The daguerreotypes of Renty Taylor, his daughter Delia, along with other enslaved men and women, more than presenting subjects bound by unfreedom, offer evidence of the violence and brutality of American slavery, whose dismissals and denials haunt the nation still.
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Posted inNews
The Continuing Fight to #FreeRenty
“For years, Papa Renty’s slave owners profited from his suffering,” Lanier said in a statement at the time. “It’s time for Harvard to stop doing the same thing to our family.”
Posted inNews
Jane’a Johnson-Farnham: An Endorsement of an Amicus Brief for Lanier v. Harvard
As a scholar of African American history and photography whose work has focused on the status of violent images in museums and archives, I fully support the validity of Ms. Tamara Lanier’s claim and the amicus brief.
Posted inArt
Free Renty! Reparations, Photography, and the Imperial Premise of Scholarship
Many scholars write about imperial crimes as their object of study — that is, as something sealed in the past that can be separated from the reparations due.
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Eunsong Kim: An Endorsement of an Amicus Brief for Lanier v. Harvard
The daguerreotypes of Renty Taylor, Delia, Drana, Alfred, Jack, George Fassena, and Jem remained in an unused storage cabinet until 1975, when it was discovered by an employee of the Peabody Museum.
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Sandrine Colard: An Endorsement of an Amicus Brief for Lanier v. Harvard
As an African photography scholar of Congolese descent, I have dedicated more than 10 years of my research to the study of the Congolese people’s history of their own images.
Posted inComics
Papa Renty Taught Us How to Read
Renty Taylor wasn’t only an enslaved individual, he was much much more, and his story should concern us all.
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Marianne Hirsch: An Endorsement of an Amicus Brief for Lanier v. Harvard
I am writing in support of the amicus curiae brief submitted by Professor Ariella Aïsha Azoulay of Brown University for the full restitution of the daguerreotypes of Renty Taylor and his daughter Delia, currently held by Harvard University, to their familial descendant, Tamara Lanier.
Posted inNews
Brian Wallis: An Endorsement of an Amicus Brief for Lanier v. Harvard
The ownership of images has a long and nuanced legal history, which has evolved dramatically in recent years as cultural standards and photographic technologies have rapidly advanced
Posted inNews
Legal Precedents or Reparations? Lawsuit Against Harvard May Decide Who Owns Images of Enslaved People
Tamara Lanier’s battle for the ownership of her ancestors’ images is forcing the law to contend with the the institution of chattel slavery in interpreting intellectual property parameters.
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Fred Moten: An Endorsement of an Amicus Brief for Lanier v. Harvard
What is the relation between possessing a person, possessing their image, and dispossessing their progeny
Posted inNews
Descendant of Enslaved People Sues Harvard for Rights to Daguerreotypes of Her Ancestors
“For years, Papa Renty’s slave owners profited from his suffering,” Tamara Lanier said in a statement. “It’s time for Harvard to stop doing the same thing to our family.”
