Black British History |

Dr Katie Donington

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Affiliation: London South Bank University

Location: London

Contact: doningtk@lsbu.ac.uk

Research Description: 

Katie Donington is a Lecturer in History at London South Bank University. She convenes two modules relating to the history of Black Britain and more broadly colonialism: ‘Black History: Concepts and Debates’ and ‘Industry, Empire and Society, 1750-1900’.

Her research focuses on the cultural, commercial, political and familial world the slave-owners made in both Jamaica and Britain. She previously worked with the Legacies of British Slave-ownership project at University College London, initially as a PhD student and later as a Post-doctoral Research Associate. Before entering academia Katie worked in the museum sector and is particularly interested in the representation of slavery in public history.

She has co-curated the exhibition ‘Slavery, Culture and Collecting’ at the Museum of London Docklands. She was an historical advisor and on-screen interviewee for the BAFTA-award winning documentary Britain’s Forgotten Slave-owners.

Research Keywords:

Slavery, family, legacies, culture, commerce, colonialism, Black history, teaching, eighteenth century, nineteenth century, museums, representation, public history

Countries and Regions of Interest: 

Caribbean, Britain, Africa, America

Publications:

Monograph

Katie Donington, The bonds of family: Slavery, commerce and culture in the British Atlantic world (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2019).

Co-authored book

Catherine Hall, Nicholas Draper, Keith McClelland, Katie Donington and Rachel Lang, Legacies of British slave-ownership: Colonial slavery and the formation of Victorian Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

Co-edited book

Katie Donington, Ryan Hanley and Jessica Moody (eds.), Britain’s memory of slavery: Local nuances of a ‘national sin’ (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2016).

Chapter in book

Katie Donington, ‘Slavery and abolition’, in Nancy Johnson and Paul Keen (eds.), Mary Wollstonecraft in Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019).

Katie Donington and Nicholas Draper, ‘Slavery and the City: An Urban Exploration’, Critical Cities, Vol.4 (London: Myrdle Court Press, 2014), pp. 178-198.

Popular publishing

Katie Donington, ‘A society built on slavery?’, History Today (Sept, 2015).

Online

Katie Donington, ‘Should historical place names be changed to fit modern values?’, BBC History Magazine (May 2017).

Katie Donington, ‘Review of Roots (2016)’, BBC History Magazine (Mar 2017).

Katie Donington, ‘The Legacies of British Slave-ownership’, History Workshop Journal Online (Nov 2014).

Book Review

Katie Donington, ‘Review of James Heartfield, The British and Foreign Antislavery Society, 1838-1950’, History: The Journal of the Historical Association (Oct 2018)

Katie Donington, ‘Review of Talitha L. LeFlouria, Chained in Silence: Black Women and Convict Labor in the New South’, Feminist Review , 115 (Mar 2017).

Katie Donington, ‘Review of William Pettigrew Freedom’s Debt: The Royal African Company and the Politics of the Atlantic Slave Trade (1672-1752) and Brycchan Carey, From Peace to Freedom: Quaker Rhetoric and the Birth of American Slavery (1657-1761)’, History Today (Jul 2014).

Encyclopaedia entry

Katie Donington, ‘Jane Harry’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).

Educational resources

Katie Donington, ‘The Legacies of British Slave-ownership’, Modern Historical Review, 18.5 (Hodder Education, 2015).

Katie Donington and Kristy Warren, ‘Hackney, sugar and slavery: Local history unit of work’, Key Stage 3 and 4.

Katie Donington, John Siblon and Kristy Warren, ‘An overview of Britain and transatlantic slavery: Background notes for teachers’, Key Stage 3 and 4.