Recovering enslaved peoples' perspectives from archives, literature, and art

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (@HenryLouisGates) is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist, cultural critic, and institution builder, Professor Gates has published numerous books and produced and hosted an array of documentary films.

Isaac Julien is a Turner prize-nominated artist and filmmaker and a recipient of The Royal Academy of Arts Charles Wollaston Award appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2017. Julien creates multi-screen film installations and photographs that incorporate different artistic disciplines to create a poetic and unique visual language, with his recent survey show What Freedom is to Me exhibited at Tate Britain. Born in 1960 in London, he is one of the most prominent figures at the intersection of media art and cinema today. Julien was awarded a Knighthood (Knight Bachelor) in The Queen’s Jubilee Birthday Honours List 2022.

Imaobong Umoren(@ImaobongUmoren3) is an Associate Professor of International History at LSE. Her research interests focus on histories of gender, racism, colonialism, and political thought in the the modern Caribbean, US and Britain.