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18 April 2019 | Story Rulanzen Martin
The Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice IRSJ) has initiated a Social Justice Week at the University of the Free State (UFS), which started on Friday 12 April  until Wednesday 17 April 2019. 

Ten key events took place during the week. It ranged from dialogues, workshops, talk shows, debates, and interactive displays and events on issues of multilingualism and diversity, social innovation, engaged scholarship, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, gender sensitisation, sexual consent, sexual preparedness, universal access, disability, anti-discrimination, and security.

There was also a round-table discussion on 17 April 2019 with various UFS stakeholders on off-campus student security as well as an inter-institutional discussion on the same topic. The UFS Debating Society will take on the topic of the UFS Language Policy, while Olga Barends from the Free State Centre for Human Rights will host a dialogue on sexual consent.

The IRSJ has also designed and implemented SOJO-VATION: Social Innovation/ Social Change, which strives to create a foundational platform where ideas of social justice, innovation, and engaged scholarship at the UFS and in society can be hosted. SOJO-VATION partners with the Office for Student Leadership, Development, and Community Engagement.

The collaborating partners for the Social Justice Week includes various UFS stakeholders such as the Sasol library, the Gender and Sexual Equity Office, UFS Protection Services, the Free State Centre for Human Rights, the Student Representative Council (SRC), the Office for Student Leadership Development, Kovsie Innovation, GALA, the FFree State Centre for Human Rights, SRC Associations, the Office for Student Governance, Kovsie Innovate, Start-Up-Grind, EVC, EBL, Community Engagement, the Institutional Transformation Plan (ITP) Dialogues Office, Residence Dialogues, UFS Debating Society, Debate Afrika!, the Center for Universal Access and Disability Support (CUADS), and the Gateway Office. 

News Archive

Centre for Africa Studies goes quadruple
2014-09-02

The Centre for Africa Studies at the UFS hosted a book launch on 27 August 2014. Prof Heidi Hudson expressed her excitement as she welcomed the audience and authors that evening, “This has not happened yet at our department where we launch four books at the same time, thus it is a happy and glorious moment for us.”

Book 1: Sacred Spaces and Contested Identities. Space and Ritual Dynamics in Europe and Africa. Edited by Paul Post, Philip Nel and Walter van Beek.

This book deals with the fundamental changes in society and culture that are forcing us to reconsider the position of sacred space, and to do this within the broader context of ritual and religious dynamics and what is called a ‘spatial turn’. Conversely, sacred sites are a privileged way of studying current cultural dynamics. This collection of studies on sacred space concerns itself with both perspectives by exploring place-bound dynamics of the sacred spaces in Africa and Europe.

Book 2: Understanding Namibia. The Trials of Independence. Written by Henning Melber.
This study explores the achievements and failures of Namibia’s transformation since independence. It contrasts the narrative of a post-colonial patriotic history with the socio-economic and political realities of the nation-building project.

Book 3: Peace Diplomacy, Global Justice and International Agency Rethinking Human Security and Ethics in the Spirit of Dag Hammarskjöld. Edited by Carsten Stahn and Henning Melber.

This tribute and critical review of Hammarskjöld's values and legacy examines his approach towards international civil service, agency and value-based leadership, investigates his vision of internationalism and explores his achievements and failures as Secretary-General. The book is also available in print. Melber is a Senior Adviser and Director Emeritus of The Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, Uppsala, Sweden. He is also Extraordinary Professor at both the University of Pretoria and the Centre for Africa Studies, University of the Free State.

Book 4: Au commencement était le Mimisme: Essai de lecture globale des cours de Marcel Jousse ( In the beginning was mimism: A holistic reading of Marcel Jousse’s lectures). Written by: Edgard Sienaert

This publication allows us to hear the voice of Marcel Jousse, professor of Anthropology of Language, who taught in Paris between 1931 and 1957. Edgard Sienaert, after having edited and translated in English all publications of Jousse, returns here to Jousse’s one-thousand lectures, synthesised through the lens of an anthropology of human mimism. Jousse’s train of thought leads us to question our own thought categories stuck in antagonisms: spirit and matter, concrete and abstract, body and mind, science and faith. Sienaert is currently a research fellow at the Centre for Africa Studies, University of the Free State, with an MA and PhD in Romance Philology. He published widely on medieval French literature and on orality. 
 

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