The Society for Interdisciplinary French Seventeenth-Century Studies deplores the recent murders of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Rayshard Brooks by members of police departments in the United States. These deaths are the latest in a long history of racialized violence against Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in North America and across the globe. As scholars and teachers of seventeenth-century France, we acknowledge that this history of racialized violence stretches back centuries to include the rise of the slave trade and settler colonialism, the development of ideas of race, as well as important forms of resistance and protest in the face of violence. We also acknowledge we have not done enough as a scholarly community to confront these realities and have too often privileged narratives of European cultural splendor and “universal” ideals.
Recognizing our responsibility as educators and scholars to dismantle the forms of exclusion that continue to limit not only our objects and methods of study, but also the racial composition of our scholarly community, the SE17 Executive Board therefore resolves that the Society will engage actively with these historical legacies in our work together through several initiatives:
- committing individually and collectively to keeping these issues in the forefront of our interactions with our students, colleagues, academic communities, and the public
- centering sessions at our annual conferences on race and racism, the history of the slave trade and colonialism, policing and incarceration, and the histories and cultures of Native Americans and Indigenous Canadians colonized by the French and of African captives whom the French brought by force to the Caribbean
- encouraging the regular submission of articles focused on the above areas to our interdisciplinary scholarly journal, the Cahiers du dix-septième, as well as creating a special issue or issues devoted to these questions
- creating an annual prize to recognize outstanding scholarly work in the above areas
- highlighting and promoting on our website new scholarly work, events, and teaching resources in these areas
- collectively building a bank of resources for teaching focused on these areas for incorporation in courses at all levels and actively encouraging our membership to center them in their teaching
- adding a position of officer of diversity and inclusion to our Executive Board to lead a task force charged with examining ways to invite and foster a more diverse and inclusive intellectual community and to ensure the continued ongoing intentional work on the part of the Society regarding accessibility at all levels
- continuing to shape and revise these initiatives as we move forward in response to the heard needs and desires of BIPOCscholars and students
The Executive Board of the Society for Interdisciplinary French Seventeenth-Century Studies