In conjunction with the exhibition Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and his Worlds, at the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA), the YCBA and the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition are co-sponsoring a major international conference on The Legacies of Slavery and Emancipation: Jamaica in the Atlantic World on November 1-3, 2007.

This is the Gilder Lehrman Center’s ninth annual international fall conference. The focus of this conference is one of the central themes of the exhibition: the YCBA unfinished legacy of Jamaican slavery, both for present-day Jamaica and the wider Atlantic world. Scholars from the UK, the US, and the West Indies, as well as visual artists, musicians, and film-makers will investigate a range of topics including labor, music, and the legacies of slavery in Jamaica and Britain. Complementing these panels will be a series of break out sessions in the exhibition and the collections of the YCBA and other institutions at Yale, including the Beinecke Library, in which the broader conceptual and historical issues debated during the conference can be brought to bear on the analysis of specific objects and images. This conference is free and open to the public. Registration is required, and may be made online. For registration and more information about the conference visit www.yale.edu/glc/belisario/index.htm.

A related exhibition, Documenting Slavery, is on view at the Beinecke Library until November 5th. In honor of the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the British slave trade, the exhibition “Documenting Slavery” gathers materials from across the Beinecke’s collections to document aspects of slavery in the United States and abroad: the slave trade, abolition, emancipation, and individual experiences of slavery from various points of view, including those of slave owners, politicians, and former slaves. For more information about the exhibition visit: Documenting Slavery. Exhibition highlights are discussed in the exhibition netcast: Documenting Slavery, Exhibition Highlights by the Curator (MP3).