Derek Peterson, “Life Continues: Lessons from a Dictatorship”

Professor Peterson is an award-winning historian of East Africa whose work offers rare insight into life under one of the most repressive governments of the 20 th Century, revealing creativity, resilience, and even joy under sometimes dire conditions.

Derek Peterson is a historian of East Africa whose accolades include a MacArthur “Genius” Grant. His books include Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival (2012), a history of Christian conversion that earned the Herskovits Prize from the African Studies Association and the American Historical Association’s Martin A. Klein Prize in African History. His most recent book, The Unseen Archive of Idi Amin (2021), documents Amin’s dictatorship in 1970s Uganda. Professor Peterson has also collaborated with local intellectuals and universities to preserve colonial- and
postcolonial-era archival sources across Kenya and Uganda. He currently leads efforts to repatriate to Uganda cultural artifacts from the British Museum.

Pizza, including Gluten-Free and Vegan options, will be served in the Kaufman/Hackman lobby before and during the event.

Sponsors: The Africana Studies Program, the International Studies
Program, the Department of Anthropology, and the
Department of History

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