The Underhill Colloquium Planning Committee is pleased to announce that Dr Monica Patterson will be delivering this year’s luncheon address on March 9th at 1:00 PM in the History Lounge. This address will be in English.
Dr Patterson’s address, “Imag(in)ing Childhood in Apartheid’s Last Decades,” will draw from a range of historical and especially visual material, to examine the contested and conflicting constructions of childhood in late apartheid South Africa from 1976 into the early years of democracy.
Dr Patterson is an Assistant Professor at Carleton University in the Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies. She earned her doctorate in Anthropology and History and a certificate in Museum Studies from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor). Patterson is co-editor of several articles and two books: Curating Difficult Knowledge: Violent Pasts in Public Places (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) and Anthrohistory: Unsettling Knowledge and Questioning Discipline (University of Michigan Press, 2011). Currently, she is working on a manuscript that examines the multiple and contested understandings of childhood in late-apartheid South Africa. As a scholar, curator, and activist, her work explores the intersections of memory, childhood, and violence in postcolonial Africa, and the ways in which they are represented and engaged in contemporary public spheres.