Committed to memory: the art of the slave ship icon

Introduction : The practice of mnemonic aesthetics

I. Sources/roots (1788-1900)

Idea: image and text

Form: essential elements

Circulation: politics and publicity

II. Meanings/routes (1900-present)

Negroes: old and new

1969: Activism, art, and performance in the United States

Art and activism in Britain: 1960s-1990s

Bodies: commoditization and branding

III. Rites/reinventions (1990s-present)

Pattern: behind the face of an iron

Spirits: from Changó to iconoclasm

Roots tourism and the slave ship icon

Museums, monuments, and memorials

Afterword : The shape of things: doesn't always appear as it seems.