Behind the Rhodes Statue: Empire and the British Academy' by Robbie Shilliam, Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University.

Chaired by Dr Katucha Bento, Lecturer in Race and Decolonial Studies at the University of Edinburgh.

This talk goes behind the Rhodes Statue to examine the complicity of the British Academy in empire’s Southern African interest and the ways in which social anthropology and the sociology of race relations addressed the black presence in white spaces. Tying together colonial development and immigration to Britain, the talk argues that the British Academy has yet to redress the historical assumption that black presence works as a destabilizing force against the ethos of higher education.

Robbie Shilliam is Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. Professor Shilliam researches the political and intellectual complicities of colonialism and race in the global order. Over the past six years, he has co-curated with community intellectuals and elders a series of exhibitions–in Ethiopia, Jamaica and the UK–which have brought to light the histories and significance of the Rastafari movement for contemporary politics. Based on original, primary research in British imperial and postcolonial history, this work now enjoys an online presence as a teaching aid: http://www.rastafari-in-motion.org/ . Robbie also works with Iniversal Development of Rastafari (IDOR) to retrieve histories of the Rastafari presence in Baltimore and Washington DC. Further information about Professor Shilliam and his research can be found here.