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Wheaton College
26 East Main Street
Wheaton College
Norton, MA 02766-2322

Office: Watson 142
Office Hours: Thursdays from 10 - 12, and by appointment
Phone: 508-286-3579
Email: miller_kim@wheatoncollege.edu

Degrees

Ph.D.,M.A.,University of Wisconsin-Madison
B.A., George Washington University

Main Interests

Contemporary African visual culture, specifically South Africa, specifically politically-engaged artists
Women's visual culture
Women's leadership and its representation
Feminist theory and practice
Memory, trauma, and their expressions in visual culture including commemorative sites

Research Interests

For the past fifteen years, I have been motivated to examine the relationship between visual culture, gender, and power in African arts. I am primarily interested in the ways in which artists use visual culture for the purposes of promoting social justice, and the ways in which women use art as a form of activism and empowerment. Several of my publications concern an artmaking cooperative called the Philani Printing Project, which is located in the township of Crossroads (South Africa). The women artists who work here have formed an amazing place where art and feminist politics intersect with political action. I have also written about the place of visual culture in relation to memory, trauma, and recovery.

My current research project, titled "Gender Blindness and the Shaping of Memory in Post-Apartheid South African Visual Culture," examines visual representations of women political activists in South Africa both during and after the struggle against apartheid. Specifically, I examine the extent to which women's participation in the struggle for democracy is represented and remembered, and in many cases forgotten, in contemporary South African visual culture and commemorative sites.

I am also starting a new research project on representations of health and healing in visual culture. Right now, my primary focus of the South African Body Maps Project, created by a South African group called The Bambanani Women's Group. This artmaking project was developed to help women with HIV/AIDS tell their stories, and was initiated as a partnership with Medecins Sans Frontieres. In the future I hope to extend this research beyond South Africa, and beyond HIV/AIDS.

Teaching Interests

African visual culture, Contemporary African arts, Introduction to women's studies, Women and war, Black feminist theory. I also teach the senior seminar in women's studies, and our current topic is: "Practicing Feminism: Coalition, Collaboration, and Conversation"

Other Interests

Researching and talking about family-friendly practices in the workplace. Institutional transformation. Reading about and learning from feminist administrators. Biking. Running. Yoga. Having fun with my kids.

Student Projects

I have supervised independent work in: Black lesbian feminisms, Coalitions between men and women in women's studies, Chicago black women's clubs, women's micro-lending in Quito, Ecuador, mother-activist movements, and others.

Selected Publications, Creative Work or Performances

"Selective Silencing and the Shaping of Memory: The Case of the Monument to the Women of South Africa." Under revision, South African Historical Journal.

"Gender Blindness and the Shaping of Memory in Post-Apartheid Visual Culture." 25th Annual Conference Proceedings of the South African Visual Arts Historians. Forthcoming 2009

"Moms with Guns: Women's Political Agency in Anti-Apartheid Visual Culture." African Arts. Volume 42, no. 2. Summer 2009.

"Iconographies of Gender, Poverty, and Power in Contemporary South African Visual Culture." in National Women's Studies Association Journal, special issue on feminist activist art. Spring 2007.

This article is being anthologized as "Iconographies of Gender, Poverty, and Power in Contemporary South African Visual Culture." The Visible Woman: Female Representation in Performance and Visual Culture: A NWSA Journal Anthology. Olga Mesropova and Stacey Weber-Feve, co-editors. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, forthcoming in 2009.

"Women's Cooperatives and Self-Help Projects." Berg Encyclopedia of Dress and Fashion, edited by
Joanne Eicher. Essay co-authored with Brenda Schmahmann. Publication forthcoming in 2010.

Special edition of African Arts entitled Trauma and Representation: Imaging Violence in Africa and the
African Diaspora. Co-edited with Shannen Hill. Autumn, 2005, vol. 38 no. 3.

"First Word: Trauma and Representation in Africa." (co-authored with Shannen Hill).
In African Arts. Volume 38, no. 3. 2005.

"Trauma, Testimony, and Truth: Contemporary South African Artists Speak." In African
Arts. Volume 38, no. 3. 2005.

"T shirts, Testimony and Truth: Memories of Violence Made Visible." in Textile: the Journal of Cloth and
Culture. Volume 3, Issue 3. 2005.

"The Philani Printing Project: Women's Art and Activism in Crossroads, South Africa." in
Feminist Studies (vol. 29, no. 3) Fall, 2003.

"Crossdressing at the Crossroads: Mimicry and Ambivalence in Yoruba Masked Performance." in Susan
Fillen-Yeh, ed. Dandies: Fashion and Finesse in Art and Culture New York:New York University Press.
2001.