Forthcoming UGRR conference, February 16, 2022

Our Annnual conference will celebrate its 19th anniversary on February 16, 2022. The conference is free and open to all.

Pre-registration is recommended.

Call for papers: Send inquiries to anadolu@temple.edu

Requested: 250 word abstracts and a short bio of 100 words.

 Papers on any aspect of digital technology, and its contribution to our knowledge and information areas about Underground Railroad History are welcome. The program will include paper presentations and a panel on “Digital Learning.”

Deadline: December 5, 2021.

In 2021 February our conference theme was: “Camp William Penn and United States Colored Troops Recruitment, Training & Fight for Freedom”
Free and open to all, the conference is annually sponsored by Temple University Department of Africology and African American Studies with the Consortium of CWEST. It took place on zoom with a special session on William Still on his 200th Anniversary |
on  February 17 2021 berween 1:00-4:00PM.
bit.ly/UGRRconference

In the midst of a global pandemic, and civil rights protests in 2020, America is looking for justice and healing.

https://www.ataa.org/newsletter/dispossessed-america-in-pursuit-of-justice-and-healing-during-covid-19

In 1841, William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass formed a partnership that would last a decade and forever change the abolitionist movement. Throughout the stages of their extraordinary alliance, anti-slavery mobilization was accelerated, reaching its height between 1841 and 1851. Centering their arguments on emancipation, women’s equality, and suffrage, the two men worked tirelessly to publicize and recruit for their cause. Their work initiated a new discourse of social reform and critique, positioning the abolition of slavery at the center of progressive social concerns throughout the first half of the nineteenth century.
Dismantling Slavery is the first book to address these two giants of abolition—Douglass and Garrison—simultaneously. While underscoring the evolution of abolitionist discourse, Dismantling Slavery unveils the true nature of the friendship between Douglass and Garrison, a key ingredient often overlooked by scholars. Drawing on the writings, speeches, and experiences that shaped the two as abolitionists, Nilgün Anadolu-Okur’s groundbreaking study is one account of the ways in which abolitionist discourse was shaped and put to the purposes of moral and democratic reforms. In addition to turning a close eye on the relationship between Douglass and Garrison, Anadolu-Okur also details significant developments that occurred in tandem among other abolitionists and activists of the era, making for a compelling account of this pivotal decade in American history, up until the dissolution of Garrison and Douglass’s partnership.
Dismantling Slavery represents a significant interdisciplinary contribution to the study of abolitionist discourse and will appeal to a wide range of nineteenth-century scholars.

As a young British author, Julia Pardoe arrived Istanbul in 1834 and compiled one of the most fascinating narratives on Istanbul and Turkish culture in 1836. The three-volume book was an immediate success and it went through several editions. It featured sketches and drawings of Bosphorus, as well as street scenes, depicting men, women and children, during a critical time period while Turkish society was going through a major socio-political transformation.

“From Cybele to Artemisia: Motherhood and Great Mothers of Ancient Anatolia,” in Motherhood in the Ancient World. eds. Dana Cooper and Claire Phelan, New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).

This chapter investigates female deities of Ancient Anatolia, in particular Cybele. While I was completing the research, a miraculous event took place. A 2,100 year-old statue of the Goddess was unearthed on top of a mountain, near the Black Sea, in Northern Turkey! Depicting the Goddess in a seated posture, the statue amazed the archeologists across the world.

http://www.archaeology.org/news/4826-160909-anatolia-cybele-statue

https://travelatelier.com/turkey-travel-blog/2100-year-old-statue-cybele-found-ordu-black-sea/

The Cambridge Companion to American Civil Rights Literature, March 2015

 Title: “Drama and Performance from Civil Rights to Black Arts”

Civil Rights Movement impacted all aspects of American life, including arts and theater. I analyzed the impact of socio-cultural developments throughout Sixties and Seventies, on African American theater, the Black Arts Movement and timeless productions by renowned playwrights from August Wilson to Amiri Baraka.

Reviews available in Callaloo and Journal of Southern Literature