Graeme Reid, South African Scholar-Activist and Filmmaker, Visits Bard on March 11 and 12
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—South African scholar-activist and filmmaker Graeme Reid visits Bard College on March 11 and 12. Reid, founder of the Gay and Lesbian Archives of South Africa, is an experienced activist who was involved in lobbying for a sexual orientation clause in the South African constitution of 1996, arguably the most socially inclusive constitution in the world. Bard’s Human Rights and Africana Studies Programs and the Rift Valley Institute present two programs with Reid that are free and open to the public.
On Tuesday, March 11, Reid speaks about “The Canary of the Constitution: Debating Same-Sex Equality in South Africa,” focusing on the public argument concerning the sexual orientation clause and same-sex marriage in South Africa (which since 2006 has been one of five countries where same-sex marriage is legal). The presentation begins at 6:30 p.m. in Room 102 of the F. W. Olin Humanities Building.
On Wednesday, March 12, Reid shows the video documentary he codirected with Paulo Alberton. Dark and Lovely, Soft and Free, examines the remarkable lives of gay hairstylists living in small towns across South Africa. The program begins at 7:00 p.m. in Weis Cinema of the Bertelsmann Campus Center.
Graeme Reid is currently a research fellow at Yale University. In Johannesburg, he was a researcher at the Witswatersrand University Institute for Social and Economic Research. (Bard College and Witswatersrand University cosponsor the International Human Rights Exchange, an interdisciplinary semester program for North American and South African college students.) Reid is coeditor of Refiguring the Archives; Sex and Politics in South Africa and Men Behaving Differently, and coauthor of Waiting to Happen: HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa. His forthcoming book, Above the Skyline, explores the emergence of a black, gay, Pentecostal-style church community at the time of South Africa’s transition to democracy.
For additional information, call 845-758-7677 or e-mail [email protected].
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(3/3/08)