Patricia Hayes
DSI/NRF SARChI Chair in Visual History & Theory Centre for Humanities Research
Patricia Hayes was awarded the DSI/NRF SARChI Chair in Visual History & Theory in 2016. A scholar of African history, gender studies and visuality, Hayes began research on photography and the question of history after completing her PhD at the University of Cambridge. Initially conceived through an exhibition project on Namibia called ‘The Colonising Camera’ (1998) and supported by the innovative History Department at UWC, the research and teaching project in Visual History became firmly established.
The Chair’s research and teaching converge around issues of visuality, African history, and the archive as method. Visual history brings debates around the image into a discipline that is usually silent about its epistemological underpinnings and temporal understandings. In relation to African history specifically, this inquiry into images allows an interrogation of the different mediums and analytical categories of the history of the continent, from precolonial to contemporary times. Anchored in constantly expanding research in varied archives, the Chair is also part of a movement to promote the preservation and activation of archives, where the archive also becomes part of methodological and philosophical thinking. Specific paradigms and postgraduate research associated with the Chair now include documentary photography; liberation struggles and the post-apartheid; digital photography in the postcolony; and photography and historical method.
Recent publications by the Chair include:
- Photography and Visibility in African History (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2019), co-edited with Gary Minkley (https://www.ohioswallow.com/book/Ambivalent);
- ‘Zenzo Nkobi, ZAPU photographer: exile, visibility, and the anteroom of war in Zambia, 1977-80’ in Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol 46 No 5, 2020;
- ‘War and Vision on New Terms. Archives of the Insensible: Of War, Photopolitics, and Dead Memory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015. By Allen Feldman’ in Cultural Critique 109 (Fall 2020).
Patricia Hayes has also edited several journal special issues on visuality and gender including Gender & History (2006) and Kronos (2000 & 2020). She co-authored Bush of Ghosts: Life & War in Namibia (2010) with photographer John Liebenberg, and has published articles on South African photographers Santu Mofokeng, David Goldblatt, Jo Ractliffe, Omar Badsha, Chris Ledochowski and others, as well as Ricardo Rangel and Kok Nam of Mozambique. Her work appears in Okwui Enwezor’s The Rise and Fall of Apartheid (2012), Crais and McLendon’s The South African Reader (2014), Mofokeng’s Chasing Shadows (Prestel 2011), and Ribeiro’s Proximo Futuro on African photography (2013). Articles on photography and the making of publics have appeared in Photographies (Vol 10 No 3, 2017), Cultural Critique (Issue 89, 2015) and Sanil V & Divya Dwivedi’s The Public Sphere from Outside the West (2015). Hayes is also series co-editor of the series Photography, History: History, Photography at Routledge Publishers (https://www.routledge.com/Photography-History-History-Photography/book-series/BLPHOPHHP).
Related News
Visual History and Theory International Workshop: Deep Time, Shallow Time
The 2024 Visual History and Theory Workshop will take place on 19-20 September at the CHR’s Iyatsiba Lab.
Call for Papers: Visual History and Theory International Workshop: Deep time, shallow time.
Abstracts are invited for participation in the annual workshop in Visual History & Theory to be held at the Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape, on 19-20 September 2024.
Publication: Patricia Hayes, ‘Our Nightly Bread’.
The CHR is delighted to announce the publication of ‘Our Nightly Bread: Women and the city in Ricardo Rangel’s photographs of Lourenço Marques, Mozambique (1950-1960s)’, by Patricia Hayes, which appears in Photography in Portuguese Colonial Africa, 1860–1975.
New Archival Visions: 2022 Doctoral Fellows
We are delighted to announce the appointment of four Doctoral fellows to the New Archival Visions Programme in 2022. This is part of the university’s effort to revitalise its humanities archival holdings and arises from recommendations contained in a White Paper titled: Revitalising UWC Research Archives that was produced by Professor Patricia Hayes, Dr Valmont Layne and Dr Anthea Josias.
Book Launch: Love And Revolution in the Twentieth-Century Colonial and Postcolonial World
On behalf of the Africa Institute, we are pleased to invite you to its Faculty and Fellows Seminar Series for a book launch and discussion on ,i>Love and Revolution in the Twentieth-Century Colonial and Postcolonial World.
Kerala Council for Historical Research Launches Love and Revolution
The CHR is pleased to share that the Kerala Council for Historical Research (KCHR) will be hosting a launch for Love and Revolution in the Twentieth-Century Colonial and Postcolonial World: Perspectives from South Asia and Southern Africa.
