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16 August 2021 | Story Nonsindiso Qwabe | Photo Sonia Small (Kaleidoscope Studios)
New member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences - Prof Pearl Sithole

Social scientist and Vice-Principal: Academic and Research on the Qwaqwa Campus, Prof Pearl Sithole, was appointed by Pope Francis as a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences for her stellar work in social sciences. 
Academicians are appointed by the Pope on the basis of their competencies in the social sciences and their moral integrity.

Prof Sithole said she was looking forward to sharing meaning and impact with the world through a space dedicated to the social sciences. “It’s a great honour. I’m feeling really humbled. The social sciences and humanities are a hugely necessary space to make meaning of the world, but for some reason, in the pecking order, they were relegated to a space that is thought of last. This appointment is to a dedicated space – to say, let’s look at issues through that lens.”
The Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences was established by Pope John Paul II in 1994 with the aim of promoting the study and progress of the social sciences, primarily economics, sociology, law, and political science. To achieve its aims, the academy organises conferences and workshops on specific themes, promotes scientific surveys and research, and publishes publications. 

Prof Sithole said the academy provides a wonderful way of reminding academicians of the importance of relating science to the real world. 

“What I like about it is that it demystifies science. It says, be excellent in your field but be able to converse for impact, be able to come to a forum that worries about specific issues, it still encourages publications and pure science/scientific endeavours, advancements in their field, but sometimes people come together to look at an issue from various angles. For me, it’s such a wonderful way of saying we must remember that we are doing science in order to relate to the world, not just to understand for the sake of understanding,” she said.

Make a genuine effort to make a difference in whatever you do, and your work will speak for itself.- Prof Pearl Sithole. 

The appointment also coincides with Women’s Month, and Prof Sithole said she takes great pride in her womanhood. 

“I am a mother and a daughter. I strive to pinpoint problems and offer solutions. I am a social scientist. I’ve made it a mission to study how systems affect people by infusing humanity within the systems. Women have been made to be apologetic about the qualities that define us as women, which we bring especially into leadership. I don’t apologise for my emotions. I don’t apologise for my multitasking abilities; however, I do feel that women are often abused for having these.”

What would you say makes you a UFS woman of quality, impact, and care?

I am the sort of person who strongly believes that your work should speak for itself. I don’t work for accolades. My approach to life is to work genuinely to make a difference, and your work will speak for itself. If you wake up every day to genuinely make a difference, it is enough. You get a lot of satisfaction in life, and you sleep better because you know you have given it your best, and you know that sometimes you can actually see it making a difference.

What advice would you give to the 15-year-old you?

I would say, be true to yourself. At a younger age, you want to chase all sorts of aspirations that look glamorous, which is not a bad thing, because you have to have appetite; but in your appetite for excellence and as someone who lives for a purpose, be true to yourself. Be able to design a life that aspires, but at the same time be adaptable to what you discover your strengths to be.

News Archive

The universal power of music and song to convey the unspeakable
2015-05-07

Philip Miller
Photo: Johan Roux

Spotlight photo: John Hodgkiss

Philip Miller, award-winning composer and sound artist, recently delivered the second instalment of the Vice-Chancellor’s Lecture Series on Trauma, Memory, and Representations of the Past on the Bloemfontein Campus. This lecture series forms part of a five-year research project led by Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela. The series focuses on how the creative arts represent trauma and memory, and how these representations may facilitate the healing of historical wounds.

Disrupting the Silence: The Past and Transnational Memory
In Miller’s lecture, ‘Disrupting the Silence: The Past and Transnational Memory’, he discussed the creative process – and the far-researching effects – of his composition: ‘REwind: A Cantata for Voice, Tape and Testimony’. The production consists of 4 soloists, an 80- to 100-member choir, a string octet, combined with gripping projected images and audio of victims testifying during the Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) hearings.

While listening to those raw recordings, Miller would rewind continually and listen again. In between the sounds of the tape stretching and spooling, sighs, gulps for air, and moments when the speakers lost their speech, a hidden sound world revealed itself. And within these silences lay an entrenched trauma far more profound than the actual words spoken.

Communal remembering
When Miller asked Nomonde Calata how she felt about his using the recording of her heart-rending cry during her TRC testimony, her reply was poignant. For Calata, her cries – taken over by the voice of Sibongile Khumalo during the cantata – were a living memorial to her loving husband. “And it almost felt like a soothing balm to her traumatic loss,” Miller said.

“I believe that a collective body of people singing is a unique symbolic act of communal remembering. But more than that, it is a deep form of identification of our humanity, and allows for some form of catharsis for those testifiers who have attended the live performances. Just as a parent sings a lullaby to calm a crying child, the choir singing reaches those of us who continue to mourn.

“Music and song – and the arts in general – can convey the powerful stories of our nation without fearing to engage with the subject matter,” Miller said. “This I believe is the universal power of music and song: to convey a spiritual dimension to what perhaps is sometimes too graphic and painful to comprehend fully.”

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