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13 August 2019 | Story Rulanzen Martin | Photo Charl Devenish
Biennial lecture
Front, from the left; Prof Heidi Hudson, Dean of the Faculty of the Humanities, and Prof Jack Halberstam. Back, from the left; Dr Stephanie Cawood, Director of CGAS; Prof Puleng LenkaBula and Dr Nadine Lake; Gender Studies Programme Director.
It was an unconventional gender studies lecture where we had to imagine a changed world in which “we should rethink gender, sexuality and the body and how we must get rid of the world in which gendered and sexual embodiment operates in the way it does”. This is how Prof Jack Halberstam introduced his lecture with the topic Exit Routes: After Gender, After Feminism.

“Contrary to a whole tradition in queer studies of world-making, my project is about world unmaking, un-building and undoing.” Prof Halberstam said at the Biennial Humanities and Gendered Worlds lecture which was hosted by the Centre for Gender and Africa Studies (CGAS) on 7 August 2019. 

 “The title of the talk, exits routes, is a reference to the fact that I am going to argue that we literally have to imagine the end of the world we currently live in,” he said. One could engage in the speculation of a utopian world. We are far beyond this point of capitalism and right-wing populism, environmental decline. We cannot talk about utopianism until we get rid of this world.” 

Prof Halberstam is a leading scholar in gender studies 

Prof Halberstam is a professor of Gender and English at Columbia University in the US. “Prof Halberstam is known on the questions of gender and queer theory but also what it means to pursue the dignity in the diversity of humanity,” said Prof Puleng LenkaBula, Vice-Rector: Institutional Change. Student Affairs and Community Engagement. 
“We must understand the role of the Humanities in understanding, analysing and bringing about theories that enable the interrelationship with the cosmos, other humanity, and the idea that we must always be at the centre in the defining the systems.” 



News Archive

OSM Camerata records CD with world-renowned cellist
2014-05-14

In 2010, South African cellist Heleen du Plessis, Executant lecturer for cello at the University of Otago, initiated the project “Cello for Africa”. The objective was to record a CD of new South African compositions for cello, reflecting the multi-cultural context of the country.

Du Plessis received an extensive research grant from the University of Otago in order to realise the project by commissioning, premièring and recording music. The aim was to facilitate a dialogue between Western and African musical traditions, as well as between the cello and indigenous African instruments.

Hans Huyssen, composer and cellist, has been closely involved in indigenous African music for a considerable time. In light of his extensive international experience, the SAMRO Foundation has granted Du Plessis' request to commission Huyssen to this task.

A world premiere concert preceded the recordings at the UFS’ Odeion School of Music (OSM) in March 2013, partially funded by a Humanities Research Grant as well as the OSM. This event provided a collaborative platform for musicians from different cultural backgrounds and several institutions to contribute towards a cultural and musical exchange. The funding enabled the project to successfully conclude in the recording of the CD, “Cello for Africa”. It was released by ODE records – the New Zealand label for classical music.

The OSM Camerata (OSMC) is the flagship ensemble of the OSM and was founded in 2012 with the main objective to kindle and forge the talents of exceptionally gifted students and pursue the highest artistic standards possible.

The OSMC participated in 2013 in the 13th International Conservatoire Festival hosted at the Rimsky Korsakov Conservatoire in St Petersburg, Russia. The OSMC received a standing ovation during their gala performance in the Glazonov Hall with a programme by South African composers Stefans Grové and Hendrik Hofmeyr.

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