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Conference Key-note Speaker:
David Brion Davis
Sex, Power and Slavery:The Dynamics of Carnal Relations under Enslavement
Montreal, 19-21 April 2007
Indian Ocean World Centre, McGill University
The Indian Ocean World Centre is proud to announce that internationally-acclaimed author and scholar David Brion Davis will be the keynote speaker at our inaugural conference: Sex, Power and Slavery,19-21 April, 2007.
Sterling Professor of History Emeritus
Director Emeritus - Gilder Lehrman Center
A Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Professor Davis is a distinguished scholar and an internationally recognised expert in slavery studies. He has recently received the American Historical Association's Award for Scholarly Distinction, the highest honour an American historian can receive from his or her peers. After obtaining his PhD from Harvard University in 1956, he taught at Cornell University, Oxford and Yale University (1970 to 2001). He is currently Director Emeritus of Yale's Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition which he founded in 1998 and directed until 2004. He writes frequently for The New York Review of Books, and is the author of several seminal texts in the field.
His book, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1965. His new book, Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World (Oxford UP, 2006), has received laudatory reviews in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Review of Books, the London TLS, and many other newspapers and journals.
Recently he gave the Tanner Lectures on Human Values at Stanford University and the keynote lecture on William Wilberforce at the opening of the new Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation at the University of Hull, UK.
This lecture is made possible by a grant from the Beatty Memorial Lectures Committee
Cette conférence est présentée grâce à l'aide financière du Comité des conférences commémoratives Beatty
Publications
In-progress:
- The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation. (Oxford University Press).
Books
- Homicide in American Fiction, 1798-1860: A Study in Social Values. Cornell University Press, 1957; paperback ed., 1968.
- The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture. Cornell University Press, 1966. History Book Club selection, 1967, paperback ed., 1969; Penguin British ed., 1970; Spanish and Italian translations; Oxford University Press, revised ed., 1988. A new Spanish edition appeared in 1996 and a Brazilian Portuguese edition in 2001.
- Ante-Bellum Reform (editor). Harper and Row, 1967.
- The Slave Power Conspiracy and the Paranoid Style. Louisiana State University Press, 1969. Paperback ed., 1982.
- Was Thomas Jefferson an Authentic Enemy of Slavery? (pamphlet). Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1970.
- The Fear of Conspiracy: Images of Un-American Subversion from the Revolution to the Present(editor). Cornell University Press, 1971; paperback ed., 1972.
- The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1823. Cornell University Press, 1975; paperback ed., 1976. History Book Club and Book-of-the-Month Club alternate selections. Oxford University Press edition, with a new preface, 1999.
- The Great Republic, “Part III, Expanding the Republic, 1820-1860,” a two-volume textbook by Bernard Bailyn and five other historians; D.C. Heath, textbook, 1977. History Book Club selection, 1977. Second ed., wholly revised, 1981. Third ed., wholly revised, 1985. Fourth ed., wholly revised, 1992.
- Antebellum American Culture: An Interpretive Anthology, D.C. Heath, 1979; new edition, Pennsylvania State Press, 1997.
- The Emancipation Moment (pamphlet). Gettysburg, 1984.
- Slavery and Human Progress. Oxford University Press, 1984. History Book Club alternate selection. Paperback ed., 1986.
- Slavery in the Colonial Chesapeake (pamphlet). (Colonial Williamsburg Foundation), 1986.
- From Homicide to Slavery: Studies in American Culture. Oxford University Press, 1986.
- Revolutions: Reflections on American Equality and Foreign Liberations. Harvard University Press, 1990. German translation, 1993.
- Co-author, The Antislavery Debate: Capitalism and Abolitionism as a Problem in Historical Interpretation, ed. Thomas Bender.” University of California Press, Berkeley, 1992.
- The Boisterous Sea of Liberty: A Documentary History of America from Discovery Through the Civil War, co-ed Steven Mintz (Oxford University Press, 1998.
- In the Image of God: Religion, Moral Values, and Our Heritage of Slavery, Yale University Press, 2001.
- Challenging The Boundaries Of Slavery, Harvard University Press. 2003.
- Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World. Oxford University Press, 2006. History Book Club selection.
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Articles and essays
- “The New England Origins of Mormonism,” New England Quarterly, June, 1953, 147-168.
- “Ten-Gallon Hero,” American Quarterly, Summer, 1954, 111-125.
- “Children of God: An Historian's Appraisal,” Western Humanities Review, Winter 1953-54, 49-56.
