Verene Shepherd, Joseph Inikori to Speak at Florida International University
Professor Inikori, Professor of History at University of Rochester, in addition to having chaired a Presidential panel on inter-ethnic relations in his native Nigeria, has been the recipient of the 2003 American Historical Association's Leo Gershoy Award for "the most outstanding work in English on any aspect of the field of 17th- and 18th-century western European history": this, for his Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England: A Study in International Trade and Economic Development, which actually further develops Eric Williams' own scholarly research of some 60-plus years ago. Jamaican born Professor Shepherd, Professor of Social History at the the University of the West Indies (Jamaica campus), has had an illustrious career in her own right,; she has published widely, is the President of the Association of Caribbean Historians, and also the Chair of the Jamaica Bicentenary Committee.
The topic of this discussion was selected to commemorate the Bicentenary of the British Abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Its namesake, Eric Eustace Williams, was the first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, and a renowned scholar. Williams is best known for Capitalism and Slavery, a seminal work of economic history. The Economic Future of the Caribbean - co-edited by Williams and the respected African American sociologist, E. Franklin Frazier - is a selection of papers presented at a 1943 Howard University conference organized by Williams, the vision articulated in this work remains striking in its relevance to the 21st century Caribbean.
Previous speakers include John Hope Franklin, eminent African American scholar, and Colin Palmer, Dodge Professor of History at Princeton University, as well as Caribbean politicians and scholars. Edwidge Danticat, renowned writer, delivered the featured address in 2004.
The lecture is co-sponsored by the Eric Williams Memorial Collection (EWMC) at the University of the West Indies, (Trinidad and Tobago campus.) Inaugurated in 1998 by former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, the Collection was subsequently named to UNESCO's Memory of the World Register.
For more information on the EWMC, ant the upcoming lecture, please visit the UWI library website or the African-New World Studies Department at FIU.
Published by Nathifa Greene
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