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Faculty
Faculty

Ana Lucia Araujo (she, her)

Professor

  • History
  • College of Arts & Sciences

Biography

Ana Lucia Araujo, PhD, FRHistS, is a Professor in the Department of History, where she has taught since 2008.

A social and cultural historian, her transnational and comparative research explores the history and the memory of the Atlantic slave trade and slavery and their present social and cultural legacies. She was trained in Brazil, Canada, and France with a PhD in History and Social and Historical Anthropology (2007), a PhD in Art History (2004), an MA in History (1998), and a BA in Visual Arts (1995). Her past and present research interests include reparations for slavery, as well as public memory, heritage, visual culture, and the material culture of slavery. She wrote and extensively published on these themes in English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. She also lectures and presents her work in these languages in the United States and other countries including Brazil, Argentina, England, France, South Africa, the Republic of Benin, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Portugal, and the Netherlands. Her work was translated into German and Dutch as well.

In the United States, her work has been funded by grants and fellowships from the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California; the Institute of Advanced Study (funding provided by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation), and the American Philosophical Society  She was also awarded one of the eight HBCU ACLS inaugural faculty fellowships by the American Council of Learned Societies to work on her book project The Power of Art: The World Black Artists Made in the Americas (under contract with Cambridge University Press)

Her research was also supported by various other agencies in Brazil and Canada, including the Fonds de recherche Société et Culture (Canada), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Canada), Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES, Brazil), and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq, Brazil).

In 2023, Carnegie Corporation New York named Professor Araujo “Great Immigrant, Great American,” an annual list honoring the contribution of naturalized citizens to democracy and America. 

Since 2017, Professor Araujo is a member of the International Scientific Committee of the UNESCO "Routes of Enslaved Peoples Project" (former Slave Route Project), and is also a member of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History Scholarly Advisory Board. In 2019, she was a Visiting Professor at the University of Paris VIII, France, and was a research fellow of the Wereldmuseum (former Tropenmuseum) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands in 2023. She serves on the Editorial Board of the British journal Slavery and Abolition and on the advisory board of the Memory Studies Association. In the recent past she served on the Board of Editors of the American Historical Review (the flagship journal of the American Historical Association from 2019 to 2023, the Executive Committee of the Brazilian Studies Association (2016-2020), and the Executive Board of the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora (2019-2022).

In 2023, Professor Araujo published The Gift: How Objects of Prestige Shaped the Atlantic Slave Trade and Colonialism with Cambridge University Press. Relying on her previous work that examined gift exchanges between rulers of Portugal and Dahomey, this book explores how European-made luxurious artifacts, including goods that incorporate formal and symbolic elements found in West African and West Central African artifacts, shaped the interactions between Africans and Europeans during the era of the Atlantic slave trade and colonialism. To tell this story, she follows the trajectory of a ceremonial sword given by a French ship captain to a local agent of the Kingdom of Ngoyo on the Loango coast, which later was found in Dahomey, from where it was looted by the French troops at the end of the nineteenth century. 

Her book Humans in Shackles: An Atlantic History of Slavery in the Americas will be published by the University of Chicago Press in October 2024. The book is a hemispheric and narrative history of slavery in the Americas. An academic trade book for general readers Humans in Shackles places Brazil (the country that imported the largest number of enslaved Africans in the Americas), the African continent, resistance, and enslaved women at the center of this painful history.

A new revised and expanded edition of Reparations for Slavery and the Slave Trade: A Transnational and Comparative History, was published with Bloomsbury in November 2023. This book, whose first edition was published in 2017, is the first monograph to present a transnational narrative history of the demands of financial, material, and symbolic reparations for slavery and the Atlantic slave trade.

Her past books are: Slavery in the Age of Memory: Engaging the Past (Bloomsbury, 2020), Museums and Atlantic Slavery  (Routledge,  2021), Brazil Through French Eyes: A Nineteenth-Century Artist in the Tropics (University of New Mexico Press, 2015), which is a revised and expanded English version of her book Romantisme tropical: l'aventure illustrée d'un peintre français au Brésil (Presses de l'Université Laval). A Portuguese version of this book, translated by her, was published as Romantismo tropical: Um pintor francês nos trópicos (Editora da Universidade de São Paulo, 2017). Other single-authored books are Shadows of the Slave Past: Memory, Heritage and Slavery (Routledge, 2014), and Public Memory of Slavery: Victims and Perpetrators in the South Atlantic (Cambria Press, 2010). She also edited or co-edited African Heritage and Memories of Slavery in Brazil and the South Atlantic (Cambria Press, 2015), Politics of Memory: Making Slavery Visible in the Public Space (Routledge, 2012), Paths of the Atlantic Slave Trade: Interactions, Identities and Images (Cambria Press, 2011), and Living History: Encountering the Memory of the Heirs of Slavery (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009). She co-edited Crossing Memories: Slavery and African Diaspora with Paul E. Lovejoy and Mariana P. Candido (Africa World Press, 2011).

Professor Araujo conducted fieldwork and archival research in Brazil, the Republic of Benin, Canada, France, England, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the United States. Engaging with the public is an important dimension of her work. Her opinion articles in English and Portuguese appeared in the Washington Post, Slate, Newsweek, History News Network, Intercept Brasil, and the Brazilian magazine Ciência Hoje. Her work has been featured in several media outlets in the United States, Portugal, Canada, Brazil, Spain, France, and the Netherlands.

