar”: Mapping the Gruelling Lecturing Tours of Black Abolitionists

During his nineteen-month trip in Britain from 1845-1847 formerly enslaved African American Frederick Douglass travelled by bus, steamship, train and carriage, writes Hannah-Rose Murray. Although popular antislavery had waned in Britain in the 1840s, it had become part of a nationalist tradition that could be roused by powerful and fiery orators. Douglass – a lecturing genius – exploited this trend and thus became incredibly successful on the British stage. Continue reading