Research News
Lecturer awarded top literary prize
Françoise Vergès has been awarded the 2006 Françoise Seligmann Foundation Prize Against Racism for her latest book, ‘La Mémoire enchaînée. Questions sur l’esclavage’.
Françoise, a part-time Reader at the Centre for Cultural Studies and a teacher on the MA in Postcolonial Studies, was presented with the award in January in Paris, France. Former Minister of Women’s rights, Yvette Roudy and the Mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe, were present for the ceremony, which took place at the Hotel de Ville.
The Seligmann Prize was created in 2004 by Françoise Seligmann, in memory of her husband François-Gérard Seligmann. Both fought against Nazism and for the independence of Algeria.
In her book, Françoise explores the way in which the debate on the memories of the slave trade, slavery and their abolitions has emerged in France, arguing that slavery remains a ‘blind spot’ in French thought, and that the resistance in academic circles against tackling issue of ‘race’ and the ‘Black experience’ are symptomatic of French difficulty to confront its colonial past.
On receiving the award, Françoise said: “I am honoured to have received this important award. I wanted to remind French people that the history of slave trade and slavery is an important part of their own history, not just the history of descendants of slaves and that there are French citizens today who are descendants of slaves. The award is particularly poignant as this year is the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade act in the UK.”