Understanding African American Rhetorical Presences in Seventeenth-Century Colonial Virginia
Thursday, October 16, 2025 2:00 PM EDT
The Hub, 3, 4, 5
"This talk argues that seventeenth-century African American rhetorical presences in colonial Virginia are more than minor historical details; they are crucial to understanding the history of African American rhetoric. It mainly focuses on interpreting references to the material world from African Americans’ actions that challenged the normalization of American chattel slavery, which I suggest can be seen in the rhetorical presence of their actions enacting freedom.
I analyze rhetorical presences in travel writing, spiritual accounts, freedom suits, and the creation of colonial laws aimed at prohibiting African Americans’ community practices, such as funerary rites. In many of these cases, like in the freedom suit of Elizabeth Key Grinstead, I show how, despite oppressive language, the rhetorical presences of these African Americans embody cultural footprints that provide new insights into human liberation during this period.
African American Rhetoric is a rich cultural and artistic tradition rooted in a collective and cosmic memory of an African past. Instead of disconnecting these early Africans from that memory, I interpret their defiance of colonial social and political norms through the prominence of their disruptions in the rhetorical record of colonial Virginia."
Hosted by the English Department.
