Brown Bag, Research Fellow
The Last & Living Words of Mark: Following the Clues to the Enslaved Man’s Life, Afterlife, and to his Community in Boston, Charlestown, and South Shore Massachusetts
16 October 2019.Wednesday, 12:00PM - 1:00PM
Catherine Sasanov, Independent Researcher
Mark (1725-1755), a blacksmith, husband, and father, might have slipped from public memory if not ...
Mark (1725-1755), a blacksmith, husband, and father, might have slipped from public memory if not for his brutal end: his body gibbeted for decades on Charlestown Common for the poisoning of his enslaver, John Codman. This project, grounded in Mark’s testimony, approaches “legal” and other documents as crime scenes; attention to clues, connections, and seemingly insignificant details unlock important, previously unrecognized aspects of Mark’s world, thwarting their original intent: the enforcement of slavery’s status quo.
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Brown Bag
Inhuman Women and Puritanical Legacies in The VVitch 2015
30 October 2019.Wednesday, 12:00PM - 1:00PM
Amber Hodge, University of Mississippi
The VVitch (2015) visualizes historical oppression as an origin for present-day ...
The VVitch (2015) visualizes historical oppression as an origin for present-day animalization and concordant disenfranchisement of women who operate outside of proscribed social norms. This talk connects MHS’s archives to The VVitch’s depiction of animality as both feminine and evil to demonstrate the legacy of patriarchal puritanism and possibilities for resistance.
MoreThis project will examine the intimate lives of enslaved, servant, and poor women using cases in which their supposedly “deviant” bodies entered the historical record – in court cases, almshouse ledgers, and cheap print. Often overlooked in histories of New England, these women made up a crucial part of colonial society. Their bodies and labors (productive and reproductive) were used against their wills. Nonetheless, these sources reveal laboring women's everyday efforts to control their own bodies and sexualities.
More
Mark (1725-1755), a blacksmith, husband, and father, might have slipped from public memory if not for his brutal end: his body gibbeted for decades on Charlestown Common for the poisoning of his enslaver, John Codman. This project, grounded in Mark’s testimony, approaches “legal” and other documents as crime scenes; attention to clues, connections, and seemingly insignificant details unlock important, previously unrecognized aspects of Mark’s world, thwarting their original intent: the enforcement of slavery’s status quo.
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The VVitch (2015) visualizes historical oppression as an origin for present-day animalization and concordant disenfranchisement of women who operate outside of proscribed social norms. This talk connects MHS’s archives to The VVitch’s depiction of animality as both feminine and evil to demonstrate the legacy of patriarchal puritanism and possibilities for resistance.
closeThis project will examine the intimate lives of enslaved, servant, and poor women using cases in which their supposedly “deviant” bodies entered the historical record – in court cases, almshouse ledgers, and cheap print. Often overlooked in histories of New England, these women made up a crucial part of colonial society. Their bodies and labors (productive and reproductive) were used against their wills. Nonetheless, these sources reveal laboring women's everyday efforts to control their own bodies and sexualities.
close