GAH to Hear Speakers on Slavery in World History
and on the lives of Georgia Women

 The 2010 Georgia Association of Historians meeting in Decatur will feature a plenary session on Friday at 5 pm. Joseph C. Miller, T. Cary Johnson, Jr., Professor of History at the University of Virginia, will discuss "Slaving on a World Scale." 

 According to his website, his present area of research is:  “A world history of slavery from the earliest human times through the nineteenth century. Hundreds of comparative studies have demonstrated the near-ubiquity of an institution once thought "peculiar" to the Old South, but few have concentrated on slavery as historical process. Strategies of slaving in the ancient Mediterranean, the Islamic world, Africa, the Renaissance Mediterranean, Brazil, the West Indies, the Indian Ocean basin, and the United States reveal recurrent intensely dynamic processes of bringing outsiders as slaves into labor vacuums created during times of rapid economic growth or political expansion.” 

 This event, which will take place in the Old Courthouse, is co-sponsored by the DeKalb History Center and Georgia Humanities Council.  A reception honoring the memory of Gary Fink will follow Prof. Miller’s talk.

 Members who are in Decatur on Thursday evening are invited to a presentation at the Decatur branch of the DeKalb County Library at 7 pm Thursday. Georgia Center for the Book and UGA Press will introduce Georgia Women: Their Histories, Their Lives, vols. 1-2, edited by Ann Short Chirhart and Kathleen Clark. Two of the contributors will discuss their subjects: Michele K. Gillespie (Wake Forest University) wrote about "Mary Gay;" and the section on "Ma Rainey" is the work of Steve Goodson (West Georgia). 

 The program for the luncheon (at the Holiday Inn in Decatur at 12:30 on Saturday Feb 20) is still under development, but Mary Rolinson, of the Program Committee says that another "Lives in History" program is planned.  Similar programs at recent meetings have presented distinguished historians reflecting on their professional lives.