Benedictine prof studies slaves' stories

Benedictine University faculty member Wilson Chen was among a select group of faculty members nationwide chosen to participate in an American history seminar on "Slave Narratives" at Yale University.

The Oak Park resident, an associate professor of languages and literature and assistant provost for intercultural affairs at Benedictine, was one of 27 educators chosen from a pool of 83 competitive nominations to participate last month in the seminar.

The selections were made by the Council of Independent Colleges and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

"It was one of the most invigorating, engaging seminars I've ever been a part of," Chen said. "It was a true privilege to work with one of the most important scholars in this field and also with the seminar participants, all of whom were highly accomplished, dedicated professors of history and literature."

The multidisciplinary seminar for faculty members in history, English and related fields used the slave narratives and other assigned secondary reading to comprehend the experience of slaves themselves in the transition from bondage to freedom.

Seminar participants examined both prewar and postwar narratives. Approximately 65 narratives were published in English prior to the war, including that of Frederick Douglass, who was born into slavery and rose to become a leader of the abolitionist movement. The pre-emancipation narratives were often serious works of literature that focused on the oppression of slavery.

The post-emancipation narratives, of which there are approximately 55, tended to be more success stories - triumphs over the past and visions of a more prosperous future. The most famous postwar narrative is that of Booker T. Washington, a political adviser and writer who founded Tuskegee University in Alabama.

"I've actually been reading and studying African-American slave narratives since I was in college, and I regularly include these works in the American literature courses I teach at Benedictine," Chen said. "This seminar gave me a much clearer sense of how the scholarship has developed in the past 15 years and introduced me to some new texts that I had not studied before."

The seminar was funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

"If anyone wonders about the importance of a deeper and more extensive study of U.S. slavery and emancipation, just take a look at some of our media headlines today - about tragic racial violence, the debate over Confederate symbols, voting rights issues, and the list goes on," Chen said.