African Humanities Scholar Musila at UGA

The intersection of current events that hold popular fascination with wider cultural truths and observations is a societal phenomenon tailor-made for our finest scholars and critics. What our stories, and the way we tell them, say about us can offer insights about the direction of a culture toward honesty about itself.

This week, the African Studies Institute will host one of the great young African cultural scholars, Grace Ahingula Musila, American Council of Learned Societies and African Studies Association Presidential Fellow:

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.

A great program that brings important scholars to 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. 

This lecture will be a terrific opportunity to learn about the Ward case from a scholar who is untangling some of the deep complexities of the post-colonial era.