W-434 AB Conference Room, Harvard Kennedy School
79 John F. Kennedy St.
Cambridge
Mon., Mar. 3, 2025, 5 – 6 p.m.

Join the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy for our new “Carr in Conversation” series. This series will examine human rights issues both at home and abroad, bringing in a wide range of experts to participate in these discussions to help better understand these challenges and how to address them.

During this conversation, Dr. Jean Pfaelzer will discuss her 2023 book, California, A Slave State. In her book, Dr. Pfaelzer disrupts the North/South binary of US slavery by shifting the focus to the American West. Grounding the history of American slavery in empire and expansion, race and gender, Pfaelzer redefines the traditional narrative of slavery in the United States. Dr. Pfaelzer will explore connections between genocide and human bondage, labor and assault, and discuss how enslaved individuals in California fought for their freedom over a span of 250 years. She will delve into the stories of Native Americans, Chinese immigrant women, and of African Americans who were forcibly marched across the plains from the plantation South, highlighting their resistance against slavery, their creation of a West Coast Underground Railroad, and their defiance of the emerging carceral state—defiance that shapes modern demands for reparations.

Gazette Classification: Community, Diversity and Inclusion, Ethics, Law, Social Sciences
Organization/Sponsor: The Carr Center for Human Rights Policy
Speaker(s): Jean Pfaelzer, Professor Emerita of English, Asian Studies, and Women and Gender Studies at the University of Delaware, Mathias Risse, Faculty Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy
Ticket Web Link: hksexeced.tfaforms.net…
Contact Info: emmacosta@hks.harvard.edu
More info: www.hks.harvard.edu…