Chris Schmidt-Nowara In Memoriam (1966-2015): Pioneer of Atlantic Empire and Antislavery Studies

Session Submission Type: Workshop

Abstract

This panel discusses and honors the pioneering legacy and contribution to Atlantic studies of empire and antislavery movements of our recently deceased distinguished LASA member Chris Schmidt-Nowara, Prince of Asturias Chair in Spanish Culture and Civilization at Tufts University at the time of his death and former Magiis Professor at Fordham University. “Starting with his dissertation on Spanish abolitionism, which later became Empire and Antislavery: Spain, Cuba And Puerto Rico 1833-1874 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999), all of Chris’s work sits,” as Prof. Ada Ferrer of NYU asserts, “at the intersection of European and American history, Atlantic from its conception long before that was fashionable.” He would go on to publish Slavery, Freedom and Abolition in Latin America and the Atlantic World (University of New Mexico Press, 2011), which was selected by Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries as one of the year’s outstanding academic titles, and Slavery and Antislavery in Spain’s Atlantic Empire (Berghahn Books, 2013). “A truly Atlantic scholarly work,” Prof. Yuko Miki of Fordham confirms, this “superb book, with which I always begins my course ‘Slavery & Freedom in the Atlantic World,’ elegantly and concisely lays out the Iberian precedents … of slavery in the modern world, thus challenging readers to move beyond the familiar confines of the U.S. and Britain.” A distinguished group of scholars who specialize in Latin American, American and Atlantic Studies will discuss and honor Prof. Schmidt-Nowara’s pioneering contribution to Atlantic studies:Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, Alice Drysdale Sheffield Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin, Benjamin Carp, Associate Professor and Daniel M. Lyons Chair of History at Brooklyn College, Geraldo Cadava, Assistant Professor of History at Northwestern University, and Barbara Mundy, Professor of Art History at Fordham University.

Sub Track

• Afro-Latin/Indigenous Peoples

Chair

• Arnaldo Cruz-Malave, Fordham University

Presenters

• Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, University of Texas/Austin

• Geraldo L Cadava, Northwestern University

• Benjamin L Carp, Brooklyn College, CUNY

• Barbara E Mundy, Fordham University