In conversation with Jean Pfaelzer

This lunchtime talk explores 250 years of enslavement and coerced labour in the U.S. West and how enslaved people narrated their own histories across this long, multi-ethnic landscape.
Event details
Speaker: Professor Jean Pfaelzer (University of Delaware; Murray Edwards College, Cambridge)

12 May | 12.30 pm to 1.30 pm (brown‑bag lunchtime talk — bring your own lunch)
Room S1, Alison Richard Building, 7 West Road, Cambridge, CB3 9DP
Free and open to all, but booking is essential.

Event description
Join us for a brown‑bag lunchtime conversation with Professor Jean Pfaelzer, whose groundbreaking work brings to light 250 years of enslavement, forced labour, and human trafficking in the U.S. West—stretching from the Mission era to the present.

Drawing on her forthcoming anthology of California slave narratives, Pfaelzer will give a short 30‑minute overview of her current research, followed by time for open discussion. She explores how enslaved and coerced people—from Native Americans and African Americans to Chinese women trafficked into prostitution—told their own histories of bondage, and how this multiethnic history of slavery has long been marginalised in U.S. narratives.

This session is part of her Easter Term residency as a Senior Research Fellow at Murray Edwards College, and provides an opportunity for colleagues working in slavery studies, human rights, memory, and migration to connect with her work.

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Host or Publisher University of Cambridge – Legacies of Enslavement