- “Dreiser and Naturalism Revisited,” in The Stature of Theodore Dreiser, ed. Alfred Kazin, Indiana University Press, 1955, 225-236.
- “Murder in New Hampshire,” New England Quarterly, June 1955, 147-163.
- (Editor), Joel Barlow, Advice to the Privileged Orders in the Several States of Europe, Cornell Press, 1956.
- “The Movement to Abolish Capital Punishment in America, 1787-1861,” American Historical Review, October, 1957, 23-46.
- “The Deerslayer, a Democratic Knight of the Wilderness,” in Twelve Original Essays on Great American Novels, ed. Charles Shapiro, Wayne State University Press, 1958, 1-22.
- “Some Themes of Counter-Subversion: An Analysis of Anti-Masonic, Anti-Catholic, and Anti-Mormon Literature,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, (now Journal of American History), Sept. 1960, 254-273 (this article has been very widely reprinted).
- “James Cropper and the British Antislavery Movement, 1821-1833,” Journal of Negro History, Oct. 1960, 241-258.
- “James Cropper and the British Antislavery Movement, 1823-1833,” Journal of Negro History, July 1961, 154-173.
- “Anti-Slavery Gold Mine,” Cornell Alumni News, Oct. 1961.
- “The Emergence of Immediatism in British and American Antislavery Thought,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review (now Journal of American History), Sept. 1962, 209-230 (also widely reprinted).
- “Some Ideological Functions of Prejudice in Ante-bellum America,” American Quarterly, Summer 1963, 115-125.
- “Slavery and Sin: the Cultural Background,” in The Antislavery Vanguard, ed. Martin Duberman, Princeton University Press, 1965, 3-31.
- “Abolitionists and the Freedmen: an Essay Review,” Journal of Southern History, May 1965, 164-170.
- “Violence in American Literature,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, March 1966, 28-36.
- “Growth of a National State of Mind: Essay Review,” Saturday Review, Sept. 3, 1966, 26-28.
- Forum Lecture on Slavery for the Voice of America, published in pamphlet form and in The Comparability of American History, ed. C. Vann Woodward, Basic Books, 1967, 121-134.
- “Some Recent Directions in American Cultural History,” American Historical Review, Feb. 1968, 696-707.
- “Stress-Seeking and the Self-Made Man in American Literature, 1894-1914,” in Why Man Takes Chances: Studies in Stress-Seeking, ed. Samuel Klausner, Anchor Books, 1968, 104-131.
- “Reflections,” in Black Studies in the University, ed. Armstead L. Robinson, et al., Yale University Press, 1969), 215-224.
- “New Sidelights on Early Antislavery Radicalism,” William and Mary Quarterly, Oct. 1971.
- “The Forms of Slavery,” essay review, The Yale Review, Autumn 1971.
- “Internal Security in Historical Perspective: From the Revolution to World War II,” Surveillance and Espionage in a Free Society, ed. Richard Blum, Praeger, 1972, 3-19.
- “Slavery and the Post-World War II Historians,” Daedalus, Spring 1974, and reprinted in Slavery, Colonialism, and Racism, ed. Sidney W. Mintz, American Academy of Art and Sciences, 1974, 1-16.
- “The Role of Ideology in the Anglo-American 'Connection,'“ Reviews in American History, I (Sept. 1973).
- “Cultural History and the American Identity,” in The Cultural Drama, ed. Wilson S. Dillon, Smithsonian Institution, 1974, 139-156.
- “Review of Roll, Jordan, Roll, front page, New York Times Book Review, Sept. 29. 1974.
- “Slavery and the American Mind,” in Perspectives and Irony in American Slavery, ed. Harry P. Owens, University Press of Mississippi, 1976, 51-69.
- Review of The Age of Capital, front page, New York Times Book Review, May 9, 1976.
- “Mormons and anti-Mormons,” Times Literary Supplement, Sept. 9, 1977.
- “Self-Evident Truths?,” New York Times Book Review, Nov. 13, 1977.
- “The Invasion of the Family,” New York Review of Books, Feb. 23, 1978.
- “Spanish Export,” New York Times Book Review, June 11, 1978.
- “Inventing America,” front page, New York Times Book Review, July 2, 1978.
- “The American Family and Boundaries in Historical Perspective,” in The American Family, Dying or Developing, ed. David Reiss and Howard Hoffman, pp. 13-33. Plenum Publishing Corp., New York, 1979.
- “Marlboro Country,” New York Review of Books, May 3, 1979.
- “Slavery and the Idea of Progress,” Bulletin of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture and Religion, June 1979.
