Presentation: Voices on the Underground Railroad

Recently retired Cornell University Professor Gerard Aching will present on his research and coordination of the Underground Railroad Research Project, which highlights the extensive roots of the network in Central New York, Western New York, and the Finger Lakes Region. The presentation will feature a discussion on the newly launched Underground Railroad Hub and Voices on the Underground Railroad websites. The Underground Railroad Hub is an open assortment of projects exploring the local impact and history of abolition and slavery in Central and Western New York. The Voices on the Underground Railroad resource features a collection of short narratives that Cornell University students have written and mapped onto documented and rumored underground railroad stations and safe houses in Central and Western New York, including the Seward House Museum.

About the Speaker

Gerard Aching is a recently retired Professor of Africana and Romance Studies and W.E.B. DuBois Professor in the Humanities at Cornell University. Aching’s research and teaching focuses on subjectivity in slave narratives, slavery and philosophy, sugar production in the development of the modern transatlantic world, and the documented as well as oral histories of the Underground Railroad.