The Accidental Slaveowner
Presented by Dr. Mark Auslander
Friday, February 10th
At the Martin Luther King Jr. Center, 312 Chestnut Street, Erie
Reception and Book Signing at 5:00 p.m., Presentation at 6:00 p.m.
Free and Open to the Public
Join us for a presentation and book-signing with Dr. Mark Auslander, associate professor of Anthropology and Africana/Black Studies at Central Washington University and Director of the Central Washington University Museum of Culture and Environment, and author of the book “The Accidental Slaveowner: Revisiting a Myth of Race & Finding an American Family.”
Mark Auslander is Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in African Art and Aesthetics and Lecturer in African & Afro-American Studies, Anthropology, and Fine Arts. His academic writings explore a wide range of topics, including south-central African witchfinding movements, popular contests over South African nature reserves, Zulu iconography in global contexts, the social meanings of lynching photography, popular narratives of slavery in the rural American South, and African American family reunions. He has strong practical and analytic interests in museums and ethnographic display, has consulted at the Smithsonian on the “African Voices” exhibition project, and has worked on “Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America” at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta. With his students in Georgia he has undertaken various “service learning” projects in collaboration with local African American communities, including restoring and documenting African American cemeteries; oral history projects on Jim Crow, lynching and racial violence; and developing community museum exhibitions on slavery and its legacies.
Sponsored by:
Gannon University Center for Social Concerns
The Harry T. Burleigh Society
Helping You … Helping Me