Olivette Otele

Olivette Otele holds a Chair in the History and Memories of Slavery at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Her field of research is colonial (slavery) and postcolonial history, and memory studies. She holds a PhD from Sorbonne University and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada in 2022. She is a Fellow of the RoyalHistorical Society ( ) , a member of the Learned Society of Wales and a former member of the jury of the prestigious International Man Booker Prize. She writes regularly for the Guardian and contributes to BBC debates, the Times, The New Yorker, Elle, Vogue, etc. She is also a presenter and consultant for films and documentaries (Netflix, Disney+). Her latest books include Histoire des Noirs d'Europe (Albin Michel, 2022) and Post-Conflict Memorialization: Missing memorials, Absent Bodies (MacMillan, 2021). She contributed to the Guardian 's Cotton Capital project as a consultant on the issue of reparations associated with the transatlantic slave trade.