Prof Cas Wepener is a professor in, and Head of the Department of Practical Theology in the Faculty of Theology and Religion. He specialises in the study of ritual, liturgy and homiletics, with the emphasis on religious rituals within their particular contexts. His recent projects included the study of rituals and social capital formation, rituals in fictive texts as well as liturgies of anger. He was the first editor of Bonding in worship. A ritual lens on social capital formation in African Independent Churches in South Africa, published by Peeters Press in Leuven in 2019. He is also a novelist.

He has acted as supervisor for eleven students who completed their PhD theses, and more than fifty who completed Masters (mini-)dissertations. He has also been invited to serve as a guest lecturer in Princeton, Berlin (Humboldt) and Accra, delivered papers at conferences and received grants from the NRF, the University of Pretoria and Humboldt University. He has published a collection of short stories that was shortlisted for the UJ Debut Prize for Afrikaans fiction and a novel shortlisted for the UJ Afrikaans Fiction Prize. Five of his books, amongst others Die reis gaan inwaarts, which deals with the work of novelist Karel Schoeman, and Kookpunt! which was on anger in South Africa were shortlisted for the Andrew Murray Prize. The book Jong teoloë praat saam, of which he was a co-editor, was awarded the Desmond Tutu-Gerrit Brand Prize for Theological Literature.

Dr Tanya van Wyk is a senior lecturer in spirituality, systematic theology and ethics in the Department of Systematic and Historical Theology, Faculty of Theology and Religion. She is chairperson of the Faculty research ethics committee.

Her research focus area is political theology, which deals with the relationship between the state and the religious citizen, as well as the socio-political relationship between church and society. One of the main tasks of her research is to create a social-theoretical awareness of the complexity of relationships. Van Wyk specifically studies the relationship between identity and diversity (sameness and difference), and the way in which this relationship impacts socio-political contexts. Her research is conducted from a feminist theological perspective with a strong focus on gender justice. Her recently completed research includes a chapter on the relationship between religion, gender and sustainable development. Her postgraduate students’ research focuses on the relationship between spirituality (transformation) and ethics.

Achievements during the past three years include a teaching and learning award in 2018, as well as international collaboration with members of the Humboldt University and the Protestant Theological University (Amsterdam).