Events

Our Cambridge-based programme includes lectures, workshops, exhibitions, and community activities that explore the University’s historical links to slavery and colonialism and encourage dialogue on their ongoing impact.

Upcoming events

Translation Networks in the Decolonising World, 1950s–1970s - 24 to 25 April
Organiser: The Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH)
Description: A two-day conference exploring how translation networks circulated anticolonial and postcolonial ideas across Africa, Asia and Latin America during the decolonising era.

In conversation: Louis Herns Marcelin and Ola Osman on legacies of enslavement and contemporary violence in Liberia and Haiti - 6 May
Organiser: Legacies of Enslavement Special Initiative
This hybrid event brings together Dr Louis Herns Marcelin (University of Miami) and Dr Ola Osman (University of Cambridge) for a round‑table conversation exploring how the legacies of enslavement and colonialism continue to shape contemporary forms of violence in Liberia and Haiti.  
Register to attend in person 
Register to attend online 

Bearing Witness: Responsibility, Recognition, and the Quest for Repair  - 12 May 
Organiser: St Edmunds College
Registrations are now open for this year’s Von Hügel Lecture, to be delivered by Professor Pumla Gobodo‑Madikizela, recipient of the 2024 Templeton Prize. Although centred on South Africa, her scholarship offers powerful insights into memory, responsibility, and repair that resonate with global conversations about historical injustice. 

Annual lecture | Afterimages: Grieving in fractured time - 21 May 
Organiser: The Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH)
Description: Prof Tina Campt (Princeton University) will present an excerpt from her forthcoming book, Art in a Time of Sorrow, reflecting on how writing to art helped her navigate personal grief amid broader social pain. Her talk examines how Black contemporary artists create works that express the unseen, giving form to grief and mourning.

Members of the Legacies of Enslavement Network also organise events that align with our shared aims in locations beyond Cambridge. These activities provide opportunities to engage with research and dialogue on slavery, colonialism, and their legacies across the UK and internationally. Please check this page regularly as we add new events throughout the year.

Please note that responsibility for organisation and content rests with the hosting institution or group.

Upcoming events

Transforming colonial spaces: Memory activism & the afterlives of slavery in the Dominican Republic -  8 April 
Organiser: The WashU & Slavery Project
Description: Join Ruth Pión (Mellon Threatened Scholar Fellow and founder of Afro-HistoriaRD) and Sophia Monegro (CRE2 Postdoctoral Fellow) in a discussion of their collaborative memory activism in the Dominican Republic. 
 
Standing In This Place: A sculpture and heritage project - 16 April  
Organiser: Wilberforce Institute (University of Hull).
Description: Explores Standing In This Place, a sculpture and heritage project honouring women’s labour both as enslaved workers in the Americas and Caribbean and as factory workers in industrial Britain. 

Breaking Dead Silence: Engaging with the Legacies of Empire and Slave-Ownership in Bath and Bristol’s Memoryscapes - 21 April
Organisers: Centre for the Study of International Slavery (Liverpool) and Liverpool University Press.
Description: Presentation and discussion of this important new book.

Rethinking Windrush: transatlantic Indo-Caribbean experiences  - 21 April 
Organiser: Royal Museums Greenwich
Description: This seminar introduces the Indo-Caribbean Windrush Oral History Project, exploring how indenture and postwar migration continue to shape the experiences and heritage of IndoCaribbean communities in Britain. 

CoDE seminar: 'Sexual Violence in Racial Capitalism'  - 23 April 
Organiser: Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE)
Professor Alison Phipps examines how sexual violence operates within racial capitalist systems, including its entanglements with dispossession, labour extraction and colonial power structures. 

Cohesion and Conflict: Enslaved Society on Turner's Hall Plantation - 21 May 
Organiser: Wilberforce Institute (University of Hull).
Description: Examines life and social dynamics on a Barbadian sugar plantation, 1755–1834. 

Windrush Food Culture - Exhibition open until 20 July 2026.
Organiser: The National Windrush Museum. 
Description: This exhibition explores how the Windrush Generation brought not only their food, but also their memories, resilience, creativity, and skills to post‑war Britain.

This section provides details of previous events, along with resources such as recordings, blogs, papers and further information where available. 

Celebrating Black Minds: Opening event at the Fitzwilliam Museum - 29 January 2026
The opening event of Celebrating Black Minds, marked the launch of a year-long programme dedicated to celebrating and amplifying the intellectual, cultural and civic contributions of Black scholars at the University of Cambridge. 

Book launch & discussion: The University of Cambridge in the Age of Atlantic Slavery - 18 November 2025
The Legacies of Enslavement Initiative and Cambridge University Press hosted the launch of The University of Cambridge in the Age of Atlantic Slavery by Dr Nicolas Bell-Romero. Dr Bell-Romero's book was the result of several years of research, initially undertaken in the context of the 2019-2022 University Legacies of Enslavement working group.

Simón Bolívar Seminar: Manoel Joaquim Ricardo, A successful Hausa freedman in Bahia - 13 October 2025
The Centre of Latin American Studies (CLAS), in collaboration with the Legacies of Enslavement Special Initiative, opened its Michaelmas Term seminar series with a public lecture by Professor João José Reis, Simón Bolívar Professor at CLAS 2025–26. The event was chaired by Dr Adrián Lerner Patrón and brought together students, academics and members of the wider community. 

Searching for My Slave Roots: A conversation with author Malik Al Nasir - 9 October 2025
As part of Black History Month 2025, St Catharine’s College History Society and the Faculty of Education hosted an evening event to mark the publication of Malik Al Nasir’s new book, Searching for My Slave Roots: From Guyana’s Sugar Plantations to Cambridge (William Collins, 2025). The event was sponsored by the University’s Legacies of Enslavement project and ThinkLab.