Research Interests

• Eighteenth Century Transatlantic Antislavery

• Print Culture and the History of the Book

• Religion and the Public Sphere

• Mysticism

• Critiques of Early Capitalism

• Modern and Post-Modern Anglo-American Poetry and Poetics

• Theater and Performance

 Education

Prior Academic Positions

Awards

Conferences

Academic Service/Other

Memberships

Member, German Association for American Studies (DGfA/GAAS)

The Published Self and the Emergence of an Eighteenth Century Abolitionist Public Sphere

Dissertation in Kulturwissenschaft

Mentoring team:
First supervisor: Prof. Frank Kelleter
Second supervisor: N.N.
Third supervisor: N.N.

My project examines the role of the “published self” in the emergence of an eighteenth century abolitionist public sphere, focusing in particular on the writings of the Quakers Benjamin Lay (1681-1759) and John Woolman (1720-1772), as well as the former slave Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797). Many accounts of the public sphere’s development in eighteenth century England and its American colonies still tend to emphasize the public sphere’s secularism and division of public and private conceptions of the self. The problem with this narrative is that it omits the perspectives and contributions of religious and marginalized people. I propose to address this insufficient interpretation through analyses of texts that I call published selves. Related to but distinct from the spiritual autobiography, the double meaning of “published” becomes essential here: the published self must be “made public” and “put into print.” Moreover, the published self is distinguished by its inclusion of other technologies of communication such as letter-writing, public statements, and excerption, signaling the importance of its embeddedness in larger discursive and material networks.

Although its roots lay in early Christianpractices, the published self’s first modern precursors are found in seventeenth century English Quakerism. These Friends explicitly referred to themselves as “publishers of truth,” dually stressing orality and print. In colonial America, the published self reemerged as a form of ethical response to the horrors of a slave society, in which many Quakers were complicit. I contend that this antislavery strategy was not limited to a few radical Quakers such as Benjamin Lay and John Woolman, but was also used to great effect by writers of African descent such as Olaudah Equiano. These texts seek to demonstrate the coherence of thought and action, and deny the self’s bifurcation into an “authentic” private self and public “mask.” Unlike most other histories of antislavery, my project shows that the implications of the published self extend far beyond the official abolition of the Atlantic slave trade in 1807 and the end of American slavery after the Civil War. Despite being tied to a historically specific medium (the eighteenth century printed book), the published self nonetheless reveals the complex ways in which the self and its others are called to bear a mutual responsibility of care. This insight stands in opposition to mainstream abolitionism’s teleology of free labor and capitalist modes of production. Rather, the published self makes an argument for the end of all forms—past, present, or future—of exploitation, oppression, and racism, fundamentally challenging accepted narratives about the emergence and development of the public sphere and its significance for liberal ideas of progress.