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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

Urgent notice: critical shutdown of UFS IT system
2014-08-20

ICT Services is experiencing a degradation of service due to a technical fault in one of our key mass storage devices, which calls for a critical shut-down of the facility as soon as possible. The implication of the error condition is of such a nature that we need to decommission in excess of 550 servers before the actual error can be addressed. In failing to do so in a structured manner, we run the risk of a total system outage and a prolonged repair process of the total server infrastructure due to possible damage to disks and processing facilities.

It is foreseen that ICT will commence with the decommissioning of the servers from 14:00 on Saturday 23 August 2014, repair the error and recommission the facilities by 20:00 on Sunday 24 August 2014.

The following services will therefore be unavailable during this period:

• All learning platforms (BlackBoard, etc.)
• All administrative systems
• Internet access
• Email services

PLEASE NOTE: Students are requested to retrieve all information they require from BlackBoard during this period, before the systems are shut down.

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