- “Uncle Oedipus and Ante Bellum,” New York Review of Books, Oct. 25, 1979.
- “American Ideals and Contemporary Domestic Problems,” Viewpoints: U.S.A., ed. by Max J. Skidmore, Arnold Heinemann, New Delhi, 1979.
- “The Social Security of Masonry,” Yale Review, Winter 1979.
- “The Crime of Reform,” New York Review of Books, June 26, 1980.
- “Slavery and 'Progress,'“ (different from essay on preceding page), Religion, Anti-Slavery and Reform: Essays In Memory of Roger Anstey (also included, “Roger Anstey, an Appreciation”), ed. by Christine Bolt and Seymour Drescher, Dawson Publishing, Folkestone, England, 1980.
- “Black and White: Two Ways,” front page, New York Times Book Review, Jan. 25, 1981.
- “Slavery and the Idea of Progress,” in Erich Angermann and Marie-Luise Frings, eds., Oceans Apart? Comparing Germany and the United States, Klett-Cotta: Stuttgart, 1981, 13-28.
- “Out of the Shadows: The Image of the Black in Western Art,” New York Review of Books, Nov. 5, 1981.
- “British Emancipation as a New Moral Dispensation,” Rice University Studies, 67 (Winter 1981), 43-55.
- “Of Human Bondage,” New York Review of Books, Feb. 17, 1983.
- “American Slavery and the American Revolution,” Slavery and Freedom in the Age of the American Revolution, ed. by Ira Berlin and Ronald Hoffman, University of Virginia Press, 1983.
- “The Significance of Excluding Slavery from the Old Northwest in 1787,” Indiana Magazine of History, 84 (March 1984), 75-89.
- “The Secrets of the Mormons, New York Review of Books, Aug. 15, 1985.
- “Races of the Mind,” Times Literary Supplement, Aug. 30, 1985.
- “American Jeremiah,” New York Review of Books, Feb. 13, 1986.
- “Pride and Prejudice,” (on Martin Luther King, Jr.), The New Republic, Jan. 5, 1987.
- “Capitalism, Abolitionism, and Hegemony,” in British Capitalism and Caribbean Slavery, ed. by Barbara Solow and Stanley L. Engerman, Cambridge University Press, 1987.
- “Reflections on Abolitionism and Ideological Hegemony,” American Historical Review, 92 (Oct. 1987), 797-812.
- “The Labyrinth of Slavery,” New York Review of Books, Nov. 5, 1987.
- “The Benefit of Slavery,” New York Review of Books, March 31, 1988.
- Review of Judah Benjamin: The Jewish Confederate by Eli N. Evans, American Jewish History, 78 (Dec. 1988) 302-305.
- “The Ends of Slavery,” New York Review of Books, March 30, 1989.
- “American Equality and Foreign Revolutions,” The Journal of American History, 76 (Dec. 1989), 729-752.
- “The Rebel,” New York Review of Books, May 17, 1990.
- “World War II and Memory,” Journal of American History, 77, Sept. 1990.
- “Slaves in Islam,” New York Review of Books, Oct. 11, 1990.
- Review essay on Encyclopedia of American Religious Experience, ed. Charles H. Lippy and Peter W. Williams, 3 vols., in Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation, Feb. 1991.
- “The White World of Frederick Douglass,” New York Review of Books, May 16, 1991.
- “Life and Death in Slavery,” New York Review of Books, Jan. 30, 1992.
- “Equality, Slavery, Violence, Citizenship: Notes on a Symposium,” People and Power: Rights, Citizenship and Violence, ed. Loretta Valtz Mannucci, Quaderno 3 (Milan 1992), 246-248.
- “Reconsidering the Colonization Movement: Leonard Bacon and the Problem of Evil,” Intellectual History Newsletter, vol. 14, 1992, 3-16.
- “Jews in the Slave Trade,” Culturefront: A Magazine of the Humanities, Fall 1992, 42-45.
- “The American Dilemma,” The New York Review of Books, July 16, 1992, 13-17.
- “The Other Zion: American Jews and the Meritocratic Experiment,” The New Republic, April 12, 1993, 29-36.
- “Terror in Mississippi,” The New York Review of Books, November 4, 1993.
- “The Triumph of the Country,” The New York Review of Books, May 12, 1994.
- “The Slave Trade and the Jews,” The New York Review of Books, December 22, l994.
- “Southern Comfort,” The New York Review of Books, October 5, 1995.
