Remaking the World: Lessons on Anti-Colonial Place-Making from the Afro-Indigenous Caribbean
February 10, 2023
1:00 pm EST
The Pit, Architecture Building
2023 OPEN FORUM LECTURE SERIES
Remaking the World:
Lessons on Anti-Colonial Place-Making from the Afro-Indigenous Caribbean
Date: Friday, February 10, 1:00 p.m.
Location: The Pit, Architecture Building, Carleton University
TOPIC
This year’s theme is REFUGE, Refuge refers to the layers of safety and welcome created in the past centuries on Turtle Island. Waves of both refugees and settlers have found safe haven here and created new spatial relationships with Indigenous peoples. Refuge made in love and beauty, and sometimes, taking the refuge of home from Indigenous peoples.
SPEAKER
Melanie J. Newton is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Toronto, where she teaches Caribbean and Atlantic World History. Her publications include The Children of Africa in the Colonies: Free People of Color in Barbados in the Age of Emancipation, Returns to a Native Land? Indigeneity and Decolonization in the Anglophone Caribbean and Counterpoints of Conquest: The Royal Proclamation of 1763, the Lesser Antilles and the Ethnocartography of Genocide.
At the University of Toronto, Dr. Newton has served in various administrative roles, including Director of the Caribbean Studies Program and Chair of the Faculty of Arts and Science Academic Appeals Board. She began a three-year term as Associate Chair (Graduate) of the Department of History at the University of Toronto in July 2022. From 1996-98 she served as youth representative on the Barbados Constitution Review Commission, which recommended that Barbados move from its status as a constitutional monarchy to a republic. The government of Barbados took up the commission’s recommendation in 2021. She is co-chair of the City of Toronto’s Community Advisory Committee on the renaming of Dundas St.
ABOUT THE LECTURE SERIES
The 2023 Open Forum Lecture Series, led by Dr. Menna Agha and Dr. Omeasoo Wahpasiw, will include three talks, an exhibition, and the Azrieli School of Architecture & Urbanism’s first annual Indigenous Feast. This event aims to transform architectural education in university settings in Canada.
The first edition of the Feast is a two-day workshop grounded in Indigenous knowledge through practices of storytelling, sharing, making, and becoming. Indigenous knowledge keepers will host talks, fabrication and art workshops, food making, and sharing.
The 2023 Open Forum theme is Refuge, referring to the layers of safety and welcome created in the past centuries on Turtle Island. Waves of both refugees and settlers have found a haven here and created new spatial relationships with Indigenous peoples. Refuge made in love and beauty, and sometimes, taking the refuge of home from Indigenous peoples.
Everyone is welcome to attend the events at Carleton University’s Architecture Building.