"Proclaiming Emancipation" conference features keynote speaker Eric Foner

By Clarissa Sansone
Oct. 22, 2012

Historian Eric Foner, who won the 2011 Pulitzer, Bancroft, and Lincoln prizes for his book The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, is the keynote speaker for October 26's "Proclaiming Emancipation" conference. Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, specializes in the Civil War, Reconstruction, and slavery, as well as 19th-century America, and is the author of more than a dozen books on these subjects. Prof. Foner's keynote will be livestreamed for those who wish to hear it but cannot attend.

In addition to Prof. Foner's keynote lecture, the conference—which commemorates the upcoming sesquicentennial of the Emancipation Proclamation (issued January 1, 1863)—includes panel discussions on the legal aspects of the Proclamation and emancipation itself, and on the cultural meanings and repercussions of emancipation.

MLaw faculty contributing to the panel discussions are Profs. Martha Jones (co-curator of the accompanying "Proclaiming Emancipation" exhibit), Richard Primus, Julian Mortenson, William Novak, and Rebecca Scott. Also presenting are historians Kate Masur (Northwestern University), Stephen Sawyer (The American University of Paris), James Oakes (CUNY Graduate Center), Michael Vorenberg (Brown University), and Thavolia Glymph (Duke University); Hannah Rosen (U-M's Institute for Research on Women and Gender); and law professor John Witt (Yale University).

Events will take place in Room 100 of the Hatcher Graduate Library and in the Law School's Aikens Commons. The public is welcome and encouraged to attend. View a schedule of events and a conference program.

The conference, and its accompanying exhibit (which runs until February 18, 2013), are sponsored by the Law School's Program in Race, Law & History, the William L. Clements Library, and The University of Michigan Library.

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