Episode 23

What Does Kindred Tell Us About Plantation Life?

America: The Story of the USA · Liam Heffernan

November 7, 202348m 21s

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Show Notes

In 1979, author Octavia Butler published a novel which would become a foundational text in our understanding of slavery. Kindred tells the story of Dana, an African American writer from California, who travels back uncontrollably to early 1800s Maryland to protect her ancestors and ensure her own existence.

In this episode, we are going to take a closer look at Kindred, both the book and its recent 2023 TV adaptation, as we answer the question... what does Kindred tell us about plantation life?

Guests on this episode:

Dr. Rebecca Fraser, a historian of 19th century America with a particular interest in the history of African Americans, especially relating to their resistance against slavery and the enslaved experience.
Dr. Hilary Emmett, an Associate Professor in American Studies at the University of East Anglia. She researches the afterlives of enslavement in literature and visual culture, with a particular interest in the transnational reach of the late, great, Nobel prize winner, Toni Morrison.

Additional Resources:

BOOK: Kindred (1979) by Octavia E. Butler

SERIES: Kindred (2023)

BOOK: Closer to Freedom: Enslaved Women & Everyday Resistance in the Plantation South (2004) by Stephanie Camp

BOOK: Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence and the Archive (2016) by Marisa J. Fuentes