Susanne M. Klausen<\/a>, Julia Gregg Brill Professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, will spend the next several months in South Africa researching and writing about a particularly dark chapter of that country\u2019s apartheid era.<\/p>\nKlausen was awarded a residential fellowship through the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, which was founded by South Africa\u2019s Stellenbosch University in 1999. There, she\u2019ll spend the spring semester working to complete her next book, \u201cCriminal Desire: Race, Gender, and Illicit Interracial Sex in Apartheid South Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was absolutely thrilled to receive the fellowship,\u201d Klausen said. \u201cSTIAS is a really prestigious, supportive space for scholars at every level; modeled on similar institutes internationally, it\u2019s the first of its kind in Africa. I\u2019ve been there for workshops before and loved it. While I\u2019m there, I\u2019ll get to write and share my work with the other residential fellows, some of whom are also experts on South African history and politics. We\u2019ll get to ask each other questions about our research projects and challenge one another intellectually. It\u2019ll be my first time finishing a book in a community of scholars, so I\u2019m super excited.\u201d<\/p>\n
Set to be published by Oxford University Press in 2024, \u201cCriminal Desire\u201d is an examination of the effects of the apartheid government\u2019s Immorality (Amendment) Act of 1950, which criminalized sexual relations between whites and Blacks in South Africa.<\/p>\n
Klausen came up with the idea during her previous book project, 2015\u2019s \u201cAbortion Under Apartheid: Nationalism, Sexuality, and Women\u2019s Reproductive Rights in South Africa,\u201d which was also published by Oxford Press. While conducting research for that book, she came across numerous newspaper accounts of white South African men committing suicide after being arrested for violating the Immorality Act.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an infamous law, and was widely derided during apartheid. But very little scholarship exists on it,\u201d Klausen said. \u201cI\u2019m writing on the politics of its passage in 1950, the tactics police used to enforce it, and the punishment of couples convicted of violating it. Tens of thousands of South Africans were arrested for breaking this law, another example of the cruelty inflicted upon people during apartheid.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fellowship came along just at the right time, since Klausen is quickly approaching her manuscript deadline of September 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to finish it now,\u201d she said. \u201cAs a scholar, you can never know enough about your subject\u00a0\u2014 there\u2019s always more digging to be done. Deadlines make you write what you know and send it off into the world. I\u2019ve been inundated with sources; once I started to look, it was so easy to find them. There was endless amounts of coverage of the enforcement of the Immorality Act in national and international newspapers and debate about it in the South African parliament, so it was easy to trace the law\u2019s impact. And because I\u2019m the first one to analyze the passage and impact of the legislation in depth, there\u2019s a great deal of evidence to draw upon.\u201d<\/p>\n
The topic fits perfectly with Klausen\u2019s status as a social historian specializing in the lives of ordinary people. For her, it\u2019s \u201ca privilege to bring to life these histories that really need to be known.\u201d<\/p>\n
Klausen\u2019s research interests can be traced to the late 1980s in her native Canada, where she joined others protesting the federal government\u2019s attempt to recriminalize abortion. In 1988, the Canadian Supreme Court had overturned the country\u2019s abortion ban and, like thousands of other Canadians, Klausen wanted to keep it out of the criminal code.<\/p>\n
The protests succeeded and the proposed new law ultimately failed to pass. Today, Canada is the only country with no criminal restrictions on abortion\u00a0\u2014 rather, it is considered a legitimate reproductive health care procedure and publicly funded.<\/p>\n
Klausen was so inspired by the movement that she decided to make reproductive justice her scholarly focus.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt completely radicalized me,\u201d she said. \u201cI was surrounded by great political mentors and leaders, and it was the type of social justice movement I just wanted to keep being a party to. There was so much to research and write about in relation to reproductive politics.\u201d<\/p>\n
During that same period, Klausen was a committed AIDS activist. That led to her attending an international conference on youth and AIDS in 1993 in Namibia, which had recently gained its independence from South Africa. There, she developed a love for southern Africa, and an abiding scholarly interest in the region\u2019s politics of sexuality and fertility.<\/p>\n
Through the years, she has made it a point to travel to South Africa as frequently as possible to present her work and \u201cmake myself accountable to the national academic community.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI love it there. The history and culture are so rich, and the natural beauty is wonderful,\u201d she said. \u201cI just went back in October, for first time since the pandemic. I was in Johannesburg for a book launch and it was fantastic to be back in that incredible metropolis and amongst friends. When I\u2019m there I really feel affirmed in my decision to be a historian of South Africa, because it\u2019s such a great place to spend time and do research.\u201d<\/p>\n
Klausen served for many years on the history faculty at Carleton University in Ottawa before joining Penn State in January 2021. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, her entire first semester was spent on Zoom.<\/p>\n
Since her time in the United States was limited prior to her appointment, Klausen wasn\u2019t sure what to expect at first. But she\u2019s quickly come to embrace her new surroundings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI came here for the position of Brill Professor, and it\u2019s a fantastic job,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m based in the Department of Women\u2019s, Gender and Sexuality Studies and it\u2019s a very collegial department; I love the fact that I have colleagues with similar values who are also committed to social justice. It\u2019s great to have several other African feminists on the faculty, as well as colleagues who are from South Africa. It\u2019s a thriving intellectual community, and I feel privileged to be a part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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