Pretalk for Letter Performance: Denmark in the Atlantic World
FOR ANNUAL PASS HOLDERS ONLY – In this lecture, we warm up for tonight's Letter Performance and learn more about Denmark's role in colonisation over six centuries.
For this lecture, associate professor of literary history, Mads Anders Baggesgaard, will look back at prehistory and the six centuries that have helped shape the way we see ourselves and our relationship with the rest of the world. The focus will be on the Atlantic world: from the first Portuguese voyages to Africa, which was unexplored by Europeans, to Danish involvement on the Gold Coast and in the Caribbean, and on into the twentieth century.
The European exploration and later colonisation of the Atlantic world have helped shape the way we see the world. Not least through the transatlantic slave trade, in which Denmark was a major player, and which has helped shape our view of humanity and the modern forms of racism that characterise the world today.
The lecture is based on letters, travelogues and literary descriptions of the Atlantic world from around 1400-1900. Two of these letters will be read during the letter performance in the Queen's Hall.
This is a pretalk for the Letter Performance that same evening:
Letter Performance: The Journey (reenactment)
