Public history

A few things that face toward a wider public:

A short essay about the geography of the African Studies Series of Cambridge University Press. In two parts.
An interview concerning Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival.
A podcast about archive work in Uganda on ‘Africa Past and Present’, episode 55.
An open letter, signed by 41 colleagues and dated 20 April 2016, expressing support for the continuance of the Ph.D. program at the Makerere Institute for Social Research at Makerere University, Uganda.
An article in Inside Higher Education concerning the controversy at the Makerere Institute for Social Research.
An article in the Episcopal News Service about the new slave-trade heritage center at Christ Church Cathedral in Zanzibar.
A video of the Audrey Richards lecture, delivered at the University of Cambridge as the keynote for the African Studies Association (UK)’s biennial meeting in September 2016. The lecture was entitled ‘The Uganda Museum and the History of Heritage in Africa’. (See below)

A video of a Distinguished Lecture of the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change, delivered in October 2016 at the University of Minnesota. The lecture was entitled ‘Nonconformity in Africa’s Cultural History’.
An audio recording of a lecture at the Centre for World Christianity, Africa International University, Nairobi, in August 2017. The lecture was entitled ‘Nonconformity in African Christianity’.
A short video prepared by the MacArthur Foundation highlighting the elements of Peterson’s scholarly work. (See below)

An audio of Peterson’s hour-long interview on ‘Living Writers’, with T. Heizel, on WCBN Ann Arbor in December 2017.
An audio interview with the editors of the American Historical Review concerning–among other things–Peterson’s 2006 essay ‘Morality Plays: Marriage, Church Courts, and Colonial Agency in Tanganyika’.
A video of the Earle A. Pope Lecture, given at the Department of Religious Studies, Lafayette College, in March 2017. The lecture was entitled ‘Nonconformist Christianity in Africa’s History’. (See below)

An audio recording of a lecture at the Eisenberg Center for Historical Studies at the University of Michigan given in October 2016. The lecture was entitled ‘The Politics of Transcendence in Colonial Uganda’.
An open letter to the Minister of Public Service, Republic of Uganda, concerning the need to properly equip and support the National Archives of Uganda.
A news report from the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation describing a new project to preserve and digitise the UBC’s photographic archives. (See below)

A press release from the Judiciary of the Republic of Uganda concerning a 2018 project to organise and catalogue the Judiciary archives. The project involves a team of students from the University of Michigan working with colleagues from Makerere University.
A recording of a lecture at the Center for Research Libraries Collectors’ Forum, Chicago, IL, May 2018. The lecture was entitled ‘Archives, Access, and the Politics of INformation in Africa’. (See below)

A news report from the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation describing progress on the creation of a new digital archive consisting of photographic images made by Uganda’s presidential photographers between the 1960s and the 1980s. (See below)

A paper about ‘Race, Slavery, and Moral Argument in 19th Century Ann Arbor’, prepared for a public meeting at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Ann Arbor, in November 2018.
A lecture entitled ‘Practicing History in Difficult Times’, given to graduating students of the Department of History, University of Michigan, in May 2018. (See below)

A lecture entitled ‘The Government of Religious Life in Idi Amin’s Uganda’, given to the Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life at Columbia University, in October 2020.

A lecture entitled ‘Renovating History in Idi Amin’s Uganda’, given to the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Makerere University, Uganda, in February 2020. (See below)

A lecture entitled ‘The Unseen Archive of Idi Amin: Making History in a Tight Corner’, given to the Royal Historical Society in July 2020. (See below)

A press release from the Judiciary of Uganda, describing Peterson’s ongoing work with students at Makerere and at Michigan to organise and preserve the archives of the Mengo Court. Mengo is the oldest ‘customary’ law court in eastern or southern Africa; its records–which concern the history of litigation in the Kingdom of Buganda–stretch back to the early 20th century. The archive was put in order and catalogued in 2019, and it will be digitised in 2021-22.
A podcast about the 2019-2020 exhibition ‘The Unseen Archive of Idi Amin’, discussing the logistics of the exhibition. With Uganda Museum curator Nelson Abiti. The interview was conducted by journalist Mwine-Mujagu.
A television interview about the 2021 Ugandan elections on ‘The Agenda’, broadcast by TVO Ontario. With Gerald Bareebe, York University and Rita Abrahamsen, University of Ottawa; interview by Nam Kiwanuka.
The series How to Become a Tyrant, broadcast in six episodes. Part 3: ‘Reign Through Terror’, featured Peterson’s research–and the still photographs of the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation, discussed elsewhere on this site.
The ongoing podcast ‘Real Dictators’ features a six-part series on Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, with commentary from Peterson, Nakanyike Musisi, Mark Leopold, Alicia Decker & others.
A press release about ‘Repositioning the Uganda Museum’, a project funded by the Mellon Foundation. The project will involve the repatriation of an important collection of ethnographic objects from the Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of Cambridge to the Uganda Museum in Kampala.
A news article from the Monitor (Uganda) about ‘Repositioning the Uganda Museum’.
A keynote lecture for the International Humanities Conference of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Makerere University. The lecture was titled ‘Media and Revolution in Idi Amin’s Uganda’.