Tuesday, 8 April 2014
Public lecture: ‘Ecologically-based projects to address psychological trauma among vulnerable children in the USA’

Presented by Professor Cindy Crusto, Associate Professor of Psychology, Yale University School of Medicine

Time: 14:00-15:30 (followed by a reception)
Venue: Merensky Library Auditorium, University of Pretoria, Hatfield Campus
RSVP by 4 April: [email protected]

This presentation will address the major public health concern of childhood exposure to psychological trauma (e.g. child abuse, neglect, domestic violence, loss of a loved one, natural disaster). Children exposed to multiple traumas often experience negative developmental consequences, and in this presentation attention will be given to the impact of trauma on children’s social and emotional functioning. Data will be presented from large-scale, multi-level, Federally-funded projects in the United States. These projects were implemented in local communities to address the trauma-related needs of vulnerable children and their families. The presentation will conclude with the implications of these study findings for supporting a public health approach to children’s mental health, including attention to health promotion and to vulnerable populations.

Thursday, 10 April 2014
Capital Cities public conversation: ‘Debating cities of the South: theories and materialities’

Presented by Professor Sophie Oldfield, social geographer at the School of Environmental Geographical Sciences, University of Cape Town, and

Dr Noëleen Murray, architect and humanities scholar, Cities in Transition Research Project, University of the Western Cape

Respondent: Professor Alan Mabin, Director: Capital Cities Project, and research fellow at the Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship

Time: 18:00-19:30 (followed by a reception)
Venue: Sanlam Auditorium, UP Conference Centre, University of Pretoria, Hatfield Campus
RSVP by 7 April: [email protected]

‘From the South? Engaging critical urbanism’ by Professor Sophie Oldfield

The renaissance in urban theory draws directly from a fresh focus on the neglected realities of cities beyond the West and embraces the global South as the epicentre of urbanism. This talk engages with the complex ways in which cities of the global South and the global North are rapidly shifting, and the imperative for multiple genealogies of knowledge production and a diversity of empirical entry points to understand contemporary urban dynamics. The talk reflects on the geographical realignment in urban studies, and the place of South African urban studies in this fluid and increasingly geographically and conceptually contested debate.

‘Looking South’ by Dr Noëleen Murray

Considerations of the urban have in recent years resulted in a growth in the forms of scholarship in and beyond the traditional field of urban studies to incorporate different disciplinary perspectives, scales and creative reflections. Thinking beyond the turn from the study of the city that focused on the empirical and the factual, this talk will think through modes of scholarship and knowing in the field. Dr Murray will argue for a return to looking more attentively at the materiality of space – towards a theoretically informed position in relation to southerness, forms of the city, and its aesthetics and technologies of visualisation.

Wednesday and Thursday, 9-10 April
Anti-racism Network (ARN) Colloquium: "Ambassadors for Change and UPliftment"
www.arnhe.co.za 
Enquiries and RSVP: [email protected] 

For more 2014 Humanities Public Lectures and Events please visit:

www.up.ac.za/humanitiesevents