Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Previous Archive
28 June 2022 | Story Rulanzen Martin | Photo Sonia Small (Kaleidoscope Studios)
Dr Munyaradzi Mushonga is very optimistic about his appointment as the Global Academic Director of the Decolonial International Network.

Dr Munyaradzi Mushonga of the Centre for Gender and Africa Studies (CGAS) at the University of the Free State (UFS) has been appointed Global Academic Director of the Decolonial International Network (DIN). Dr Mushonga, who is a senior lecturer and programme director of CGAS’s Africa Studies programme, says his vision for DIN is “to work towards a new world civilisation that is opposed to the militarism and war, lawlessness and genocides of other civilisations.” 

Dr Mushonga, who is a leading voice and scholar on decolonialisation, will formally assume his role at DIN in 2023. 

The duality of new technology and scholarly work

Dr Mushonga says it is important for our minds to be decolonised, and he is therefore planning to establish a Centre for Decolonising The Mind (CDTM), which will use 21st-century technologies to achieve the ideal of decolonialisation. “Here pluriversal decolonial chapters and centres will be driven towards developing a decolonial history app,” he says. The aim is also to work towards a decolonial textbook on the history of Africa. 

He says it is commendable to employ technology to address decolonisation, but the real work to achieve the ideal of a decolonial mind lies in the scholarly work done by academics. At the CGAS the entire Africa Studies programme addresses decolonial theory and praxis through several approaches. “These are informed by our identity, which is anchored on two pillars, namely the interdisciplinary nature of all our engagements, as well as the exploration and critique of what it means to be ‘human’, but also in relation to the ‘non-human’ world.” He adds that the Centre’s teaching, supervision, and engagement with its students also challenges academics to think beyond the binaries of ‘coloniser’ and ‘colonised’, ‘white’ and ‘black’, and to reject all forms of fundamentalism. 

UFS’s commitment to decoloniality is a great asset 

Dr Mushonga's tenure at DIN will also reinforce the commitment to decolonial education made by the UFS, which has been noted by DIN. “I am convinced that DIN, the CGAS and the UFS can become the great vehicles to drive the decolonial agenda from the global South in general, and South Africa in particular,” he says. He says the commitment to the ideals of decolonisation displayed by UFS and the CGAS played a large part in his appointment to his new DIN role. 

The CGAS and the UFS will become key players in the DIN project, and Dr Mushonga hopes that more individuals and groups will come forward to join forces with DIN. “I hope this will enable DIN to push for new ethics in living.” 

News Archive

Paying homage to a music maestro
2013-10-08

 

08 October 2013
Photo: Supplied

American singer, songwriter, composer and actor, Thomas Alan Waits (1949–), has been a major inspiration to artists, musicians, poets, writers and thinkers for almost 40 years. He is considered as one of the godfathers of grunge and poetic rock and is a master of contemporary narrative –able to weave emotion and intrigue into his stories of urban grit and rural abandonment. His sometimes jaundiced view of the underbelly of society serves as a rich source of visual imagery.

The Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery is celebrating this vanguard with the exhibition Tom Waits for No Man.

Gordon Froud, artist and senior lecturer at the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Johannesburg (UJ), curated and toured with the Leonard Cohen exhibition entitled Altered Piecesin 2011 and 2012. Due to the success of that exhibition, Froud decided to extend his curative activities in the direction of Tom Waits.

This exhibition is based on a roughly LP-sized circular format (30cm in diameter). Most works hang on the wall, but some artists that preferredto work in 3D, made use of the disc as a base or platform on which to build. There was no restriction on materials or approach. There was no process in selection of songs and each artist was free to use whichever lyric or section of lyrics that they choose (even if someone else had selected this too – artists seldom come up with the same solutions).

The exhibition was launched at the ABSA KKNK in April 2013 and has travelled to the UJ Art Gallery and Grande Provence Wine Estate for the Literary Festival.

The exhibition is on display at the Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery until 25 October 2013.

Gallery hours: 08:30 – 16:30, Monday – Friday

Enquiries: +27(0)51 401 2706 | dejesusav@ufs.ac.za

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept