AHA Session 280
Sunday, January 11, 2026: 11:00 AM-12:30 PM
Continental A (Hilton Chicago, Lobby Level)
Chair:
Leslie M. Harris, Northwestern University
Panel:
Michael Becker, University of Maryland, College Park
Matthew Stallard, University College London
Sophie White, University of Notre Dame
Matthew Stallard, University College London
Sophie White, University of Notre Dame
Session Abstract
What are the possibilities and challenges of a digital humanities approach to the history of slavery? How do new technologies and methodologies allow us to ask different questions and/or reach different audiences? How do we ethically engage with the archival violences inherent in such histories? This panel engages with these and other related questions in bringing together scholars working on several cutting edge digital humanities projects at different stages of development.
Sophie White discusses the corpus of testimonies from enslaved people in French colonial courts and her efforts to present selections from this corpus in ““Voices of the Enslaved: A Digital Humanities Approach to Encountering the Archives.” Matthew Stallard explores the Centre for Legacies of British Slavery’s innovative digital approaches to use the registers of enslaved to explore the lives and experiences of enslaved communities in the British Empire. Michael Becker discusses the Slavery, Law & Power project’s curated collection of key manuscript sources, creating open-access critical editions of documents.
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