- Introduction, From Jackson to Lincoln: Democracy and Dissent, the Pierpont Morgan Library, 1995.
- “At the Heart of Slavery,” New York Times Review of Books, October 17, 1996.
- “Constructing Race: Reflections,” The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, LIV (January 1997), 7-18.
- “White Wives and Slave Mothers,” The New York Review of Books, February 20, 1997.
- “Jews and the Slave Trade, in Struggles in the Promised Land: Towards a History of Black-Jewish Relations in the United States,” ed. Jack Salzman and Cornel West (Oxford University Press, 1997), 45-52.
- “Introduction to A Historical Guide to World Slavery,” ed. Seymour Drescher and Stanley L. Engerman (Oxford University Press, 1998), ix-xviii.
- “A Big Business” [5,000 word essay on the Atlantic slave trade and origins of New World Slavery], The New York Review of Books, June 11, 1998.
- Introduction to Amistad: Martin Van Buren and John Quincy Adams, Original Manuscripts From the Gilder Lehrman Collection (1998).
- Review of Ira Berlin's “Many Thousands Gone, American Historical Review,” December 1999.
- “The Americanization of Mannheim, 1945-1946,” in American Places: Encounters With History: A Celebration Of Sheldon Meyer, ed. William E. Leuchtenburg (2000), pp. 79-91.
- “Looking at Slavery from Broader Perspectives,” the lead essay in an AHR Forum, “Crossing Slavery’s Boundaries,” The American Historical Review, (April 2000), pp. 452-466. This essay was then commented on by Peter Kolchin, Rebecca J. Scott, and Stanley L. Engerman.
- “The Problem of Slavery,” in Slavery, Secession, And Southern History, ed. Robert Louis Paquette and Louis A Ferleger (2000), pp. 1-30.
- “The Impact of the French and Haitian Revolutions,” in The Impact Of The Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World, ed. David P. Geggus (2001), pp. 3-9.
- “The Culmination of Racial Polarities and Prejudice,” in Race And The Early Republic: Racial Consciousness And Nation-Building In The Early Republic, ed. Michael A. Morrison and James Brewer Stewart (2002), pp. 177-195.
- “Comment expliquer l’abolitionnisme britannique?” in Rétablissement De L’esclavage Dans Les Colonies Françaises: Aux Origines De Haiti, ed. Yves Bénot and Marcel Dorigny (2003), pp. 403-420.
- “C. Vann Woodward” (1908-1999), The New York Review Of Books, February 10, 2000, p. 13.
- “The Other Revolution,” The New York Review Of Books, October 5, 2000, pp. 42-47.
- “Slavery---White, Black, Muslim, Christian,” The New York Review Of Books, July 5, 2001,pp. 51-55.
- Reply to Marcus Rediker and Peter Linebaugh, The New York Review Of Books, September 20, 2001, p. 96.
- “The Terrible Cost of Reconciliation,” The New York Review Of Books, July 18, 2002, pp. 50-52.
- “Catching the Conquerors,” The New York Review Of Books, May 29, 2003, pp. 36-38.
- “The Enduring Legacy of the South’s Civil War Victory,” lead essay in The New York Times Week In Review, August 26, 2001.
- “Jews, Blacks, and the Roots of Prejudice,” in Midstream: A Monthly Jewish Review, Dec. 2001, pp. 5-7.
- “A Brief Account of the Atlantic Slave System,” USA Weekend, August 16-18, 2002, p. 8.
- Introduction to Encyclopedia Of American Conspiracy, 2 vols., ed. Peter Knight.
- Review of Richard S. Newman, “The Transformation of American Abolitionism,” in The American Historical Review, April 2003, pp. 522-523.
- Wrote a shorter version of my April 2000 essay in The American Historical Review, “Looking at Slavery from Broader Perspectives,” for students served by the College Board’s Advanced Placement Program, sent January 21, 2003.
- In 2003 wrote a six-page introduction to Martin Luther King Jr.’s lecture of January 14, 1954 at Yale, for the Gilder Lehrman Institute.
- “Catching the Conquerors,” The New York Review of Books, May 29, 2003, pp. 36-38.
- “Is Slavery the Central Fact of U.S. History?” American Heritage, March 2005, pp. 63-68.
- “That Hamilton Man,” an Exchange with Mike Wallace and Louise Mirrer, The New York Review of Books, May 26, 2005, p. 54.
- “The Curse of Ham,” forthcoming, The New York Review of Books.
- "Blacks: Damned by the Bible," in the November 16, 2006 ed. of The New York Review of Books).
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