Dr. Vincent Roy-Di Piazza
University of Oxford &
Karolinska Institute
African Superiority in the Enlightenment: Swedenborg on anti-colonialism, spiritual freedom, and slavery
For additional details, please go here.
When:
18 April, 2024: 16:15 – 17:45
Where:
VUB Main Campus Etterbeek
Pleinlaan 2
1050 Elsene
Building C, meeting room PE (3rd floor)
*Free of charge*
The Vrije Universiteit Brussel and VUB professor Cornelis J. Schilt invite you to an exclusive lecture on the views of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) on slavery and on the superiority of sub-Saharan Africans by Dr. Vincent Roy-Di Piazza.
Swedenborg was the first prominent Swede to speak out against slavery in the eighteenth century. In his talk Dr. Vincent Roy-Di Piazza explores Swedenborg’s connections with people from Africa. He also reviews his writings, showing they advocate for freedom from temporal and spiritual slavery. Finally, he examines Swedenborg’s belief in African superiority and his striking critiques of colonialism. The discussion expands on how millenarian beliefs contributed to the abolition of slavery.
Dr. Vincent Roy-Di Piazza is a historian of science, religion, and political economy. He obtained his doctorate from the University of Oxford in 2022. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Oxford, and a lecturer at the University of Stockholm.
This lecture is an initiative by historian of knowledge, philosopher and ERC laureate Cornelis J. Schilt. With the lecture series Knowledge in International Perspective, he goes in search of the origins of our contemporary knowledge and its applications. He invites leading international scientists to take us back in time and elaborate on the development of our knowledge in various fields: history, philosophy, art sciences, natural sciences, medicine, artificial intelligence and more.
