In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Colloquy with the Author:Vincent Carretta and "Equiano, the African"
  • Dennis D. Moore (bio), Vincent Carretta (bio), Ugo Nwokeji (bio), Betsy Erkkila (bio), and Marion Rust (bio)

This colloquy has the designation "a SEASECS Session," based on its sponsorship by the southeastern affiliate of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies at the March 2007 ASECS conference in Atlanta. As organizer and moderator, I have a brief and true confession: I stole the format from the Joyceans, who have called theirs a "living book review." Given that many colleagues attending a particular conference would presumably have been reading a particular book, the idea was simply to construct a panel discussion with that book's author and several knowledgeable, articulate colleagues. This format emphasizes that rather than being The Respondent, the book's author is a participant in a conversation that involves and engages members of the audience as well as the panelists.

The conversation surrounding Vincent Carretta's Equiano, the African: Biography of a Self-Made Man takes place in the context that dixhuitiemists have been referring to, for several decades, as "the long eighteenth century." Moreover, the recent flowering of scholarship on early American literature and culture has begun to spread the usage "the wide eighteenth century."1 A number of similar and similarly resonant [End Page 1] descriptions fill the air: "the Atlantic world"; "the Early Modern Atlantic"; Paul Gilroy's "the black Atlantic," from the title of his 1993 study The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness; "the circum Atlantic," from the title of Joseph Roach's 1996 book Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance; the more recent contribution by William Boelhower, "the New Atlantic Studies Matrix," from his essay for "Twenty Years of American Literary History: The Anniversary Volume"; and the expression that Robin D. G. Kelley and fellow historians of the African diaspora interrogate, "black globality."2 In the decade preceding the publication of Professor Carretta's biography, then, an especially broad range of scholars have been investigating the contexts of the transatlantic slave trade, and those studies form a rich backdrop for the life of this slave who appropriated the name Gustavus Vassa as well as "Oluadah Equiano."

As the November 2005 review in The Nation made clear, "Carretta has done some very skillful sleuthing and presents evidence that can be interpreted in different ways."3 Several marked differences appear throughout the following comments, based on the participants' opening remarks at the colloquy in Atlanta. Following those remarks, panelists and audience members joined in a lively, substantive discussion of the book and the issues that it continues to raise.

Vincent Carretta

Thank you, Professor Moore, for the very flattering recognition of my efforts on behalf of our hero, Olaudah Equiano, and for giving us a forum to talk about him and my Equiano, the African.

Equiano has had a very big year. He's a major character in the film Amazing Grace, the story of the life of British abolitionist William Wilberforce, which opened in the U.S. in February 2007, and in the United Kingdom the following month, the bicentenary of the British abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. The film is full of anachronisms and violates the letter of Equiano's life, but it arguably endorses the spirit by returning Equiano to the center of the abolitionist movement. In March 2007 I spoke on Equiano as an abolitionist at Westminster Abbey's Commemoration of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, one of many occasions when Equiano was celebrated during the bicenntenial year. Also in March 2007, Britain issued stamps commemorating both Equiano and Ignatius Sancho. In September 2007, a major exhibit about Equiano's life and times opened at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in England. And as of fall 2007, [End Page 2] British students were being required to learn about Equiano, Ignatius Sancho, and other African Britons. In February 2008, a memorial plaque was placed in St. Margaret's, Westminster, to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Equiano's baptism there. I like to think that my biography has contributed to the recuperation of Equiano's historical and literary significance.

Many of us teach what we research. I came...

pdf

Share