Description:

At the time of the great bison hunts in the American West, a similar drama was playing out in the thirstlands of southern Africa as Dutch farmers (the Boers) drove their sheep herds into the arid lands of the |xam.

This lecture draws on a remarkable archival collection of thousands of pages of stories, that preserves a language now no longer spoken. Recalling an account once told in the dolerite hills of the Northern Cape, the lecture addresses the wider resonance of this archive, the nature of the book, and the conjuring of real presence in the place of the past.

Pippa Skotnes joins the Buffett Institute this spring as the Roberta Buffett Visiting Professor of International Studies. Skotnes is the Michaelis Professor of Fine Art and the founding director of the Centre for Curating the Archive at the University of Capetown. Her work explores themes based in South African history. Many of her projects have centered on the Bleek and Lloyd archive, an unparalleled preservation of the |xam peoples’ story as chronicled by two colonial scholars in the 1870s as it faced cultural extinction and the death of their language.

Lecture: 4 p.m.

Reception to follow: 5:30 p.m.

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Roberta “Bertie” Buffett Elliott endowed the Buffett Visiting Professorship in International Studies, which brings to campus leading scholars from around the world to build international relationships and provide educational opportunities for Northwestern students. Learn more about the Buffett Visiting Professorship program.