Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Previous Archive
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

UFS academics nominated for NSTF Awards
2016-05-19

Description: Zakkie Pretorius Tags: Zakkie Pretorius

Prof Zakkie Pretorius

Prof Zakkie Pretorius and Prof Maryke Labuschagne, researchers in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of the Free State (UFS), have been nominated for the 2016 awards of the National Science and Technology Forum (NSTF) in partnership with South32.

The NSTF awards recognise outstanding contributions to science, engineering, and technology (SET) and innovation for researchers and other SET-related professionals. The awards are referred to as the ‘Science Oscars’ of South Africa, as they are the largest, most comprehensive, and most sought-after national Awards of their kind. Among other things, the NSTF aims to celebrate, recognise, and reward excellence in science, engineering, technology and innovation within the SET sectors.

Prof Pretorius was short-listed as a finalist in the category: Lifetime Award for an outstanding contribution to SET and innovation by an individual over a period of 15 years or more.

Description: Maryke Labuschagne Tags: Maryke Labuschagne

Prof Maryke Labuschagne

He works on crop quality and disease resistance in the field crops research chair headed by Prof Labuschagne in the Department of Plant Sciences. Disease-resistance breeding is a continuation of the internationally-acclaimed wheat rust research that Prof Pretorius has been conducting during his career.

Prof Labuschagne is a finalist in the category: Special Award in Crop Science and Food Security. This is a special award by the NSTF this year, in honour of the 2016 International Year of Pulses, as declared by the United Nations.

Prof Labuschagne heads the research chair on quality and diseases in field crops at the UFS. Her research, and that of her students, focuses on the genetic improvement of food security crops in Africa, including such staples as maize and cassava.

At a Gala Dinner on 30 June 2016, the finalists will be honoured before the Minister of Science and Technology, the patron of the occasion, announces the winners of the 2015/2016 awards.   

 

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept