Kim Miller
Assistant Professor of Women's Studies and Art History; Coordinator, Women's Studies
Office: Watson 142
Office Hours: Tuesday and Thursday, 11:00 - 12:00, 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 art, 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
Research Interests
For the past ten 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 scholarly articles 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. Biking. Running. Yoga. Hanging out 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
Article: „Moms with Guns: Women's Political Agency in Anti-Apartheid Visual Culture.‰ Submitted
and under review for African Arts.
Article: „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. Pp. 118 ˆ 136.
Encyclopedia Essay (forthcoming): „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.
Co-edited journal: 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.
Article: „First Word: Trauma and Representation in Africa,‰ (co-authored with Shannen Hill).
In African Arts. Volume 38, no. 3, pp. 1 ˆ 4.
Article: „Trauma, Testimony, and Truth: Contemporary South African Artists Speak. In African
Arts. Volume 38, no. 3, pp. 40 ˆ 51.
Article: „T shirts, Testimony and Truth: Memories of Violence Made Visible,‰ in
Textile: the Journal of Cloth and Culture. Volume 3, Issue 3, pp. 246 ˆ 271. 2005.
Article: „The Philani Printing Project: Women‚s Art and Activism in Crossroads, South Africa,‰ in
Feminist Studies (vol. 29, no. 3) Fall, 2003.
Book chapter: „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.