Roskill Symposium: "Colonial Fragments" with Prof. Romita Ray

Romita Ray holding a book, smiling at camera
March 08, 2025 10:00 am - 3:00 pm ET
Old Chapel
144 Hicks Way
Amherst, MA 01002

2024-25 Annual Mark Roskill Graduate Symposium:

"Colonial Fragments: Overlooked Art Histories"

The cohort of 2025 welcome you to their graduate symposium on the topic of the "colonial fragment." 

About the symposium:

How can fragmentation function as productive ground for new scholarship concerning what has been formerly looked past, looked over, or looked away from?

From the debris of the everyday to the disassembled remains of monumental objects, fragments can serve both as the grounds for a prismatic understanding of the whole or as a strategy for its very renunciation. Shifting attention to the fragment can allow for the treatment of subjects on their own terms, inviting new methodologies and breaking open the typical lines of art-historical analysis into a more interdisciplinary approach.

Keynote Presentation:
Dr. Romita Ray, Associate Professor of Art History, Syracuse University
"'Joyous Howling': Jungli Fragments and Tea Plantations"

Graduate Presentations:

  • Hadley Newton, CUNY Graduate Center
    "Double Agent: Ben Enwonwu and his 1950 Exhibition at Howard University"
  • Sarah Zhang, University of Massachusetts Amherst
    "British Naturalists and the Chinese Merchant's Garden: An Encounter Between Two Systems of Knowledge"
  • Debarati Sarkar, CUNY Graduate Center
    "'My Black Servant Juba': Joshua Reynolds' Earliest South Asian Ayah Portrait in Eighteenth-Century Imperial Britain
  • Michael Baird, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
    "Making Space in 'Ugandan' Art: Pamela Enyonu's Ateker, ijasi biyayi? and Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa's Paradise"

The Symposium will take place on Saturday, March 8, 2025 at the Old Chapel on UMass Amherst Campus from 10am-3pm. Lunch will be provided. All are welcome!

Schedule

The schedule for the Symposium is as follows:

10 am  Introduction
10:15 am Sarah Zhang, "British Naturalists and the Chinese Merchant’s Garden: An encounter between two systems of knowledge"
10:40 am Debarati Sarkar, "'My Black Servant Juba': Joshua Reynolds’ Earliest South Asian Ayah Portrait in Eighteenth-century Imperial Britain"
11 am Q&A with Sarah Zhang and Debarati Sarkar
11:10 am Coffee break
11:20 am Hadley Newton, "Double Agent: Ben Enwonwu and his 1950 Exhibition at Howard University"
11:45 am Michael Baird, "Making Space in 'Ugandan' Art: Pamela Enyonu’s Ateker, ijasi biyayi? and Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa’s Paradise"
12:05 pm Q&A with Hadley Newton and Michael Baird
12:15 pm Lunch provided by UMass Amherst Catering 
1:15 pm Reconvene for afternoon presentations
1:20 pm Romita Ray keynote presentation, "'Joyous Howling': Jungli Fragments and Tea Plantations"
2:20 pm Q&A with Romita Ray
2:30 pm Open Q & A, panel discussion with all presenters