From “Indispensable” to “Demoralizing and Obstructive”: Education as a Critical Site for the Assertion and Contestation of American Empire in 19th-Century Liberia

This presentation stems from a larger dissertation project which investigates what was at stake in the contestations between Liberian sovereignty and American imperial formations in Liberia and the United States during the nineteenth century. The presentation will focus on how education, and particularly the relationship between Liberia College and the Trustees of Donations for Education, is a site which renders these contestations especially visible.