Here’s everything happening at Lancaster Uni for Black History Month

October is Black History Month in the UK, and Lancaster University Library has put together a timetable of events for staff and students to celebrate and learn about Black history.

The events are in collaboration with a number of Lancaster-based organisations including the Why is My Curriculum White? Campaign, the Race Equality Charter Program, and Decolonising Lancaster.

Celebrating Black History Month book display

The Library will have a Black History Month book display all month, and have a series of Black History Month online reading lists that can be accessed here. You can also access Black History Month reading collections from previous years and find information on Black History Month and beyond activities and events outside of Lancaster.

Glocal Perspectives – Library Collection and Lancaster History Tour

This free event centers around the University Library’s Glocal (Global and Local) collection and features a tour of nine locations in Lancaster’s Castle Quarter and its surrounding area, focussing on Lancaster’s role in the transatlantic slave trade and contributions to the Industrial Revolution. It also includes lunch and a panel discussion and Q&A.

There are two tours left, both on Thursday 6th of October at 10 AM and one PM respectively. You can book here.

Decolonising Higher Education. What’s in it for us? What do we have to lose?

This free, in-person event takes place in the Digital Scholarship Lab in the Library on October 12th and will “open up a discussion around what decolonising means, how it relates to universities, and what the implications are for staff and students.” Dr Richard Budd, lecturer in Higher Education for the Centre for Higher Education Research & Evaluation will be delivering the session. You can find out more here.

Small Axe ‘Education’ Black History Month screening and discussion

Why is My Curriculum White? will be facilitating a screening and discussion of the film Education on Thursday, October 13th at five PM in the Digital Scholarship Lab. Registration is not required, but you can find out more about the event and the film being screened here.

‘Coffee Bar Victory!’ The Library Coffee Bar and the Anti-Apartheid Movement in the 1980s

This display will be up from October 14th through the end of the month in the Stairwell of the Library A Floor. It will document LUSU’s participation in the global campaign against the Apartheid, which included renaming the now-extinct Library Coffee Bar to the Nelson Mandela Coffee Bar. More information can be found here.

Black History Month: ‘The Meaning and Matter of Blackness’

This talk, hosted by Emmanuel Adeyemi-Abere of Why is My Curriculum White?, explores his personal reflections on the following questions: How does one make sense of the racialised world that surrounds them? What truly is ‘Blackness?’ And how can race influence sense of self?”

It will also feature debate and further discussion with the audience. Registration is not required for this event, but you can find out more here. The talk will take place on Thursday, October 20th at six PM in the Digital Scholarship Lab.

Wear Red Day – Show Racism the Red Card

Show Racism the Red Card’s annual Wear Red Day will take place on October 21st 2022. This event seeks to raise awareness to the charity’s efforts to fund anti-racism education across the UK. Staff and students across the University are encouraged to wear red and to visit Show Racism the Red Card’s website to learn more and make a donation.

Black History Month: Big Library Read

This massive reading event, facilitated by Lancaster University Library, centres around Yaa Gyasi’s Transcendent Kingdom, which was shortlisted for the 2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction. Reading groups across campus will be reading and discussing the book, which can be downloaded for free on the Libby app, or picked up from the Library’s A Floor on October 21st while stocks last.

To learn more about the novel, or to find a reading group, please visit the Library’s event page here.

‘Skin/Pedagogy’ – English Literature and Creative Writing Black History Month lecture by Wendy Lennon

This lecture by author and educator, Wendy Lennon, will take place in FASS A009 MR 2 on Wednesday, October 26th at one PM. It is open to everyone and registration is not required. More information can be found here.