Q: Why did you choose to come to the University?
A: Because the University of Virginia offered me a job. I was teaching at the University of Florida, which is in many ways a fine school, but they were going through a rough patch back in the early to mid-1990s. Both the history department there and the center for African studies have lost some very fine scholars, many of whom were my friends ... I had spent a year at the University as post-doc. I got to know the University and liked it quite a bit. There was also something of a homing instinct.
Q: You teach both history and photography. What about these two subjects interests you and how do you see them interacting?
A: A lot of my photography revolves around the same kind of concerns I have as a historian. I teach courses in the history of photography ... [and] I think it’s really important in my African history classes for people to see images of Africa for them to understand that there’s a lot more to Africa than the kind of visual material they get most of the time if they’re watching whatever news program that happens to be on TV.
Africa is usually represented by doom, disease and disaster. That kind of Africa in crisis is generally all that the Western media gives us in terms of images of Africa ... The other extreme that you get is game reserves with wild animals, with almost no people in the photograph at all. There’s not much else in between that ... What is missing is the ordinary life of the vast majority of African people. The vast majority of African people are not experiencing warfare, they’re not starving, they don’t have diseases and don’t live in game parks. They’re farming their land, they’re working at jobs in the cities. They’re trying to send their kids to school, in the evening they’re playing soccer and getting drinks ... In my class, I like to give them images of ordinary life.
Q: Africa is still a place that is relatively unknown to many U.Va. students. What led you to want to study the continent?
A: When I was thinking about graduate school, I was torn between doing American history and African history, but particularly South Africa because in many ways it is so similar to the United States. It had a history of white supremacy, segregation, resistance to white supremacy and segregation, freedom struggles in both countries. Both had had systems of slavery that were very similar to each other. Slaves had worked on farms producing commodities that were exported. I eventually decided that if I learn things about South Africa, that will actually illuminate aspects of American history ... I was also drawn by the idea of just leaving, going to a new place — going to a foreign land, learning new languages, meeting new people. If I had stayed I might have spent my field work in Louisville. I figured if I do African history, I’ll end up in Africa.
Q: Have your experiences in Africa changed your perception of the continent?
A: One of things that really surprises almost everybody about Africa is the warmth of Africa and Africans — their openness, their hospitality, their tremendous sense of generosity, their willingness to allow you into their lives ... Africans put a very high premium on the quality of human relationships. For an American going over, that embrace that you get from Africans can be a real surprise.
Q: Can you briefly describe your first trip there?
A: The first time I was in Africa, I went to South Africa directly ... This was South Africa at its worst. It was a time when the police state was most active and the oppression was most active. It was a time when people I had known had been arrested, detained, with no access to lawyers. So I crossed the border to Botswana, which was a free country, and it was almost a physical sensation of this sense of darkness and repression lifted. I’d forgotten what it was like to be in a normal place. Botswanans, to generalize again — even for Africans — they are very warm, open and generous and they always have a great sense of humor. It’s a lovely place.
Q: I understand you are currently working in Cape town, on a project regarding the New Year’s Carnival. Can you tell me a little bit about your project?
A: The carnival’s roots go back nearly 150 years. It’s a very old tradition. It’s similar to the carnival in Rio de Janeiro or Mardi Gras. It has its own historical particularities. It just so happens to grow out of working class communities, which have a history of having been slaves. So to look at the way that these communities use the carnival to express the sense of themselves, the sense of their particular identities and also to critique the society in which they live. It’s awfully related to the kinds of questions I’m asking in my first book. I’m exploring it through photography...I was in Cape Town in late December and early January; that’s when the carnival happens. I still haven’t edited all the photographs that I came back with. This will eventually turn into a book.
Q: When you’re not working, how do you spend your time?
A: I also have another long-term project I’m working on in race and identity in motorsports. It’s in drag racing — the only racing sport in the United States with significant [numbers of] minorities and women. From the grass roots to the highest professional level, it’s a very working class sport and has a lot of participation in the South ... What I’m exploring is why is drag racing so different from other motor sports. Here you have this very Southern, this very working class environment, but you have this very easy integration. As far as both the blacks and the women are concerned, this has been happening for years. I’m calling this project, “Democracy of Speed.” It’s very American, but is also seriously democratic.
Q: Had you not decided to become a writer and a professor, what job do you think you would be holding today?
A: I’d be driving a cab. You know, look, I was 30 when I went to grad school. I spent five years cooking in a variety of different restaurants. I spent a couple of years driving a cab. During that time, I was trying to do two things: trying to make it as a writer — I was writing detective novels — and trying to make it as a musician. I discovered in my twenties that my detective novels weren’t very good and nobody was going to pay me for playing the French horn.
Q: You’ve been at the University since 1995. What’s the most rewarding thing about teaching at the University?
A: Teaching at U.Va. — I love being in the classroom. We’ve got smart students, engaged students, interested students, interesting students. I think without a doubt it’s the interaction with the student body that’s the most rewarding thing.
Q: Finally, if your closest friend was to describe you in just three words, what would they be?
A [joking]: I can’t tell you that. I really cannot tell you that. None of the three words that first come to mind are suitable for publication in your newspaper. They would describe me as brilliant, hard working and devilishly handsome.
Read More
A review on a year with a roommate
By Rosie Strickland | 3 days agoMy roommate has indirectly taught me the importance of learning how to build my own routine.
Africa Day captures the ‘essence’ of African heritage
By Kate Johnson | 4 days agoSaturday's sold-out event featured a four-hour program of modeling scenes, dance performances and musical acts in the Newcomb Ballroom.
A guide to the perfect first date
By Anna Stamey | 5 days agoHere's my take on the formula you should use to scheme a potentially perfect date.
