Dr. Erin Shearer, 'Enslaved Women, Infanticide, and a Feminist History of Harm: A New Direction in Slavery Studies'

About this episode

Dr. Erin Shearer discusses the role of enslaved women in acts of violence and infanticide as a form of resistance in the antebellum US South.

N.B.: This episode describes sexual violence and graphic bodily harm. (With sincere apologies for the re-upload due to a technical issue.) “We’re still, as a society, so apprehensive about ascribing to women a nature of violence. When we do, we often use pathological discourses as a way of explaining why these women would be exceptions to the rule.” Our guest, Dr Erin Shearer, is a Fellow in Residence at the Rothermere American Institute (University of Oxford), Associate Lecturer in History and Postgraduate Visiting Fellow (University of Reading), and Associate Tutor (University of Warwick). The paper ‘Enslaved Women, Infanticide, and a Feminist History of Harm: A New Direction in Slavery Studies’ emerges from Shearer's current monograph, which asks: How and why did enslaved women in the antebellum US South use violence as a form of resistance? Challenging long-standing historiography, Dr Erin Shearer finds that deliberate, retributive acts of violence were not the preserve of enslaved men, but a shared and interchangeable phenomenon. This paper intervenes in a largely unexplored area of scholarship by examining enslaved women’s acts of harm and infanticide against the white…

People in this episode

Guest: Dr. Erin Shearer

Topics covered

• enslaved women
• infanticide
• feminist history
• slavery studies
• violence as resistance
• historical scholarship

Keywords

• enslaved women
• infanticide
• feminist history
• violence
• slavery
• antebellum South
• resistance

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford, University of Reading, University of Warwick

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