Dear Humanities Colleagues

Congratulations to our Exceptional Academic Achievers!

Jonathan Okeke Chimakonam (Philosophy) and Faheema Mahomed-Asmail (Speech, Language Pathology & Audiology) are among the recipients of the University’s Exceptional Young Researchers’ Awards for 2020. 

ASSAf Humanities Book Prize

Congratulations to Charles van Onselen (Historical & Heritage Studies) for winning the prestigious ASSAf Humanities Book Prize with his highly acclaimed book The Night Trains: Moving Mozambican Miners to and from South Africa, circa 1902-1955 (Johannesburg and Cape Town: Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2019).

Honours for Information Design

The Loeries ranked our Information Design programme (School of the Arts) as the top design education institution in Africa and the Middle East. You can read more about this fantastic achievement here. This win was also featured on Netwerk24, in an article, "Oscars van ontwerp’ gee hoogste eer aan Tuks-departement”. 

Appearances on Media Platforms

• Roland Henwood (Political Sciences) was interviewed on:
  • PretoriaFM to talk about the EFF’s threat of legal action if President Ramaphosa does not relax regulations to allow political activities
  • RSG to discuss Finance Minister Tito Mboweni’s budget speech and the first sitting of the year of the National House of Traditional Leaders was opened by President Ramaphosa
  • SAfm to comment on the culture war that is taking place in France with demands for a junior minister to resign. He also spoke about the number of people dying from COVID-19 in Brazil and the problems with the vaccination plans
  • Kyknet on the political oversight of the country here and here
• Cori Wielenga and Quraysha Sooliman (Political Sciences) launched a project on the role of business in times of crises and transition on the 16 March 2021. The project also includes a digital archive, a 40-page report and several short films that can be viewed here and here. An article on the project appeared in Business Day
• Alf Gunvald Nilsen (Sociology) presented the paper “India's Pandemic: Social Murder/Authoritarian Politics in a Lockdown Nation” to the SOAS Development Studies seminar.  He was also interviewed on Sunrise SAfm's Worldview Update on India's treatment of Rohingya refugees
• Hein Willemse (Afrikaans) wrote on the decision and censure of the Judicial Services Commission on the pro-Israel utterances of Chief Justice Mogeng in his biweekly column on Netwerk24
• Ansie Maritz (Afrikaans) spoke about her article, “How Zuma uses war metaphors to fight allegations of graft in South Africa”
• Conservational Society of Philosophy held a webinar on “Overcoming the Challenges of System Building”
• Rachelle Chadwick (Sociology) discussed her book, “Bodies that birth: Vitalizing birth politics” in an interview on the Birth and Body Book Club
• Henning Melber (Political Sciences) has published an article “Why, 31 years after independence, Namibians aren’t in a festive mood” in The Conversation
• Siona O’Connell (School of the Arts) and Bonita Bennett were both panellists in the Ditsong Museums of South Africa’s Human Rights Day Panel discussion 
• Antoinette Lombard (Social Work & Criminology) published this article “Celebrating World Social Work Day: 16 March 2021" on the Faculty’s website, Facebook and Instagram pages. Please take some time to read and watch the poetry our students presented. 
• The latest episodes of the “Mental Matters” podcast series hosted by Psyche-UP and TuksFM is available on YouTube

Publications on academic platforms

• Jonathan Okeke Chimakonam (Philosophy) together with Aribiah David Attoe published an article “The Covid-19 Pandemic and Meaning in Life” in Phronimon

Scheduled Events

• UP Archives has launched the “Recollecting COVID-19 – 365 days under lockdown” competition. Entries can be submitted to UP Archives with your name, student / personnel number, degree / faculty / support service department and contact details. 
• UNASA-UP is holding a panel-based discussion on “Africa’s Mobility in the 4^th Industrial Revolution” with guest speakers including Jervin Naidoo (Political Sciences). The discussion will take place on the 20 March 2021 from 10:30 to 11:30. RSVP via this link
• Jonathan Okeke Chimakonam (Philosophy) will also be hosting two online seminars in the coming days. The first, “The Logic of Decoloniality”, Epistemic Decolonisation: An Online Seminar Series, will be held on 22 March 2021 at 15:00. Please register here.

• The second seminar, “Overcoming the three Challenges of Intercultural Philosophy: Conversation Approach will be held on 23 March 2021 at 20:00. To register, please email Niels Weidtmann ahead of the lecture and a Zoom-link will be sent to you
• The Department of Political Sciences will be holding the webinar “25 Years of South Africa – China Relations: Reflections on a Paradoxical Relationship”, with speakers: Dr Garth le Pere (University of Pretoria), Dr Yu-Shan Wu (NIHSS postdoctoral fellow, University of Pretoria), and Prof Chris Alden (London School of Economics). The webinar will take place on 24 March 2021 from 14:00 to 15:30. RSVP by 22 March 2021 using this link.