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30 May 2019 | Story Rulanzen Martin | Photo Rulanzen Martin
Africa Memorial lecture
From left; Dr Stephanie Cawood, Director of CGAS; Prof Francis Nyamnjoh; Prof Heidi Hudson, Dean of the Faculty of the Humanities, and Dr Engela van Staden, Vice-Rector: Academic
Ubuntu is a word we all know and, to some extent, relate to. Prof Francis Nyamnjoh aimed to delve and explore this African philosophy when he presented the 2019 Africa Day Memorial Lecture with the topic Ubuntuism and Africa: Actualised, Misappropriated, Endangered and Reappraised. 

The memorial lecture is hosted annually by the Centre for Gender and Africa Studies (CGAS) at the University of the Free State (UFS) to coincide with Africa Month celebrations. Prof Nyamnjoh holds a PhD from the University of Leicester in the UK. He is currently a professor of social anthropology at the University of Cape Town and has been a scholar in sociology, anthropology and communication science at universities in Cameroon and Botswana. The lecture took place on 22 May 2019 in the Equitas Auditorium on the UFS Bloemfontein Campus.

“When I saw the topic I thought this was very contemporary. We at the university decided to include the Ubuntu principle in our learning and teaching strategy,” said Dr Engela van Staden, Vice-Rector: Academic. 

Ubuntu as a binding factor for interconnectedness 

We live a world in which we cannot stand alone as the principle of Ubuntu tells us that we are who we are because of our interconnectedness with other people. “It is important to recognise that you stand on others to be tall,” said Prof Nyamnjoh. 

“We are the product of ongoing conversations on interconnectedness."

“I have argued that, in the spirit of Ubuntu, Africans, their identities and mobilities are part and parcel of the experience of being human in a world on the move. And their contributions are needed in today’s world more than ever. 

“I have broached the context of globalisation and histories of unequal encounters that have shaped relations in Africa and beyond under global capitalism."

“Even as it is increasingly seriously tested by opportunism, Ubuntuism, sometimes a reality and sometimes an ideal, brings hope and redemption, and offers a feasible framework for participatory and inclusive emancipatory social change,” said Prof Nyamnjoh. 


News Archive

The Olympic Games – then and now
2012-05-04

4 May 2012

The first victory at the Olympic Games in the little Greek town of Olympia was recorded in the year 776 B.C. For the next 1 000 years, athletes congregated to compete at Olympia every four years in August/September.

The 27th modern Olympic Games will commence in London, England on 27 July this year. Counting from 1896, the year of the first modern Olympic Games, this year’s Games should have been the 30th. However, the Games did not take place three times: In 1916 during the First World War and again in 1940 and 1944 during the Second World War.

Prof. Louise Cilliers of the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Studies will look at certain aspects of the ancient Olympic Games and compare them with the nature of the items and the records of today in a lecture titled “The Olympic Games – then and now” on Tuesday 8 May 2012.

Numerous questions will be discussed, such as what the nature of the records are that were held in the absence of stop watches and standard distances, why the games were held in August/September from the start, what the differences are between ancient and modern items, where all the symbols that have become associated with the Olympic Games came from, and if Baron de Coubertin was right in his glorifying of amateur sport during the ancient times.

  • Place: Senate Hall (CR Swart Building)
  • Time: 19:00 to 20:00
     

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