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09 March 2018 Photo Eugene Seegers
Research group rethinks white societies in Southern Africa
Profs David Roediger and Jonathan Hyslop, international delegates who presented keynote addresses at the workshop.
Poor, Precarious, White? Rethinking white societies in Southern Africa, 1930s-1990s is a two-day workshop that was recently convened by the International Studies Group (ISG) with financial support from the office of the Vice-Rector: Academic, on the University of the Free State’s (UFS) Bloemfontein Campus. The event drew together a range of historical research on poor and working-class whites across Southern Africa during the twentieth century, with the goal of uncovering wider histories of race. 

In his welcoming speech, Prof Francis Petersen, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS, stated that race and its histories have taken on a new and renewed significance, not only in South Africa, but also globally. He said, “I am very proud to see the ISG organising and hosting such a wonderful workshop. It has attracted some of the leading intellectuals in the world on critical studies related to whiteness, and though its focus is on the histories of whites, I am pleased to see that a large number of presentations concern the wider questions of race.”

Mentioning several areas of concern on the world scene, such as policies issuing forth from the Trump government in the USA, violence against new migrants across Europe, as well as challenges of race as exhibited by specific events at the UFS, Prof Petersen said that it is particularly significant for this event to be hosted on one of our campuses. Quoting from Prof Neil Roos’ inaugural lecture held the previous evening, Prof Petersen added, “The histories of race offer the opportunity to rethink the approaches and methodologies of social history, and thus revitalise … the discipline.”

Participants in the workshop came from across Southern Africa, Europe, and the United States, and included leading scholars in the field. The first keynote was by the author of the acclaimed book The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (published in 1991), Prof David Roediger, who currently serves as Foundation Professor of American Studies and History at the University of Kansas. In his keynote entitled Settlers and Immigrants in Critical Whiteness Studies, Prof Roediger dealt with topics such as Southern Whiteness and Indigeneity in Australia and New Zealand, the relationship between migration and race, as well as how the current focus on the role of the white working class in the election of Donald Trump overlooks the complicity of the middle-class and elite whites who also supported him.

The second keynote address was delivered by Prof Jonathan Hyslop of the Colgate University, on the topic Workers called White and Classes called Poor: The ‘White Working Class’ and ‘Poor Whites’ in Southern Africa, 1910-1994. Prof Hyslop offered a sweeping overview of poor and working-class white experiences in Southern Africa, suggesting attention to comparisons and connections as a way of analysing and understanding the history of the region. 

The workshop was organised by Drs Danelle van Zyl-Hermann and Duncan Money, both Postdoctoral Research Fellows in the ISG, in conjunction with Prof Neil Roos, who is also based in the ISG. The research papers presented at the workshop covered topics as diverse as the experiences of white female civil-service employees in colonial Zimbabwe, French immigrants to the apartheid-era Vanderbijlpark steelworks, and white working-class resistance to state regulation. The papers are to be published in an edited collection which will be included in the Routledge African Studies series.

News Archive

Ensure your place at the UFS
2010-10-27

The University of the Free State (UFS) appeals to all prospective South African students who want to come and study at the UFS in 2011 to submit their applications no later than Tuesday, 30 November 2010.

The UFS is aware of the fact that learners will not have received their final Grade 12 results by Tuesday, 30 November 2010; therefore provisional admission will be granted based on learners’ most recent Grade 12 results. Final admission will take place upon receipt of the final Grade 12 results, which will be available early in January 2011.

Prospective students can obtain application forms for admission at the following places:

  1. The UFS’s web site at www.ufs.ac.za,
  2. The Information Office (Unit for Prospective Students) at the Thakaneng Bridge on the UFS’s Main Campus in Bloemfontein,
  3. You may also send an e-mail to info@ufs.ac.za or
  4. Phone 051 401 3000 and the necessary forms will be posted to you.

Senior undergraduate students (that is all students who were registered up to and during 2010 at the UFS) as well as post-graduate students, must self-register electronically on-line from Monday, 1 November 2010 until Tuesday, 4 January 2011. This includes master’s and doctoral students.

In order to encourage senior students to register online, the UFS offers 20 laptops as incentives for the senior students who successfully register online from 1 November 2010. These laptops will be handed over to the winners after the registration process in 2011.

Registration of first-year students:

The Rector and Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Jonathan Jansen, will welcome first-year students on Friday, 14 January and Saturday, 15 January 2011, respectively, in the Callie Human Centre. The Faculties of Economic and Management Sciences, the Humanities and Education will be welcomed on 14 January 2011 and the students of the Faculties of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, Law and Theology shall be welcomed on 15 January 2011. The compulsory orientation programme for new first-years will also then commence.

From 17 to 21 January 2011 first-year students will receive academic advice at the Callie Human Centre, whereafter they will be referred for self-registration. These processes will take place according to the set timetable. This timetable is available in the Kovsie Guide that will be sent to learners as soon as we have received their applications, as well as on the web site of the UFS at www.ufs.ac.za/register2011.

First-year students’ fees must be paid prior to arrival on 14 and 15 January 2011.

Registration of senior students:

Senior students who experience problems with the electronic on-line self-registration process have the opportunity to resolve problems within a programme on campus from Wednesday, 5 January until Wednesday, 12 January 2011. This programme will be sent out to students and is also available at www.ufs.ac.za/register2011. The specific scheduled day for senior students to resolve problems is the last and only day to resolve the problem.

Senior students can also contact 051 401 9111 for more information in this regard.

Students may register for prescribed modules for 2011, even though the November 2010 examination results are not yet available. Changes resulting from examination results that are made available later can be done up to and including 28 January 2011.

In terms of applications for senior students, only students who have interrupted a calendar year of study need to re-apply for admission.

Registration of students at the UFS’s Qwaqwa Campus:

Senior and first-year students of the UFS’s Qwaqwa Campus register from Wednesday, 12 January until Friday, 28 January 2011 in the Nelson Mandela Hall on this campus.

Registration of students at the UFS South Campus:

First-year students from the UFS’s South Campus in the University Preparation Programme and the Extended Programme (only Natural and Agricultural Sciences) register from Monday, 24 January till Friday, 28 January 2011 in the Arena Hall on the South Campus.

Students who have successfully completed the University Preparation Programme register with the first-year students on the UFS Main Campus on Friday, 14 and Saturday, 15 January 2011 – according to faculties (cf. paragraph 6).

Lectures for all students shall commence on Monday, 24 January 2011.

MEDIA RELEASE
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Director: Strategic Communication (actg)
Tel: 051 401 2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl@ufs.ac.za
26 October 2010

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