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04 February 2020 | Story Xolisa Mnukwa | Photo Charl Devenish
Kovsie Eco vehicle parade
A highlight for first-year and senior students is the ACT eco-vehicle building and parade through the streets of Bloemfontein.

Sunny skies, cheerful faces, and an overall great atmosphere surfed the University of the Free State (UFS) Bloemfontein Campus on Saturday, 1 February 2020 for the final series of events in the Kovsie ACT 2020 line-up.

The eco-vehicle parade kick-started the activities for the day and saw various student teams displaying their personalised pit-stop ‘sculptures’ along the streets of Bloemfontein.  UFS residence teams Sonverlief (Houses Sonnedou, Veritas, Madelief); Soetmarmentum (Houses Soetdoring, Marjolein, Armentum); and Beykasium (Houses Beyers Naudé, Akasia, Imperium) came in first, second, and third respectively, obtaining the highest scores out of nine teams for their pit-stop sculpture constructions. 
 
Following the parade, there were a number of fun but competitive eco-vehicle races between the teams. This included the Drag Race, Obstacle Course Race, Formula E Race, Endurance Race, and the Slalom Course Race that took place on the Mokete Square. 

In the evening, students were serenaded by artists such as Early B and Spoegwolf. They danced to performances from the latest Amapiano music sensation, Kabza de Small, and legendary deep-house music duo, Black Motion, at the Rag Farm. 

Assistant Director of UFS Student Life and Director of the Kovsie ACT office, Karen Scheepers, earlier urged students to get more involved in student-life programmes such as Kovsie ACT, in order to equip themselves with a variety of skills and a fulfilling university experience.

A number of senior and first-year students who were part of the action on the UFS Bloemfontein Campus this past Saturday, can attest to Scheepers’ advice.
“I’ve been looking forward to starting university for the longest time, and I am glad that I ended up at the UFS. I don’t feel alone, I feel like I can actually do this,” said first-year Psychology student, Thulisa Shezi.

“University isn’t as bad as everyone thinks it is, it’s just a matter of staying motivated, doing your work, and surrounding yourself with the right people in the process.” – Fourth-year Business Management student, Earl van der Westhuisen.

News Archive

Centre for Africa Studies goes quadruple
2014-09-02

The Centre for Africa Studies at the UFS hosted a book launch on 27 August 2014. Prof Heidi Hudson expressed her excitement as she welcomed the audience and authors that evening, “This has not happened yet at our department where we launch four books at the same time, thus it is a happy and glorious moment for us.”

Book 1: Sacred Spaces and Contested Identities. Space and Ritual Dynamics in Europe and Africa. Edited by Paul Post, Philip Nel and Walter van Beek.

This book deals with the fundamental changes in society and culture that are forcing us to reconsider the position of sacred space, and to do this within the broader context of ritual and religious dynamics and what is called a ‘spatial turn’. Conversely, sacred sites are a privileged way of studying current cultural dynamics. This collection of studies on sacred space concerns itself with both perspectives by exploring place-bound dynamics of the sacred spaces in Africa and Europe.

Book 2: Understanding Namibia. The Trials of Independence. Written by Henning Melber.

This study explores the achievements and failures of Namibia’s transformation since independence. It contrasts the narrative of a post-colonial patriotic history with the socio-economic and political realities of the nation-building project.

Book 3: Peace Diplomacy, Global Justice and International Agency Rethinking Human Security and Ethics in the Spirit of Dag Hammarskjöld. Edited by Carsten Stahn and Henning Melber.

This tribute and critical review of Hammarskjöld's values and legacy examines his approach towards international civil service, agency and value-based leadership, investigates his vision of internationalism and explores his achievements and failures as Secretary-General. The book is also available in print. Melber is a Senior Adviser and Director Emeritus of The Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, Uppsala, Sweden. He is also Extraordinary Professor at both the University of Pretoria and the Centre for Africa Studies, University of the Free State.

Book 4: Au commencement était le Mimisme: Essai de lecture globale des cours de Marcel Jousse ( In the beginning was mimism: A holistic reading of Marcel Jousse’s lectures). Written by: Edgard Sienaert

This publication allows us to hear the voice of Marcel Jousse, professor of Anthropology of Language, who taught in Paris between 1931 and 1957. Edgard Sienaert, after having edited and translated in English all publications of Jousse, returns here to Jousse’s one-thousand lectures, synthesised through the lens of an anthropology of human mimism. Jousse’s train of thought leads us to question our own thought categories stuck in antagonisms: spirit and matter, concrete and abstract, body and mind, science and faith. Sienaert is currently a research fellow at the Centre for Africa Studies, University of the Free State, with an MA and PhD in Romance Philology. He published widely on medieval French literature and on orality. 
 

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