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Dear John,
With so much uncertainty and upheaval in the world right now, it can be difficult to know where to focus our attention. Our February Lunch & Learn programs will offer you the opportunity to look ahead while also recognizing how the past continues to influence our present.
Together, we will delve into the power of storytelling as a means of understanding history and guiding future actions. From discussing the global slave trade to exploring local clam fisheries in what we now call Maine, these conversations will challenge mainstream narratives and highlight how reexamining the past can promote healing, resilience, and action. These discussions will also provide new perspectives on the connections between history, community, and change.
I hope you’ll join us for these engaging conversations.
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Friday, February 7, 12-1 PM: The Malaga Ship | Maine, the Global Slave Trade, and Healing Through Artistic Reclamations
The global slave trade impacted nearly every continent and place on earth in some way. It was the largest forced movement of people in human history. Maine was deeply connected to global slavery through both the materials produced by enslaved Africans and the trade in enslaved Africans themselves. The brig Malaga was built in 1832 in Brunswick, Maine, by Joseph Badger. The Malaga made numerous trips to Africa, the Caribbean, and South America during the 1830s and 1840s, many under highly suspicious circumstances. In 1846, it was consigned by notorious Brazilian slave trader Manoel Pinto da Fonseca and was captured before enslaved people were loaded on board off the coast of Cabinda, Angola. A few months later, it returned to Africa and was captured by the British navy with 830 captive Africans—many of whom were sick and dying—on board.
175 years later, Antonio Rocha reclaims the story of Malaga and its captives in a stunning performance piece. “The Malaga Ship Story” is a tour de force performance. Using his entire body and voice, Antonio sings, narrates, and mimes his way through this poetically toned historical tale told mostly from the perspective of the ship. The story vividly explores the reality and impact of the slave industry, which was the largest industry in the world in the 1800s. The story also has a deep connection to the performer, for the Malaga went to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1845, where Antonio was raised in a biracial household over a century later.
In this session, Antonio Rocha will be joined by Dr. Kate McMahon, Historian of Global Slavery at the Smithsonian African-American History Museum. Together, they will tell the story of the Malaga and reflect on the ways in which historians and artists can collaborate to create new forms of healing and justice through artistic creation.
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Friday, February 14, 12-1 PM: No Lunch & Learn
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Friday, Friday 21, 12-1 PM: Communicating care in coastal fisheries | Narratives of restoration, adaptation, and collaborative policy change
The soft-shell clam fishery in Maine and Wabanaki homelands is in a state of crisis, or so say most news reports about this fishery. While there is ample evidence that small-scale fisheries and the communities these fisheries support are rapidly changing, the crisis narrative conceals more than it reveals about how communities are actively responding and the longer-term histories that have led to climate change. In this presentation, Professor Bridie McGreavy shares collaborative research that focuses on the dominance of the crisis narrative in news reports about clamming and connects with critiques in Native American and Indigenous Studies and environmental communication that describe some of the problems with this narrative. This research highlights a need to shift from narratives of crisis to practices of care, including relational and networked approaches to listening for more just resilience and climate adaptation planning. This presentation also connects with a paper that was published in a special issue of the Maine Policy Review and is available here [[link removed]] .
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Friday, February 28, 12-1 PM: No Lunch & Learn
I’m excited to kick off February with you!
Maggie
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