Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Professor Robert Burroughs has extensively researched British and Belgian imperialism in nineteenth-century Africa, in particular in the Congo. In 2022 he served as an expert contributor to Belgian Parliament’s Special Commission into its colonial past.
Looking back at this experience, and at his past work, Professor Burroughs explores powerful testimonies by colonised peoples which exist in the archive, the challenges of interpreting them, and their complicated place in contemporary debates on empire and its legacies. In addition, turning to his ongoing research projects on African and Caribbean students in nineteenth-century Britain, Burroughs asks another question: what stories did colonial subjects tell of their experiences in imperial Britain?
While championing the restoration of marginalised historical voices, Burroughs will think reflexively about the privileges of such research and its potential to compound harmful legacies of empire. How might historically marginalised perspectives on empire hold us to account as students and researchers in the twenty-first century?
This lecture is part of Leeds Beckett university's inaugural professional lecture series.
Professor Robert Burroughs is Head of English at Leeds Beckett University. He is a cultural historian and literary critic working on the nineteenth century. He specializes in the areas of empire, humanitarianism, slavery, race, and Black British history. He has also published widely research on travel and tourism, particularly in marine environments.
Robert’s books include Travel Writing and Atrocities (Routledge 2011), The Suppression of the Atlantic Slave Trade (co-edited, Manchester UP 2015), African Testimony in the Movement for Congo Reform (Routledge 2018), and Black Students in Imperial Britain (Liverpool UP, 2022).
Professor Burroughs’s articles have appeared in leading journals including Victorian Literature and Culture, Journal of Victorian Culture, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Slavery & Abolition, and Postcolonial Studies. He is a recipient of funding from the AHRC, The Leverhulme Trust (Early Career Fellowship and Research Fellowship), the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, and the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals.
