Annual Lecture in Black History Reclaiming Narratives of Black Britain: the Letters of Ignatius Sancho

In this talk, Professor Surya Parekh of Binghamton University, SUNY, will consider how literary reading and practices of historiography might supplement each other in reclaiming narratives of Black Britain.

The lecture will focus on Ignatius Sancho, the only Black man known to have voted in Britain in the 18th century. The extant material that we have of Sancho comprises a posthumous book of letters, some musical compositions, and a fanciful, sentimental biography written by Joseph Jekyll. Scholars have long exhibited a preference for this biography with its tale of suffering and white philanthropy. The letters, by contrast, with their textual play and domestic details, have often frustrated critics.

Professor Parekh will show how an approach which weaves together literary reading with historiography might discern the politics of Sancho's letters and their openings to future readers. In this way, the lecture will propose that we can reclaim a narrative that becomes ever more pertinent as time goes by.