Lecture remembers slavery in the Nile Valley

Eve Trout Powell, professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, will speak on "Remembering Slavery in the Nile Valley" on Thursday, September 20, at 7 p.m. in the GVSU Loosemore Auditorium, DeVos Center, 401 W. Fulton, Grand Rapids. This event is free and open to the public.

Powell is currently working on a book which examines how slaveholders and slaves in the Nile Valley, wrote, sang or talked about the experience of servitude and its meaning in their society. Both her research and teaching explore the relationship between Africa and the Middle East.

A cultural historian and teacher about the modern Middle East, Powell has written many articles and co-edited with John Hunwick, “The African in the Mediterranean Lands of Islam.” Educated at Harvard, she has received fellowships from the American Research Center in Egypt and the Social Science Research Council, and has been a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. In 2003, Powell was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow.

Powell’s Grand Valley lecture is presented as part of Remembering the Crossings, a series of events throughout the year to promote awareness of 2007 as the bicentennial of the abolition of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and is co-sponsored by Grand Valley’s Middle East Studies program. For more information, contact Majd Al-Mallah at (616) 331-8110, or Steeve Buckridge at (616) 331-8550, or visit www.gvsu.edu/abolition .