Join us as Prof Premesh Lalu from the University of the Western Cape presents this year’s lecture, with a response from Prof Steven Friedman of the University of Johannesburg.

Lecture title: Bram Fischer’s Briefcase – An Image of Apartheid as Tragicomedy?

In a compelling narrative of historical irony, a briefcase exchanged between Bram Fischer and Sydney Kentridge after the Rivonia Trial was later reimagined in the 1997 theatre production Ubu and the Truth Commission, created by Jane Taylor, William Kentridge, and Handspring Puppet Company.

Repurposed as the ‘Dogs of War’ puppet, this briefcase transformed into Brutus, Brutus, and Brutus – embodying apartheid’s enforcers and the unspoken tensions beneath South Africa's political history.

Through the theatre lens, the lecture will explore whether Bram Fischer’s briefcase revealed apartheid as a tragicomedy that needed dismantling to foster genuine reconciliation.

RSVP Bram Fischer Memorial Lecture before by 10 November 2024