"The New Kings of Africa: Sovereign Homophobia," a Lecture by D. Vance Smith

Colonialism’s project of “modernizing” both sharpened and undermined the idea of kingship and of the modern secularized state. The medieval theory of kingship has disappeared, but the abstract idea of the king’s body—the mystical representation of the state--has been reanimated in post-independence regimes: a leader who is sacred, messianic, untouchable. The political power of this idea comes partly from the manufactured fear of the body of the homosexual, represented as “un-African,” but framed precisely in the terms of Western homophobic discourse. I’ll contrast the cases of Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Kabaka Mwanga II of Uganda.

D. Vance Smith is professor of English and former director of medieval studies at Princeton University. His most recent book is Atlas's Bones: The African Foundations of Europe (Chicago, 2025). His other books include Arts of Dying: Literature and Finitude in Medieval England; Arts of Possession: The Medieval English Household Imaginary, and The Book of the Incipit: Beginnings in the 14th Century.

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