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10 July 2018 Photo Supplied
Inaugural lecture focuses on understanding society
Dr Kristina Riedel, Head of the UFS Department of Linguistics and Language Practice with Prof Kobus Marais at his inaugural lecture in May.
Understanding what the terms ‘social’ and ‘cultural’ mean and where they come from is important for Prof Kobus Marais. “If one thinks about it carefully, there was a time in the history of the universe and Earth that terms like ‘social’ and ‘cultural’ did not exist. So, if they did not exist from the very beginning, they must have emerged through some process,” he said at his inaugural lecture held earlier this year.

Prof Marais is a senior lecturer in the Department of Linguistics and Language Practice at the University of the Free State (UFS). His interest is in translation studies, but he is conceptualising translation as a technical term that refers to the semiotic process   in other words, the process through which living organisms create meaningful responses to an environment. 

Semiotics entails the study of signs, and it holds that anything in the universe can act as a sign or be interpreted as one. “A tune can be a sign of resistance against political domination, such as Give me hope, Jo’anna, a song by Eddie Grant, and smoke can be a sign of fire, just as the word ‘rose’ could be a sign of a sweet-smelling flower of any colour,” Prof Marais said. 

The universe is perfused by signs, and we are constantly interpreting them, from traffic signs to buildings to agricultural practices to more abstract things like ‘the law’, ‘politics’, ‘economics’ or ‘religion’. All of these things mean something to us and were made as meaningful responses to an environment.

Inaugural lectures vital part of any university
“Inaugural lectures afford professors the opportunity to table a broader research agenda as well as the opportunity to reflect on meta-disciplinary concerns,” Prof Marais said.

He said during the lecture, he had worked out “a theory of translation that explains some aspects of where social/cultural things come from and how they come to be”. An idea that society, and or culture, are a result of translation processes, that is, “processes in which organisms (human beings in this case) respond to an environment in a meaningful way by creating social relationships and cultural phenomena”. 
“Social and cultural phenomena thus all have a meaningful (semiotic) dimension or aspect that I would like to study,” he said.

News Archive

Moshoeshoe Memorial Lecture to focus on Leadership challenges
2006-03-27

 Lecture to focus on Leadership challenges

 n Thursday 25 May 2006 – Africa Day – the University of the Free State (UFS) will host the inaugural King Moshoeshoe Memorial Lecture in honour of this great African leader and nation-builder.

 Prof Njabulo Ndebele, internationally renowned writer and academic, and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town (UCT), will deliver the inaugural lecture at the Main Campus in Bloemfontein on the topic: Reflections on the Leadership Challenges in South Africa.

 “I see the lecture as part of a larger debate on leadership models, particularly the concept of African leadership, as well as the ongoing discourse about nation-building and reconciliation,” says Prof Frederick Fourie, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS.

 According to Prof Fourie, the Moshoeshoe project was launched at the UFS in 2004 to coincide with South Africa’s first decade of democracy and was part of the University’s centenary celebrations, having been founded in 1904.

 “Through this project the UFS seeks to honour a great African leader and demonstrate our commitment to transformation so as to create a truly inclusive and non-racial university,” said Prof Fourie.

 “As the founder of the Basotho nation, King Moshoeshoe is widely credited for his exceptional style of leadership, displaying the characteristics of diplomacy, reconciliation and peaceful co-existence in his efforts to unite diverse groups into one nation,” said Prof Fourie.

 As part of its ongoing Moshoeshoe project, the UFS commissioned a television documentary programme on the life and legacy of King Moshoeshoe. This was completed in 2004 and broadcast on SABC 2 later that year.


Abridged curriculum vitae of Njabulo S Ndebele

Professor Njabulo S Ndebele is currently Vice-Chancellor and Principal of UCT.

 Njabulo Ndebele began his term of office at UCT in July 2000, following tenure as a scholar in residence at the Ford Foundation’s headquarters in New York.  He joined the Foundation in September 1998, immediately after a five-year term of office as Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of the North in Sovenga, at the then Northern Province.  Previously he served as Vice-Rector of the University of the Western Cape.  Earlier positions include Chair of the Department of African Literature at the University of the Witwatersrand; and Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Dean, and Head of the English Department at the National University of Lesotho.

 An established author, Njabulo Ndebele recently published a novel The Cry of Winnie Mandela to critical acclaim.  An earlier publication Fools and Other Stories won the Noma Award, Africa’s highest literary award for the best book published in Africa in 1984.  His highly influential essays on South African literature and culture were published in a collection Rediscovery of the Ordinary.

 Njabulo Ndebele served as President of the Congress of South African Writers for many years.  As a public figure he is known for his incisive insights in commentaries on a range of public issues in South Africa.  He holds honorary doctorates from Universities in the Netherlands, Japan, South Africa and the United States of America.  He is also a Fellow of UCT.

Njabulo Ndebele is also a key figure in South African higher education.  He has served as Chair of the South African Universities Vice-Chancellor’s Association from 2002-2005, and served on the Executive Board of the Association of African Universities since 2001.  He has done public service in South Africa in the areas of broadcasting policy, school curriculum in history, and more recently as chair of a government commission on the development and use of African languages as media of instruction in South African higher education.  He recently became President of the Association of the AAU and Chair of the Southern African Regional Universities Association (SARUA).

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel:   (051) 401-2584
Cell:  083 645 2454
E-mail:  loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za 
26 March 2006

 

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