Suchergebnisse

Why does Edward Long's History of Jamaica matter? Written in 1774, Long's History, that most 'civilised' of documents, attempted to define White and Black as essentially different and unequal. Long deployed natural history and social theory, carefully mapping the island, and drawing on poetry and engravings, in his efforts to establish a clear and fixed racialized hierarchy. His White family sat at the heart of Jamaican planter society and the West India trade in sugar, which provided the economic bedrock of this eighteenth-century system of racial capitalism. Catherine Hall tells the story behind the History of a slave-owning family that prospered across generations together with the destruction of such possibilities for enslaved people. She unpicks the many contradictions in Long's thinking, exposing the insidious myths and stereotypes that have poisoned social relations over generations and allowed reconfigured forms of racial difference and racial capitalism to live on in contemporary societies.

Abstract
Racial capitalism is a way of talking about the intersections of racisms and capitalisms: but how does it operate in practice? This essay explores the derivation of the term and focuses on one concrete example from the eighteenth-century Atlantic. Hereditary racial slavery and mercantile capitalism were articulated together: the expropriation of African lives and labour enabled the production of wealth for slave-owners and merchants. Both the metropolitan state and the Jamaican colonial state were critical in providing economic, legal, political and military frameworks legitimating White power and Black subjection.

This article asks whether history writing can be reparatory. Opening with a discussion of the bi-centenary of the abolition of the slave trade in 2007 and the national conversation that was created at that time, it goes on to reflect on contestations over memory and the significance of the emergence of reparations as a key term with which to think about the wrongs of the past and the possibilities of repair. It uses a discussion of the author's individual and collaborative historical work to argue for the importance of a different understanding of Britain's involvement in the slavery business and our responsibilities, as beneficiaries, of the gross inequalities associated with slavery and colonialism.

Abstract
Wizard rock, often stylized in written form as 'wrock', creatively engages with and augments the content world of Harry Potter through musically and lyrically diverse performances. Fan studies centred on Harry Potter have often discussed the application of fictional heroism to real-world issues, and wizard rock musicians are frequently cited as fandom activists. However, there is little analysis of the music, lyrics and performances of wizard rock as it relates to the moral messages of the series. Focusing on the work of the first wizard rock band, Harry and the Potters, I unite ethnographic fieldwork with historical research and the study of myth to place wizard rock within a narrative of musical activism, fan creativity and morality in music. Similar to their heroes in the books, these musicians imbue their music and their self images with the series' morals, historical tropes and archetypes. They make this morality tangible by donating proceeds of compilation albums or music subscription series sales to nonprofit organizations, and by weaving these messages into their music. I argue that the wizard rock community's application of fictional heroism through music, lyrics and performance encourages fellow Harry Potter fans to embrace heroic qualities in the real world.