Professor Norman Duncan, Vice-Principal: Academic at the University of Pretoria, cordially invites you to a seminar on Curriculum Transformation presented by Professor Naledi Nomalanga Mkhize, Associate Professor: Department of Sociology and Anthropology (incorporating History), Nelson Mandela University, Port Elizabeth. Title: The appropriation and commodification of Decolonisation in SA universities post-Fallism. 

According to Prof Mkhize, the decolonisation movement in South African universities is dead. “It was shot out, harassed out, expelled out and threatened out. In its place, universities – us, the academics, managers, administrators and consultants – have put in sterile seminars, talks, lectures, workshops; churning out an endless stream of meaningless decolonial books and articles for the sake of careers.”

 Budgets have been allocated to ‘talk about decolonisation’ but not to actually do it. And that is the point, really; that is the nature of the corporatist university worldwide – to present an image of intellectual engagement while crushing any actual engagement. Decolonisation has been co-opted and turned into a cash cow or key performance indicator in a context where the academic project has become subjected to greater control protocols, bureaucratisation and the ‘managerialisation of the professoriate’.

So much nonsense characterises this treadmill that has become the university. And the cost? – the living and breathing ideal for an honest African-centred intellectual culture.

Come engage with Prof Mkize as she will “bring my ‘Big History’ hat, to tie together various strands of social currents, including how the liberation generation that are now administrators have replaced the apartheid university with its nightmarish cousin, the corporate university. Time permitting, I may engage some of the contentious ideas of YouTube icon Jordan Peterson to argue that the corporate university is a contentless, defensive animal whose sole goal is the survival of its brand and image.”

Nomalanga Mkhize is an emerging historian and community development practitioner. She has an MA in History from Rhodes University and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Cape Town. Her current research interest is in Eastern Cape historiography and she takes a particular interest in the historiography of 19th century Xhosa writers. She lectures at Nelson Mandela University and is  undertaking a Sam Moyo NIHSS Postdoctoral Fellowship at Rhodes University.

Details of the event are:

Date: Thursday, 2 August 2018

Time: 15:00–16:30

Venue: SRC Boardroom, 1-17, Conference Centre, Hatfield Campus, University of Pretoria

Dress: Daywear

RSVP: Click here 2 August 2018 before 12:00 noon

Enquiries: Maliga Govender, 012 420 2444

Persons with disabilities are kindly requested to contact Neo Maseko on 012 420 2631 if assistance is required.