She is willing to supervise M.A theses and Ph.D. dissertations focusing on the history of the Atlantic slave trade and slavery, memory and heritage of slavery and the Atlantic slave trade, material culture, and visual culture of slavery, reparations for slavery, and the history of the African diaspora in the Americas, especially Brazil and its connections with West Africa.

An overview of her work can be found on her personal website.

Since 2015, Professor Araujo has curated the hashtag #slaveryarchive  on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, and posts under this hashtag were aggregated on Tumblr until 2022. In 2023, Araujo created and launched the #Slaveryarchive Digital Initiative. Based on its own social media accounts on Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube, the initiative now gives a permanent space to the #slaveryarchive posts. The #Slaveryarchive Digital Initiative is intended to educate the public about the history of slavery and the Atlantic slave trade and will also promote scholarship in this field via book talks on video, a podcast, book reviews, syllabi, and annual book lists.

Education & Expertise

Education

History

PhD
Université Laval
2007

Social and Historical Anthropology

Doctorate
École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
2007

Art History

PhD
Université Laval
2004

History of Brazil

MA
Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul
1998

Fine Arts

BA
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
1995

Expertise

History and Memory of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Academics

Academics

Undergraduate courses

  • Freshman Seminar
  • Colloquium on History of Brazil (Writing)
  • Topics: Africans in Latin America
  • Blacks in Latin America
  • Latin America to 1825
  • Latin America since 1825
  • Introduction to the History of Latin America and the Caribbean I
  • Introduction to the History of Latin America and the Caribbean II
  • History of BrazilSeminar in History of Latin America
  • Latin America since 1825 (Writing)
  • History of Brazil (Writing)
  • Introduction to African History I
  • Introduction to African History II
  • Introduction to African Diaspora I
  • Introduction to African Diaspora II
  • Senior Colloquium

Graduate courses

  • Latin America since 1825
  • Latin America to 1825
  • Readings in Latin America: Afro-Brazil
  • Readings in African Diaspora: Reparations for Slavery
  • Readings in African Diaspora: Slavery
  • Readings in African Diaspora: Black Power
  • Race Relations in Latin America and the Caribbean
  • Seminar in Comparative History: Memory and Heritage of Slavery 
  • Seminar in the History of Afro-Latinos
  • Seminar in Latin America and the Caribbean

Research

Research

Specialty

Slavery and the Atlantic Slave Trade

Funding

Individual Fellowships and Grants

2023      Getty Residential Senior Scholar Grant, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, CA, US, $46,000

2022      Member, School of Historical Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ, US, Funding provided by Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, $39,000

2021–22 Franklin Research Grant, American Philosophical Society, US, $6,000

2011      Summer Stipend, Provost Office, Howard University, US, $13,000

2008–10 New Faculty Start-Up Research Fund, “Afro-Latinos and the Rebuilding of the Memory of Slavery in Latin America,” Howard University, US, $46,000

2008–10 Postdoctoral Fellowship of FQRSC (Fonds québécois de la recherche sur la société et la culture), Canada, CAD$ 64,000

2008     Stipend Supplement, SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council), Canada, CAD$ 5,000.

2007     Doctoral Dissertation Write-Up Fellowship, CELAT (Centre interuniversitaire d'études sur les lettres, les arts et les traditions), Université Laval, Canada, CAD$ 3,000.  

2005     Grant of Bureau International to conduct fieldwork in Republic of Benin, Université Laval, Canada, CAD$ 5,000.

2005     Doctoral Fellowship of FQRSC (Fonds québécois de recherche sur la société et la culture), Canada) ranked 1st in the History Committee, CAD$ 6,600

2004–7 Doctoral Fellowship Jean Bazin, Canada Research Chair in Comparative History of Memory, Université Laval, Canada, CAD$ 30,000.00.

2002–4 Doctoral Fellowship of SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council), Canada, CAD$ 36,700.

2000–2 Doctoral Fellowship, Fonds d’Engagement des Étudiants au Doctorat, Université Laval, Canada, CAD$ 16,980.

2001–2 Doctoral Fellowship Musée de la Civilisation, Quebec City, Canada, CAD 6,000.

1995–7 MA Fellowship, CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior), Brazil, BR$ 18,000.

Collaborative External Grants

2021-27 Collaborator in the Insight Grant “Violence in Iron and Silver: Data Visualisation and the Reconstruction of Identities through Slave Brands,” PI: Katrina Keefer, Trent University, in the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canada, CAN$ $399,797.

2017–19 Co-investigator in the project “Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: Towards Decent Work for All,” Economic & Social Research Council, Seminars Proposal, Global Challenges Research Fund Networks Competition. Principal Investigator: Dr. Prabha Kotiswaran (King’s College London), United Kingdom, £150,000.

Accomplishments

Accomplishments

Member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ, US

In Spring 2022, Professor Araujo was a Member of the School of Historical Studies of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ, US. Her membership was funded by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation.

Franklin Research Grant, American Philosophical Society, US

In 2021, Professor Araujo was awarded the Franklin Research Grant of the American Philosophical Society, US, to conduct research in French various archives.

Elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, UK

In 2021, Professor Araujo was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society of the United Kingdom.

2022 Ervin Frederick Kalb Lecture in History

In February 2022, Professor Araujo gave the endowed Ervin Frederick Kalb Lecture in History, of the Department of History at Rice University, Houston, TX.

2022 Stanley J. Stein Lecture, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, US

In March 2022, Professor Araujo gave the Stanley J. Stein Lecture, at Princeton University, Princeton, NJ.

Invited Professor, Université de Paris VIII, Saint-Denis, France

In March 2019, Professor Araujo was an invited Professor at the Department of History of Université de Paris VIII, Saint-Denis, France.

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