Institute for Historical Studies – Monday February 14, 2022
Notes from the Director
The 1619 Project has attracted a lot of attention. Some historians have been critical of what they see as factual errors in the original manifesto. Some historians, for example, have questioned The 1619 Project’s representation of independence from Britain as a social movement aimed at supporting and maintaining slavery (the focus of the critique of historians like Harris, Oates, Wilentz, and Wood, among others).
But is the debate really about “facts”? At its core, The 1619 Project offers a critique to the narrative of progressive expansion of the franchise and freedom. The 1619 Project, it seems, challenges the very category of Black History “Month”: Black history cannot neatly be rent from the larger fabric of US history.
The Institute for Historical Studies has invited senior U.S. historians to explore these questions: In which ways is The 1619 Project an alternative narrative to the mainstream of U.S. historiography? Does the narrative arc of U.S. history ultimately bend in the direction of justice? Does The 1619 Project incorporate the struggles of other racial groups into its new, baseline narrative? How so, or how not?
Featured Discussants:
Leslie M. Harris
Professor of History and African American Studies, Northwestern University; Author, “I Helped Fact-Check the 1619 Project. The Times Ignored Me,” (Politico, 03/06/2020); and Fellow Alumna, 2013-2014, Institute for Historical Studies, The University of Texas at Austin
Jessica Marie Johnson
Assistant Professor of History, Johns Hopkins University;
Fellow, Hutchins Center for African and African American Studies, Harvard University; and Director of LifexCode: Digital Humanities Against Enclosure
Peniel E. Joseph
Associate Dean for Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion; Barbara Jordan Chair in Ethics and Political Values; Professor of History and Public Affairs; and Founding Director, Center for the Study of Race and Democracy
The University of Texas at Austin
Jeremi Suri
Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs, and Professor of History and Public Affairs
The University of Texas at Austin
Emilio Zamora
Clyde Rabb Littlefield Chair in Texas History, and Professor of History and Mexican American Studies
The University of Texas at Austin
Moderated by:
Dr. Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra
Alice Drysdale Sheffield Professor of History; and
Director, Institute of Historical Studies
The University of Texas at Austin
This conversation is the first of two addressing The 1619 Project. The second roundtable approaches The 1619 Project from a continental, Afro Latiné perspective, and takes place Monday, February 28. It will convene Dr. Herman L. Bennett (The Graduate Center, CUNY), Dr. Michelle McKinley (University of Oregon), Dr. Danielle Terrazas Williams (University of Leeds, UK), and Dr. Miguel Valerio (Washington University in St. Louis). Info here, and registration here.
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