Africa Table - Mapping Colouredness: Geographies of South African Identity

Join the Center for African Studies for our weekly lunchtime lecture series.

Speaker: Grant Parker, Associate Professor, Classics, Stanford University

What does 'Coloured' mean two decades after the end of apartheid? Starkly different answers to this question can be found. This presentation will look at the role of space and place in the shaping of South African identities.Grant Parker is Associate Professor of Classics at Stanford University. 
Hailing from South Africa, he obtained his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of Cape Town and his PhD from Princeton. He joined Stanford from Duke University in 2006. He teaches mostly Latin, as well as topics linked to the exotic and geographic elements of Roman imperial culture. His book, The Making of Roman India, was published in 2008, while new projects have addressed ancient travel literature as well as Rome's Egyptian obelisks. His interest in classical reception is reflected in his 2001 book, The Agony of Asar (critical edition of a former slave's defense of slavery, written in Latin [Leiden 1742]) and the forthcoming edited volume South Africa, Greece and Rome: Classical Confrontations (Cambridge University Press). New projects have addressed ancient travel literature, Rome’s Egyptian obelisks, and statues honoring Nelson Mandela.

Photo credit: Harold Scheub, 'Cape Town: District Six', Harold E. Scheub Collection, University of Wisconsin - Madison.