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UFS Reflection Series webinar: The quality of our democracies under COVID-19

04 August 2020 | Story Dr Nitha Ramnath

Apart from its devastating impact on people’s lives and livelihoods, the COVID-19 pandemic has also affected the nature and quality of our democracies – democracy read in its widest sense here as collective and individual self-determination. Formal, institutional democracy has beencurtailed through the imposition of states of emergency or disaster and the logistical difficulties associated with social distancing. Extra-institutional democratic work, such as protest and social-movement activity, has suffered from prohibitions imposed by law and through state suppression related to ‘lockdown’. The nature (and perhaps democratic quality) of public conversation has changed – for better or worse – from increasing reliance on ‘science’ and ‘scientists’ to justify public choices. The crisis has brought to the fore already existing characteristics of our democracies, such as the prevalence and power of special-interest bargaining, the extreme inequality of our societies, and chauvinist nationalisms that force us to ask whether we have ever had democracy at all. What will be the long-term effects of these impacts of the crisis on our democracies? What will democracy look like post-COVID? What does the crisis teach us about what our democracies have always been?

Join us for a discussion of these and other democracy-related issues in these troubled times by a panel of four hailing from Colombia, India, South Africa, and the USA.

Date: Thursday, 13 August

Time: 14:00-16:00 (South African Standard Time – GMT +2)

Please RSVP to Mamello Serasengwe at serasengwemsm@ufs.ac.za no later than 12 August 2020 upon which you will receive a Skype for Business meeting invite and link to access the webinar

Panel

Prof Natalia Angel Cabo (University of Los Andes, Bogota, Colombia)

Dr Quaraysha Ismail-Sooliman (University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa)

Dr Usha Ramanathan Independent Law Researcher (Delhi, India)

Prof Katie Young (Boston College, Boston, USA)

Moderator

Prof Danie Brand (Free State Centre for Human Rights, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa)

News Archive

Most read articles in international journal authored by UFS academics

2011-10-06

Prof. James du Preez, Senior Professor and Head of the Department of Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology, and Prof. Lodewyk Kock, Outstanding Professor in the same department.
Photo: Leonie Bolleurs

FEMS Yeast Research, the top international journal in this field of research, recently announced their three "most read articles" of 2011, based on the number of downloads from their website. Of these three published papers, two are from the Department of Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology at the University of the Free State (UFS). They are:

The article with the title, The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae – the main character in beer brewing, was authored by Prof. Bettie Lodolo and Mr Martin Brooks (Brewing Consultant and Chief Brewer of the SAB Ltd. Brewing Centre of Excellence in Alrode, Johannesburg, respectively), Prof. Lodewyk Kock (Outstanding Professor in the UFS Department of Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology) and Prof. Barry Axcell (Global Chief Brewer, SABMiller, Sandton). Prof. Lodolo is also an Affiliated Professor in the UFS’s Department of Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology,

The authors of the second paper entitled The alcohol dehydrogenases of Saccharomyces cerevisiae: a comprehensive review, are Dr Olga de Smidt (Researcher at the Central University of Technology and a former Ph.D. student of the UFS Department of Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology); Prof. Koos Albertyn from the above department, and Prof. James du Preez Senior Professor and Head of this department.

The article by Lodolo et al. was also listed as one of the three most cited articles of 2010 published in this journal.

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