In her 2008 essay, ‘Venus in Two Acts’, Saidiya Hartman advocates for a radical form of archival practice that responds to challenges encountered in researching the lives of those who exist only as objects, if that, in historical accounts. How might we hear words that were never captured? How might we understand the experiences of those who were always left out?

Join us for the second event in our series, ‘What is the Black Archive?’ Focused firmly on ‘Venus in Two Acts’, the seminar invites three scholars who specialise in archival excavations to return to and engage with Hartman’s essay—questioning its methods and reflecting on its relevance to researchers, across disciplines, working at the limits of what has been retained, and lost, in the practices of preservation.

EVENT OVERVIEW

The event will be divided into two parts: presentations from our guest speakers followed by an interactive seminar on the possibilities and limits of radical archival methods.

Guest speakers are:

Joanna Brown, a writer and doctoral researcher at Royal Holloway, University of London. Rooted in the practice of creative writing in the archives, her project, The Listening: Fictionalising Fugitive Voices and Fragmented Lives in the Slavery Archive, explores the limits, challenges, and possibilities of writing life stories of Black women in Britain, enslaved and free, at the turn of the nineteenth century.

Dr Nicole King, Associate Professor in the Faculty of English and the Peter Thompson Tutorial Fellow in English at Exeter College, University of Oxford. An expert in modern African American and Caribbean/Caribbean diaspora writing, she is the author of C.L.R. James and Creolization: Circles of Influence (2001) and two forthcoming books, Black Childhood in Modern African American Fiction and Reading Solidarity Rage in Caribbean Women’s Writing (with Ana Nenadović).

Dr Asha Rogers, Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Birmingham. Her work focuses on institutions and literary creativity in and between colonial and postcolonial worlds. Her first book, State Sponsored Literature: Britain and Cultural Diversity after 1945 (2020), on the ‘labyrinthine, complex and contradictory impulses and expressions’ of the relationship between the state and public culture, was awarded the 2021 University English prize.

ESSENTIAL INFORMATION

Pre-reading: Participants are invited to read Hartman's ‘Venus in Two Acts’ before attending.

Date: 22 May 2025
Time: 16:00 – 18:00 (with tea and coffee from 16:00-16:30)
Location: TORCH Seminar Room
Format: In-person

REGISTRATION

All are welcome, with postgraduate students from all disciplines strongly encouraged to attend. Space is limited to 30 on a first-come basis. Register now!

Picture Credit: Andrea Chung, installation view of the exhibition “if they put an iron circle around your neck I will bite it away,” John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Michigan, 2022.

What is the Black Archive (II): Writing the Silences- Critical Perspectives