The Research Center for Material Culture is pleased to host Professor David Scott in a series of conversations that explore the question of new world slavery and its afterlives. A leading Caribbean intellectual, Scott is Ruth and William Lubic Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University, New York. He is also editor of Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, and director of the Small Axe Project.
David Scott’s ongoing work has been concerned with reconceptualizing the way we think the story of the colonial past for the postcolonial present. He has developed these ideas in a number of key publications, including Refashioning Futures (1999), Conscripts of Modernity (2004), Omens of Adversity (2014), and Stuart Hall's Voice (2017). Scott’s current research and writing focusses on the question of reparations for the historical injustice of New World slavery.
On Tuesday the 30th of October, Professor David Scott will present on his recent publication Stuart Hall’s Voice: Intimations of an Ethics of Receptive Generosity. Focussed on the life and work of cultural theorist, academic and public intellectual Stuart Hall, and written as an exchange of letters between himself and Hall, the book explores voice as the fundamental characteristic of Hall’s ethos and style. Stuart Hall’s Voice is an exploration of notions of the ‘critical self’ and the ‘listening self’, concepts of friendship, contingency and identity, and the responsibility we owe to the work ‘of those whom we know well and, moreover, admire and honor’. The book presentation will also provide opportunities for thinking about the wider ranging influence of Stuart Hall’s work today.
This event is co-organized with the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis and the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, and will be hosted at Spui25.
Dr. Francio Guadeloupe is a social & cultural anthropologist and development sociologist by training. He is associate professor in Social and Cultural Anthropology Department of the University of Amsterdam and part of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences Programme group: Globalising Culture and the Quest for Belonging. Guadeloupe’s work can be described as a scholarship of possibilities, seeking to undo the guiding fictions of “race”, sexism, and the naturalization of class hierarchies that have become entrenched in our thinking, behavior, and institutional arrangements.
Wayne Modest is the head of the Research Center of Material Culture. He is also professor of Material Culture and Critical Heritage Studies (by special appointment) in the faculty of humanities at the VU University Amsterdam.
Introduction Prof. dr. Wayne Modest
Stuart Hall’s Voice Prof. dr. David Scott
Response Dr. Francio Guadeloupe
Panel Discussion: Stuart Hall Today