Talk Explores Bourne’s ‘Picture of Slavery’

In an upcoming talk in the Erasmus lecture series, Dr. Kya Mangrum of the University of Utah will examine how American abolitionists have used rhetorical and visual strategies to further their cause. Her lecture, “American Slavery as It Is? Word, Image, and the Desire for the Crime Scene Photograph in U.S. Anti-Slavery Literature, 1830-1839,” is free and open to the public. It will be held on Thursday, Oct. 13, at 3:30 p.m. in Hieronymus Lounge at Westmont’s Kerrwood Hall. For more information, please contact organizer Sarah Skripsky, associate professor of English, at (805) 565-6122.

Mangrum will focus on the published work of abolitionist George Bourne, a Presbyterian minister who was excommunicated because of his anti-slavery stance.  “In his 1834 book ‘Picture of Slavery in the United States,’ Bourne uses fiery language and woodcut drawings in his attempt to transport readers to the ‘scene of the crime:’ the Southern slave plantation,” she says. “Bourne’s illustrated book re-frames the narrative of slavery by identifying slaveholding white elites as criminals, and enslaved African-Americans as citizens, and in doing so invites his readers to serve as jurors in a court whose laws are based on Bourne’s interpretation of the Christian Bible as inherently anti-slavery.  In his desire to prove Southern slaveholders guilty in the eyes of the Lord, Bourne anticipates the evidentiary and rhetorical effects of the crime scene photograph, and places Southern slaveholders on trial in the court of God.”

Mangrum specializes in African American literature, visual studies and African American visual culture. Prior to teaching at Utah, she was a Mellon Diversity Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell University. She earned a doctorate in English from the University of Michigan.