Slave Ship, Memory and the Origin of Modernity

Martyn Hudson directs the Co-Curate North East Programme at Newcastle University and works on the relations between sound archives, history, and social machines with a specific interest in web-based slave databases and archives. He has directed arts and history projects with refugees, trauma and torture survivors and trafficked migrants and is currently working with projects to support new boat peoples like the Rohingya and in music projects to support trauma recovery.

• Introduction: the slave ship, memory and the origin of modernity1. The sea, the passage, and slavery2. The dark hold: the slave ship and the middle passage3. Marx and the pirates: ‘forcing houses of internationalism’ and the nautical proletariat4. Wooden life-worlds: memory studies and the experience of slavery5. The slave ship, plantations and materiality of memory6. The passage, syncretic memory and sound7. Traces, memory, and the humanConclusions - memory, slavery, modernityReferencesIndex

Hudson's search for authentic voices of the millions of enslaved Africans shipped as cargo across the Atlantic to the Americas leads to an impressive original discussion of the methodologies involved in recapturing this crucial phase of the creation of African-American cultures.Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Michigan State University, USA