Slavery as a Global and Regional Phenomenon

Edited by Eric Hilgendorf, Jan-Christoph Marschelke and Karin Sekora.

Slavery is a phenomenon that can be traced back to antiquity. Until the middle of the 19th century, it was socially accepted in many parts of the world. Today it is universally outlawed. The Rome Statute (2002) of the International Criminal Court lists slavery as a crime against humanity. Nevertheless, slavery still exists in many countries - in which human beings continue to be treated as mere goods. Unfortunately, our knowledge of slavery is still fragmentary. Gaps exist both with regard to certain historical periods as well as to regionally specific features of its emergence, forms and abolition. To this day, the traces slavery has left are not only visible, but its impact can still be felt around the world. In this work, international scholars examine the concept and history of slavery, its regional forms in the Caribbean and Latin America, and its contemporary guises. Our twin goals have been both to highlight the diverse features of slavery as well as to elucidate its universal structures. The nine contributions to this volume date back to a conference held at the Universität Würzburg from 27 to 29 June 2013 as part of the university program "Globale Systeme und interkulturelle Kompetenz". The keynote speech was a public lecture by the Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, which is also included in the volume. - Contents: Wole Soyinka: The "Dignity" of the Slave. - Klaus Weber: Blurred Concepts of Slavery. - Jan Dirk Harke: Slavery in Classical Roman Law. - Karin Sekora: Slavery and Post-Emancipation Politics in Brazil. - Roberto Strongman: On the Non-Equivalence of Black and Negro. Origins of the Cultural Constructions of New World Blackness in Iberian and Northern European Slave Codices. - María Herrera-Sobek: Casta Paintings and the Black Legend. Ideology and Representation of Black Africans in New Spain (1700-1790). - Horacio Castrejón: Slavery and Human Rights in Mexico. - Joachim Renzikowski: Contemporary Problems of Labour Exploitation. - Jan-Christoph Marschelke: Equal but Separate. Slavery, Racism and Post-Emancipatory Legal Equity. - Eric Hilgendorf: Problem Areas in the Dignity Debate and the Ensemble Theory of Human Dignity. - 176 Seiten mit 8 Abb., gebunden (Anglistische Forschungen; Vol. 449/Universitätsverlag Winter 2015)