LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Activist and feminist poet Bernedette Muthien will discuss the 20th anniversary of democracy in her native South Africa and the anti-apartheid work that led to it during a Feb. 18 talk and poetry reading at the University of Louisville.
Muthien’s free, public lecture on “Intersecting Oppressions: Women and 20 Years of Democracy in South Africa” will begin at 4:30 p.m. in Room 300, Bingham Humanities Building. She also will read from her 2012 poetry anthology “ova” and sign books at a reception afterward.
UofL’s Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research; women’s and gender studies department; peace, justice and conflict transformation program; and the College of Arts and Sciences’ international, diversity and outreach programs are lecture sponsors.
Institute director Cate Fosl and a group of eight women’s and gender studies students met with Muthien during a 2013 trip to Cape Town as part of a field study to compare the history of South African apartheid and the fight to end it with the African American freedom movement in the United States. The group visited historic sites connected to the struggle, recorded oral histories with anti-apartheid freedom fighters and met cultural activists.
Muthien was founder and executive director of the South African nongovernmental human-rights organization Engender for nearly a decade and now serves as an independent consultant.
For more information, contact Mariam Williams at the Anne Braden Institute, 502-852-6142 or miwill01@louisville.edu