Annual Webster Lecture with Katharine Huemoeller (The University of British Columbia) “And the Children Born to Her”: The Double Genealogies of Roman Slaveholders

Join us for the annual B.L. Webster Memorial Lecture with Katharine Huemoeller from The University of British Columbia. 

Talk title: “And the Children Born to Her”: The Double Genealogies of Roman Slaveholders

Talk Description: “Natal alienation” (Orlando Patterson) has long been recognized as a fundamental mechanism of control for Roman slaveholders. This talk highlights a different, but ultimately complementary, slaving practice: selective genealogy. I show that enslavers frequently documented (certain) kin relations among the enslaved and freed members of their households. Engaging in a strategic mode of genealogy, they mobilized the lineages of others to sustain, supplement and sometimes even stand in for their own.

Short Bio: Kat Huemoeller is, as of July 1, Associate Professor in the department of Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. She earned her PhD in Classics from Princeton University and, before that, worked in the non-profit world in gender equity and reproductive justice. Her research interests include slavery, Roman law, women’s history, and gender history. Her first book, "The Child Follows the Womb: Gender, Reproduction, and Roman Slavery,” was published this year by Yale University Press. Her second book project concerns women’s investment in and practice of slavery in the late Republic and early Empire.

This talk will not be recorded and will not be available on Zoom.