Breaking the Dead Silence: Book Launch | Widcombe Social Club

Details

Breaking the Dead Silence: Book Launch Come join us for an exciting evening celebrating the launch of a new book reflecting on the aftermath of the toppling of Bristol’s Colston statue, the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement and the subsequent heritage ‘culture wars’. The event will be held at Widcombe Social Club, where you can meet the authors, engage in a discussion about how heritage could be more inclusive in Bath and Bristol and get your copy signed. The murder of George Floyd in 2020, the renewed international take up of the cry Black Lives Matter and the subsequent toppling of a statue commemorating slave-merchant-turned-philanthropist Edward Colston in Bristol provoked urgent questions on memorialisation, white privilege, social justice and repair. Debates on how legacies of colonialism and empire in Britain should be addressed spilled out of the scholarly world into the public discourse. In the immediate wake of the statue toppling this book offers a unique, distinctive and timely contribution to those debates: a series of voices and experiences are offered as critical commentaries and accounts of recent interventions on an official heritage narrative. It sets out to break the ‘dead silence’, by bringing together diverse perspectives from academics, artists, activists, heritage professionals and tourist guides. The book offers fresh insights, referencing work attending to the impacts and legacies of colonisation primarily in Bath and Bristol, augmented with comparative contributions from Lancaster and Mexico offering significant and pertinent resonances. A range of strategies are explored towards enabling silenced voices to be heard and engage in conversations about how the past is represented, including Co-Creation, new agonistic museum practices, innovative creative and somatic approaches. The book is available to order or to download for free as a PDFfrom https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.3828/9781802075885 Use code 27BREAKING for an extra discount when purchasing directly from the LUP website before 20th September 2024. Information Source: Christina Horvath | eventbrite