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Lynn Thomas
University of Washington
Lynn Thomas is a historian of politics and gender in twentieth-century Africa. In addition to being in the department of history, she is an adjunct professor in the gender, women & sexuality studies department, and in the anthropology department and an active member of the African studies program.
Talk Information:
Beneath the Surface
January 29, 2021 | 11:00 AM
Associated Edited Volumes: 11
She discussed her new book Beneath the Surface, which is a transnational history of skin lighteners centered in South Africa that extends into the broader southern African region, east Africa, and the United States. In teasing out skin lighteners' layered history, she considers the body's surface as a site for antiracist struggle and lighteners as a technology of visibility that both challenges and entrenches racial and gender hierarchies.