Launch of New Publication "Slave Trade and Slavery"

The Harriet Tubman Institute and the Slave Route Project are launching on 16 April at UNESCO headquarters in the Room VII from 2p.m. 30 to 3p.m., a new title in the Harriet Tubman Series on the African Diaspora: “The Transatlantic Slave Trade and Slavery: New Directions in Teaching and Learning”.

Edited by Paul E. Lovejoy and Benjamin Bowser, this book is an anthology of papers from an international workshop that the Slave Route Project jointly organized in November 2010 in Toronto, Canada, with the Harriet Tubman institute and the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, in order to define new approaches for teaching the slave trade and slavery and to examine the psychological consequences of this history.

This publication highlights on the importance of the educational dimension for better understanding this tragedy and identifies the challenges of teaching this sensitive subject.

This book tackles the following questions:

• “How do we break the “chain of silence” in teaching slavery and the slave trade?”
• “What is the psychological impact of this history today?”
• “How this impact influenced the teaching of the history of Africa and African Diaspora?”
• "How the teaching of this history can contribute to national reconciliation and mutual understanding?”
• “How to create international, regional and national networks of scholars, researchers, teachers, in order to facilitate exchange and share research findings and also experiences in the teaching of African and African-descendent history?”

The book will be presented by M. Paul E. Lovejoy (editor and coordinator of the publication) in the presence of Mrs. Irina Bokova (UNESCO Director-General or her representative), Mrs. A. Cummings (Chairperson of the UNESCO Executive Board), Mrs. Velasquez (President of the International Scientific Committee of the Slave Route Project) and Mrs. N. Schmidt (Member of the International Scientific Committee of the Slave Route Project).