Doctoral Fellowships (2022-5): New Archival Visions
We are pleased to share that the University of the Western Cape is offering four doctoral fellowships based at the Centre for Humanities Research to commence in 2022.
Love and Revolution in the Twentieth-Century Colonial and Postcolonial World
The CHR is very pleased to announce the publication of Love and Revolution in the Twentieth-Century Colonial and Postcolonial World (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), edited by G. Arunima, Patricia Hayes, and Premesh Lalu.
Stealing Time
Join Prof. Patricia Hayes for “Photographs and the Long Inception of Colonialism in Southern Angola,” a lecture hosted by the Institute of the Humanities and Global Cultures (IHGC) at the University of Virginia.
Archival Futures and Research: Preservation, Access and UWC’s Digital Infrastructure
Prof. Patricia Hayes and Dr Valmont Layne investigate how UWC can revitalise its archival holdings for preservation, teaching, research access, and public programmes.
Book Chapters List
Contributions by Staff and Fellows of the Centre for Humanities Research to edited volumes represent a diverse engagement with the centre’s academic inquiries. The following list shows publications from the latter years of the centre’s output.
List of Articles (2016-present)
Staff and Fellows of the Centre for Humanities Research regularly publish articles and reviews in local and international journals, applying the centre’s intellectual inquiries across a wide range of disciplines and interests.
Ambivalent at Jacana’s Virtual Book Theatre
Ambivalent will be featured at Jacana Media’s Don’t Shut Up virtual book theatre on Sunday, 23 May 2021.
Kronos: Southern African Histories 46
The CHR is excited to announce the publication of Other Lives of the Image, a special issue of the journal Kronos: Southern African Histories.
The South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar Presents:Other Lives of the Image
The South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar will be hosting a launch of Other Lives of the Image, a special issue of the journal Kronos: Southern African Histories, on 9 March 2021.
A Conversation with Patricia Hayes
Professor Patricia Hayes of the CHR will be in conversation with Professor Tamar Garb of UCL about Ambivalent: Photography and Visibility in African History
SARChI Chair in Visual History & Theory Review
The SARChI Chair in Visual History & Theory underwent its first-phase review in 2020 and has been awarded a second phase of funding for 2021-5 by the National Research Foundation (NRF).
Re-Centring Afro Asia Conference
The CHR presented a panel with the Centres’ Patricia Hayes, Luis Gimenez and Kiasha Naidoo, chaired by Ross Truscott discussing the possibilities and approaches to the invocation of the precolonial at the recently convened Afro-Asia Conference.
Ambivalent. Photography and Visibility in African History Book Launch
Edited by Patricia Hayes and Gary Minkley
Published by Ohio University Press, 2019
Ambivalent: Photography and Visibility in African History (New African Histories)
The CHR congratulates Patricia Hayes, SARChI Chair in Visual History, and Gary Minkley, SARChI Chair in Social Change, on the publication of their latest co-edited book Ambivalent.
A Tribute to Paul Grendon
On 7 September 2019, prolific photographer and friend of the CHR Paul Grendon passed away. Patricia Hayes offers a tribute to his life and work.
Other Lives of the Image: International Workshop in Visual History and Theory
From 4 – 6 October, the International Workshop in Visual History and Theory will convene around the theme Other Lives of the Image.
Other lives of the image
Call for papers: International Workshop in Visual History & Theory
On the Edge of History: Photographs & African Archives
International Workshop on Visual History & Theory
Workshop: the (visual) subject
International Workshop on Visual History and Theory, Cape Town, 22-23 September 2017
Call for abstracts: the (visual) subject
The (visual) subject International Workshop on Visual History and Theory Cape Town 22 - 23 September 2017 The annual workshop in Visual History and Theory […]
Seminar: The African Resistance Fighter Jacon Marengo
Centre for Humanities Research & Department of History, University of the Western Cape South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar Ulrike Lindner (History Department, University […]
The Borderlands: Jo Ractliffe and Patricia Hayes
The Centre for Humanities Research invites you to a book launch and discussion between Jo Ractliffe and Patricia Hayes. The Centre for Humanities Research invites […]
Seminar: Empty photographs: Ethnography and the lacunae of African history: Patricia Hayes
Centre for Humanities Research & Department of History, University of the Western Cape South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar Patricia Hayes (DST/NRF SARChI Chair […]
Patricia Hayes awarded an NRF SARChI Chair
Congratulations to Professor Patricia Hayes on being awarded an NRF SARChI Chair in Visual History and Theory at the University of the Western Cape.
Love & Revolution
A workshop series & publication project A series of four international workshops on ‘love’ and ‘revolution’ took place in Cape Town (October 2010), Minneapolis (March-April […]