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Academic programme on UFS campuses to resume face-to-face classes on 14 March 2022

07 March 2022 | Story Lacea Loader

On 14 March 2022, the Bloemfontein and Qwaqwa Campuses of the University of the Free State (UFS) will return to face-to-face classes as per the teaching plans for 2022. The faculties that are continuing with face-to-face classes in the first term (i.e., the Faculties of Natural and Agricultural Sciences and Health Sciences), will remain face-to-face during the week of 7 to 11 March 2022.

The decision to resume face-to-face classes follows previous communiques in February 2022 about the temporary closure of the Qwaqwa Campus due to violent protest action, and the continuation of the academic programme on the Bloemfontein Campus in a differentiated and flexible online delivery mode due to challenges experienced with disruption of classes.

The return to face-to-face classes on 14 March 2022 also follows the reopening of and resumption of online classes on the Qwaqwa Campus on 28 February 2022, and the resumption of some face-to-face activity on the Qwaqwa Campus as from 7 March 2022.

As a residential institution, it is important for students to return to campus, for the academic programme to continue as planned, and for activities to return to normal.

Students will be informed by their respective faculties as to how the academic programme will be adapted for face-to-face classes, including instances where classes will remain online.

News Archive

“We relied on outsiders to document our histories.” – Zanele Muholi delivers Women’s Day Lecture

2014-08-13

Zanele Muholi
Photo: Stephen Collett

“Our society is decaying because of hate crimes against LGBTI groups. You can’t say it does not affect you, because each of us is at least connected to one person [of LGBTI orientation].”

These words by Zanele Muholi, photographer and visual activist of LGBTI rights, who delivered the Women’s Day Lecture. The event commemorated Women’s Day and took place on Thursday 7 August 2014 at the Bloemfontein Campus. The lecture was hosted by the Centre for Africa Studies, as part of their Gender Studies Programme.

Muholi screened photographs featuring lesbian couples and recounted their all-too-real life stories. Her work emphasises the importance of queering the normative gaze by representing black lesbians in ‘straight’ portraits in a collection of works titled ‘Faces and Phases’. By focusing on lesbians in her work, Muholi shows that women in same sex relationships are just women, with the same dreams and aspirations as their heterosexual sisters.

But lesbian women carry an additional, grave fear – that of corrective rape. Muholi speaks on this topic in the video, ‘We live in fear’, which she screened during her talk. The documentary features the lives of lesbian women in Kwa Thema township in Johannesburg. Shockwaves spread through this settlement in 2008 after the brutal killing of a lesbian woman and the ensuing series of hate crimes against the LGBTI community.

Zanele describes her work as “documenting our own stories. For years we relied on outsiders to document our histories. We should do it ourselves.”

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