Athens, Ga. – The University of Georgia Franklin College of Arts and Sciences African Studies Institute will host American Council of Learned Societies and African Studies Association Presidential Fellow Grace Musila on campus Nov. 11-18. Musila’s visit to UGA includes a public lecture Nov. 12 at noon in Room 142 of the Tate Center.
The lecture, “Sex, Gender and the ‘Criminal State’ in the Julie Ward Murder in Kenya,” will focus on the 1988 murder of a British tourist at the Maasai Game Reserve in Kenya and “the multiple strands of ideas and interests that were inscribed on the Julie Ward murder and what these reveal about cultural productions of truth, knowledge and social imaginaries in Kenya and Britain,” Musila said.
Musila teaches in the English department of Stellenbosch University in South Africa. She holds a doctorate in African literature, and her research interests include East African and Southern African literatures, popular culture and gender studies.
“We are happy to be the host institution for one of the 2014 ACLS/ASA Presidential Fellows, Dr. Grace Musila, whose visit will strengthen the relationship between UGA and Stellenbosch University in South Africa,” said Akinloye Ojo, associate professor of comparative literature and director of the UGA African Studies Institute. “Dr. Musila’s visit will also give our faculty and graduate students the opportunity to interact with an outstanding Africa-based scholar as she spends time on campus.”
The African Studies Association Presidential Fellows Program was instituted in 2010 with the objective of inviting outstanding Africa-based scholars to attend the ASA annual meeting and spend time at African studies programs and centers in the U.S.
For the past three years, the ASA has worked with the African Humanities Program of the American Council of Learned Societies to identify scholars and to fund their visits to the ASA meeting.
For more information on Musila’s visit to UGA, see http://afrstu.uga.edu/.
