Image: Courtesy of Penn Press/ Kathleen Brown
By: Kristen de Groot
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The American antislavery struggle is often associated with the image of white, religious activists using biblical arguments to bolster their push to free enslaved people.
But a new book by historian Kathleen M. Brown of the School of Arts & Sciences turns that idea on its head. “Undoing Slavery: Bodies, Race and Rights in the Age of Abolition” takes a fresh look at that struggle for liberty and highlights how bodily rights and personal freedom were put at the forefront of the fight, often by Black women abolitionists.
Brown’s “Undoing Slavery” is also the focus of the first episode in a new podcast series by the McNeil Center for Early American Studies. The series introduces listeners to the authors of the most recent book publications in the Early American Studies series, published by Penn Press.
Launched earlier this month with support from Penn Libraries’ Research Data and Digital Scholarship center, “Early American Conversations” puts McNeil Center graduate fellows in conversation with authors from the series. The podcast is curated by Anders Bright, a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate studying early American history with a focus on capitalism and finance.
Penn Today sat down with Brown to talk about her new book’s premise, some main takeaways, and how her research pertains to the current resurgence of white nationalism and the battles for reproductive rights.