Northwestern Events Calendar

Nov
3
2014

Religion and Race, Religion as Race: The Place of Muslims in South Africa

When: Monday, November 3, 2014
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM CT

Where: 620 Library Place, Conference Room, 620 Library Place , Evanston, IL 60208 map it

Audience: Faculty/Staff - Student - Public - Post Docs/Docs - Graduate Students

Contact: Program of African Studies   (847) 491-7323

Group: Program of African Studies

Category: Lectures & Meetings

Description:

"Religion and Race, Religion as Race: The Place of Muslims in South Africa"

Gabeba Baderoon, Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies and African Studies at Pennsylvania State University and an Extraordinary Professor of English at Stellenbosch University

Abstract:
South Africa is infamous for apartheid, but the country’s foundation was laid by 176 years of slavery from 1658 to 1834, which formed a crucible of war, genocide and systemic sexual violence that continues to haunt the country today. Enslaved people from East Africa, India and South East Asia, many of whom were Muslim, would eventually constitute the majority of the population of the Cape Colony, the first of the colonial territories that would form South Africa. Attempts to create a Muslim 'race' in mid-twentieth century South Africa illustrate the complex relation of religion to race that has marked South Africa since the colonial period. This talk argues that the 350-year presence of Muslims in South Africa is crucial to understanding the formation of concepts of race, sexuality and belonging in the country.

Bio:
Gabeba Baderoon received a PhD in English from the University of Cape Town. She is the author of Regarding Muslims: from Slavery to Post-apartheid (Wits, 2014) and the poetry collections The Dream in the Next Body and A hundred silences. She is an Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies and African Studies at Pennsylvania State University and an Extraordinary Professor of English at Stellenbosch University.

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