Today we meet Dr. Lissa Paul, a researcher in children's literature, who has followed the story of 19th century writer and educator Eliza Fenwick from London to Barbados to Niagara-on-the-Lake. Lissa shares who Eliza was and how researching Eliza's story lead her to stories of fugitive slaves and current efforts to decolonize the landscape by memorializing former enslaved people in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

 

Episode Highlights

• (1:23 ) What is children's literature?


• (4:50 ) Life and times of Eliza Fenwick


• (21:20 ) Eliza Fenwick in Niagara-on-the-Lake


• (29:30 ) Researching Eliza's story


• (37:20 ) Digitizing the Barbados Mercury and Bridgetown Gazette and fugitive slave ads


• (47:30 ) Work on the so-called "Negro Burial Ground" in Niagara-on-the-Lake and decolonizing the landscape


• (1:01:01 ) Interdisciplinarity and the PhD program in Interdisciplinary Humanities

Links

Lissa Paul (faculty bio)

Eliza Fenwick: Early Modern Feminist (University of Delaware Press, 2019)

Keywords for Children's Literature (New York University Press, 2021)

Children’s Literature and Culture of the First World War (Routledge, 2019)

British Library Endangered Archives Programme

University of Florida Digital Library of the Caribbean

Agents of Enslavement: Colonial newspapers in the Caribbean and hidden genealogies of the enslaved. 

Memorial to People in Fugitive Ads

"Project highlighting local Black history to be discussed at public event" (Brock News, 23 Feb. 2023)

"What finding the the unmarked graves of this Black cemetery adds to the story of Niagara-on-the-Lake's history" (Niagara This Week, 12 May 2022)

PhD program in Interdisciplinary Humanities at Brock University

 

Related Episodes

S4E05 Archives & Special Collections with David Sharron

S1E03 Early Modern Bookscapes with Dr. Leah Knight

 

Credits

Thank you for listening to Foreword! 

Find our footnotes, links to more information, transcripts, and past episodes on our website brocku.ca/humanities. 

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Foreword is hosted and produced by Alison Innes for the Faculty of Humanities at Brock University. 

Series four sound editing is by Serena Atallah. Theme music is by Khalid Imam. 

This podcast is financially supported by the Faculty of Humanities at Brock University.