Description:

The ACH and the CAAH/AFAM Colloquium present Michelle McKinley (U. of Oregon):

"Freed at the Font: Childhood manumission and re-enslavement in colonial Lima"

Prof. McKinley will discuss a section of her recent book entitled "Fractional Freedoms: Slavery, Intimacy and Legal Mobilization in Colonial Lima, 1600-1700" (2016). This book explores how thousands of slaves in colonial Peru were able to secure their freedom, keep their families intact, negotiate lower self-purchase prices, and arrange transfers of ownership by filing legal claims. This work demonstrates how enslaved women used channels of affection and intimacy to press for liberty and prevent the generational transmission of enslavement to their children.

Michelle McKinley is the Bernard B. Kliks Professor of Law at the University of Oregon School of Law. Previously she served as the Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development. McKinley’s scholarly work is located at two disciplinary intersections: law and anthropology, and law and history. Both history and anthropology drive a long-standing interest and passion for understanding the ways in which the law is shaped by wider social and cultural processes. McKinley has published extensively on public international law, globalization, and legal history, particularly the law of slavery. Her articles appear in the Law and History Review; Slavery & Abolition; Journal of Family History, Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law & Justice; Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power; Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities, and Unbound: Harvard Law Journal of the Legal Left among others. She has been awarded fellowships for her research from the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Science Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, American Philosophical Society, and the Newberry Library. McKinley spent last year as a fellow at Princeton University’s Program in Law and Public Affairs completing a manuscript on enslaved women’s use of civil and ecclesiastical courts in colonial Lima, which is forthcoming in Cambridge University Press’ Studies in Legal History series. She was also a Fulbright fellow in Colombia in 2015.

Paper available upon request at wmaradiegue@u.northwestern.edu