2023 Smiley Lecture: Anthony S. Parent, Jr., “Julius Soubise: A Black Libertine”

Event poster for "Julius Soubise: A Black Libertine." Event details are replicated in this post. Poster images include a headshot of Dr. Parent and the painting "Baron Nagell’s Running Footman ",c.1795, described on the Tate museum website as "a half-length portrait in pastel by the artist Ozias Humphry showing a black man dressed in a vividly coloured livery with elaborate, feathered head-gear. The subject is turned towards the viewer, with trees to the left of him and a low, open, but undistinguishable landscape and distant blue hills beyond. He wears a bright blue and red tunic and a voluminous white ruffled shirt. His towering headpiece consists of a red cap trimmed with silver braid with a turban-like band of white silk around it, crowned with red, white and blue feathers."

The Department of History invites you to the biennial Smiley Lecture “Julius Soubise: A Black Libertine,” by Dr. Anthony S. Parent, Jr.

The free public lecture will be held on Tuesday, November 7, at 5 pm in Porter Byrum Welcome Center’s Kulynych Auditorium. A reception will follow.

About the talk: Julius Soubise was a libertine in every sense of the word, from its original meaning of liberated slave to its later iteration of “nonconformist.” Born to an enslaved mother in St. Kitts in 1745, Julius was raised by the Duchess of Queensberry to be a master fencer and horseman. Leaving London in 1777 for Calcutta, Soubise opened the “best” horse stables in India.

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