Over 11 000 students will receive their degrees at the University of Pretoria’s 2018 Autumn Graduation this year. A total of 202 doctorates, 1389 masters and 2412 honours degrees will be awarded at ceremonies to be held between 11 April and 8 May.

Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Professor Cheryl de la Rey congratulated the new graduates. “Achieving an academic degree does not come easy. It requires persistence, dedication and hard work. Our graduates can be justifiably proud of reaching this milestone.”

South African artist William Kentridge will be awarded an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Humanities on 12 April. He is renowned for his animated expressionist drawings and films exploring time, the history of colonialism and the aspirations and failures of revolutionary politics. Despite global acclaim, Kentridge has never lost his uniquely South African and African outlook of the world.

Professor Emmanuel Lartey, of Emory University, will receive an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Theology on 20 April. He is currently the leading African scholar in the field of practical theology. He is an international specialist in Pastoral Care, Counselling, and Theology in different cultural contexts and is involved in on-going research regarding the theological implications and practical effects of pastoral care in a diversity of cultures and has received international recognition for his work. His approach challenged the dominant Western constructs with regard to pastoral care and offered a new approach that takes cultural differences seriously.

The Faculty of Humanities will also present an honorary doctorate to Cape Town playwright and cultural activist Mike van Graan on 23 April. His commitment to social justice and to project local concerns to a global arena is further evidenced in his work as a playwright. His plays interrogate South Africa’s socio-political conditions and he locates these explorations in a deeply human context to create layered and emotionally evocative plays.

Indian historian Romila Thapar, Professor Emerita at Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi) is being honoured for her seminal contributions oto the discipline. Professor Thapar will be awarded the doctorate in absentia by the Humanities Faculty on 8 May.

Her writings provide a counter narrative to Orientalist, colonialist and communal, and nationalist narratives of the ancient Indian past.  Her study of the ancient Indian past has also taken the history of India out of the category of ‘Indology’ (an Orientalist and colonialist category of knowledge) and placed it within the broader social sciences.

The University will once again live stream all graduation ceremonies. Family and friends who cannot attend in person are able to connect on www.up.ac.za.