2025 Archaeology Colloquium

Please join the University of Minnesota Anthropology Department for our 2025 Archaeology Colloquium, where Dr. Ayana Omilade Flewellen of Stanford University will be presenting, “Submerged in the Wake: Archaeology, Memory, and Oceanic Archives of the Transatlantic Slave Trade”

Dr. Ayana Omilade Flewellen, Stanford University

Abstract: In this presentation, I discuss the embodied practices of submerged breathing in waterscapes that are connected to the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The central question this presentation aims to address is how Black Breath sonically liberates new understandings of the past, its connection to the present, and how we can envision the future. Specifically, this presentation explores acts of submerged breathing carried out by Black divers at submerged sites of enslavement as an expression of Black aurality that critically examines Black life in the past, present, and future, producing fugitive practices of existing otherwise that cut across space and time. I explore these embodied practices of breath-work in my dive experience and the experiences of two men, Kamau Sadiki and Jay Haigler, at a submerged site of enslavement, the Clotilda shipwreck in Mobile, Alabama. My attention to what is made possible when we attune ourselves to submerged breathing practices builds on the scholarship of Alexis Pauline Gumbs in her text Undrowned and Ashon Crawley’s text Blackpentecostal Breath. Breath-work here demonstrates oceanic-rooted modes of memory-making and commemoration that create experiences that work to alchemize and heal transgenerational trauma.

Join us in person in the Humphrey Center, room 25 or virtually on Zoom. A short reception will be available in 389 Humphrey for those attending in person.

Dr. Ayana Omilade Flewellen is Black Feminist Archaeologist and artist, and Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University. They are the co-founder and current Board Chair of the Society of Black Archaeologists and sits on the board of Diving With A Purpose. Dr. Flewellen's research focuses on Black Feminist Theory, historical archaeology, memory, public engagement, and the representation of slavery and its afterlife. They have been featured in National Geographic, Science Magazine, PBS, and CNN. Visit their website to learn more about their work.