Queering the African City: Johannesburg and Nairobi

A public reading by Mark Gevisser

An event hosted by LSE Cities and Spectrum

This public reading by Mark Gevisser at LSE was co-hosted by Spectrum and LSE Cities.

Mark is one of South Africa’s most celebrated writers and journalists. Notable works include Defiant Desire: Gay and Lesbian Lives in South Africa (1994), co-edited with Edwin Cameron, and Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred (2007).

Mark read sections from Lost and Found in Johannesburg: a Memoir (2014) and ‘Walking Girly in Nairobi’, his contribution to a new anthology of African writing entitled Safe House: Explorations in Creative Nonfiction (2016).

Dr Andrew van der Vlies, Reader in Anglophone Literature and Theory at Queen Mary, University of London, engaged Mark in discussion before taking questions from the audience. The event was chaired by Deborah James, Professor of Anthropology at LSE.

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    Mark Gevisser

    Mark Gevisser is one of South Africa's most celebrated writers and journalists. Notable works include Defiant Desire: Gay and Lesbian Lives in South Africa (1994), co-edited with Edwin Cameron, and Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred (2007).

    Andrew van der Vlies

    Dr Andrew van der Vlies is Reader in Global Anglophone Literature and Theory Queen Mary, University of London. He is the author of South African Textual Cultures (2007) and J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace (2010). He is also the editor of Safundi: The Journal of South African and American Studies.

    Deborah James

    Deborah James is Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics. Her research interests, focused on South Africa, include migration, ethnomusicology, ethnicity, property relations and the politics of land reform. She is author of Songs of the Women Migrants: Performance and Identity in South Africa (Edinburgh University Press, 1999) and of Gaining Ground? “Rights” and “Property” in South African Land Reform (Routledge, 2007).