'Oppression and Resistance in the Jamaican Metropole: Isaac Mendes Belisario's "Cries of Kingston"'
Date and time: Tuesday, 15 January, 5.15 pm
Location: Seminar Room 1, School of History (9 Abercromby Square).
The poster for the seminar is at: http://www.liv.ac.uk/history/Downloads/Belisario.pdf
Isaac Mendes Belisario's (1795-1849) most significant work is the series of lithographs, Sketches of Character, in Illustration of the Habits, Occupation, and Costume of the Negro Population in the Island of Jamaica. Published in Kingston in 1837-8, Sketches of Character provides the first detailed visual representation of the celebrated Afro-Jamaican masquerade, Jonkonnu, or John Canoe, performed by Jamaican slaves during the Christmas and New Year holidays. This paper will outline the lineage of Jonkonnu to its West African roots, mapping its indigenization and evolution in Jamaica from the early eighteenth century through to the post-emancipation period, and situating Sketches of Character in the context both of Jamaican social history and the visual culture of the British Empire.
Gillian Forrester is Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven. Along with Tim Barringer and Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz, she is the curator of Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and his Worlds, an exhibition at the Yale Center for British Art, and at the National Gallery of Jamaica (see http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300116618).
This seminar is jointly organized by The Centre for the Study of International Slavery and Eighteenth-Century Worlds Research Centre. More details regarding each Centre's seminar programme can be found respectively at: http://www.liv.ac.uk/history/research/CSIS.htm and www.liv.ac.uk/18cworlds/seminars.htm.
You are most welcome. The seminar is free and no booking is required.
(For directions to the School of History, please see: http://www.liv.ac.uk/maps/)
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