Monday, September 23 2019, 5pm Founders Memorial Garden, Main Ballroom Special Information: 5:00pm-7:00pm Barbara Fuchs Spanish & Portuguese Department University of California - Los Angeles Fuchs Bio This inaugural lecture and reception kicks off the new year of activities of the Early Modern Research Group, which brings together scholars from across Franklin College, with support from the Mellon-funded Global Georgia Program and the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Institute. Refreshments will be served. Abstract: If, as postcolonial criticism has shown, Crusoe's experience is part of the longue durée of race and empire in the West, it must be considered in relation to earlier Iberian as well as subsequent Dutch, French, and English imperial projects. In this light, Crusoe’s absence from his Brazilian plantation is as significant as his presence on the island, and reinserts his narrative into broader contexts of inter-imperial rivalry, Atlantic sugar, and a more nuanced history of the novel. Reading Robinson Crusoe in relation to the layered and entangled history of colonialism in the Atlantic World reveals the partiality of viewing the protagonist on his island as an English exemplar. We hope you can join us. The address can be found below. 425 South Lumpkin Street, Athens, GA 30605