Panizzi Lectures 2024: In Search of Black Readers

This event will take place in the British Library Knowledge Centre Pigott Theatre. It will be simultaneously live streamed on the British Library platform. Tickets may be booked either to attend in person (physical) or to watch on our platform (online) either live or within 48 hours on catch up. Viewing links for the online version will be sent out in the confirmation email you receive after booking. Captions are available for our online events and most in person events in the Pigott Theatre. If you have specific access requirements please email customer@bl.uk

In the first lecture of the series, McHenry offers the context of her own scholarship, past and present, as an invitation to think about what it means to work in the archives of the Black past and at the intersection of literary history, archival research and Black Print Culture Studies. Her lecture grapples with her own understanding of the “lostness” of Black history; but it emphasizes the ways that Black literary history can be made legible through the traces that remain, in ways that have made the study of Black readers, Black books and the cultures of Black print an exceptionally dynamic field.

Part of the lecture series ‘Black Bibliography, Here and Now’, which asks what are the stakes and challenges of studying the history of Black print? What is Black bibliography, and how can renewed attention to it lead us to a better understanding of the ways Black writing has been produced, conceptualized and valued? This series of lectures by Elizabeth McHenry grapples with these questions by examining the work current scholarship in Black Bibliography is doing to expand our knowledge of Black print culture, and what it has the potential to do going forward.