The seminar will then take up American meanings of “Africa”, “the Middle Passage”, and enslavement, by way of considering both memories and the current politics of knowledge that any scholar working on any of these subjects, from any perspective around the Atlantic, must take prominently into account. A visiting literary critic and veteran of the original “Roots” Institute (Prof. Michelle Collins-Sibley) will lead a morning’s discussion of the famous (and recently problematized) narrative of Equiano (a.k.a. “Gustavus Vassa”) as literature. After lunch, she will reflect further on other – including contemporary – representations of Africa. After another day left open for research, the week’s meetings resume with the director beginning to sum up by considering the search for meanings in both Africa and the Americas beyond the modern, western focus on “slaving”, particularly at the level of collective representations not of “slavery” but rather of betrayal, isolation, and reconstituting communities in the Americas.