Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies

Featuring: Dr. Mandisa Haarhoff

This talk is a critical reflection on how black people engage sites of erasure (particularly spaces that hold sacred meanings to settler-colonial histories) and do so without knowledge, concern, or reverence for these histories. How does this interaction with these sites potentially undermine, disrupt, or throw into sharp relief ongoing forms of spatial erasure.

This event is free and open to the public. This event kicks off Blackness 360°: Art, Culture, Health, and Futures, a series of curated experiences designed to deepen knowledge about the multiplicity and complexity of Blackness and Black experiences. The series is organized by UF Black Affairs in partnership with its 2020-21 Faculty Fellow. Support provided by co-sponsors: UF Center for Arts Migration and Entrepreneurship, UF Center for Gender, Sexualities, and Women’s Studies Research, UF Center for Humanities and the Public Sphere, UF Center for Latin American Studies, and The Power Lab.

 https://ufl.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0pduyurzooGdBUqAGZElKl8k9mZUXgwSfi 

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Dr. Mandisa Haarhoff completed her Ph.D. at the University of Florida in 2018 on a Fulbright scholarship, and currently holds a full-time position as lecturer at the University of Cape Town. She completed her MA in Drama at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal with funding from the National Research Foundation. She is a recipient of the National Research Fund’s Black Academic Advancement Project Programme for her first book project, “Kaffirs are Kwerekweres: White indigeneity and Black Absenting in the South African Farm Novel. The monograph examines the ways in which novels and Plaastoman participate in constructions of white indigeneity and enact black absenting throughout the late-colonial and apartheid period. Haarhoff’s research interests are concentrated around postcolonial theory, black studies, and critical race theory. Her teaching centers on African and diasporic literatures.