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20 May 2022 | Story Rulanzen Martin

The Africa Day Memorial Lecture has always been a platform for scholars to critically reflect on and engage with subject matter pertaining to Africa and her people. This year’s lecture will be no different when Prof Bagele Chilisa, post-colonial scholar from the University of Botswana, will deliver this year’s lecture on the topic: Research and knowledge production: Africa and the call for a fifth research paradigm.  

“In this lecture, Kwame Nkrumah’s call for Africa-centred knowledge, Claude Ake’s promotion of endogenous knowledge, and Ngungi wa Thiongo’s decolonisation of the mind recall Africa’s innovations in the COVID-19 crisis, celebrate Africa’s unity of mind, and claim Africa’s space in the global knowledge production,” writes Prof Chilisa.

The lecture is hosted annually by the Centre for Gender and Africa Studies at the University of the Free State (UFS). Previous speakers include, among others, Dr Rahul Rao, Prof Alcinda Honwana, and Prof Walter D Mignolo, who delivered the 2021 memorial lecture. 

Premiere at 19:00 on YouTube to join the lecture click on video below. 

Time: 19:00


For more information, please contact Portia Khate at KhatePB@ufs.ac.za

Click to view documentVisit the dedicated #AfricaMonth webpage here 



About the speaker: 
Prof Chilisa is a renowned post-colonial scholar, researcher, author, educator, and an important African thought leader. Some of the courses she has been facilitating for more than 30 years include research design, policy design, and measurement and evaluation courses, among others. As a full Professor at the University of Botswana, she has supervised more than 50 master’s dissertations and PhD theses with diverse academic discourse and has served as external examiner for PhD theses in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. 

Her interest in community-based research has driven her to write extensively on indigenous knowledge, as well as to publish a book titled Indigenous Research Methodologies – a book that has sparked international discourse on the importance of indigenous methodologies, especially in Africa.  With more than 80 publications, Prof Chilisa was recognised as the Researcher of the Year and awarded UB Research Team Leadership at the University Research Awards Ceremony in 2019.

Other UFS events celebrating #AfricaMonth 

2022 Africa Week: ‘African Higher Education – Celebrating African Education’

The University of the Free State Office for International Affairs, in collaboration with the Unit for Institutional Change and Social Justice, will be hosting its fifth annual Africa Day commemoration.

In accordance with COVID-19 protocols/rules, the different activities will have limited capacity for attendance, but live streaming will be made available to the rest of us. This may change at any given time, according to circumstances as determined by the relevant departments of the institution. 

You are all cordially invited to tune in; please RSVP on the links below for attendance (attendance is limited). In the meantime, save the date and the links below. 


Opening Ceremony: South Campus
Date: 23 May 2022
Venue: Open space outside the cafeteria
Time: 13:00-15:00
RSVP link: https://events.ufs.ac.za/event/1534/  


Celebratory Dialogue: Bloemfontein Campus
Date:
25 May 2022 
Venue: Centenary Complex 
Time: 16:00-19:00

Closing Ceremony: Qwaqwa Campus
Date: 27 May 2022
Venue: B11 EMS 
Time: 12:30-15:00

For more information, please contact Bhekumusa Zikhali at ZikhaliBN@ufs.ac.za 

News Archive

Sesotho dictionary to be published
2008-04-15

 
Mr Motsamai Motsapi,  editor-in-chief.

A comprehensive bilingual Sesotho dictionary will be published in the 2008/2009 financial year, thanks to the efforts of the Sesiu sa Sesotho National Lexicography Unit hosted by the University of the Free State (UFS). ”Sesiu” is a Sesotho word meaning ”a reservoir for storing grains”.

According to the Editor-in-Chief of the Sesiu sa Sesotho National Lexicography Unit, Mr Motsamai Motsapi, the unit intends to continuously develop and modernize the Sesotho language so that its speakers are empowered to express themselves through Sesotho without any impediments, in all spheres of life.

The unit is one of the 11 nationally established Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB) structures representing South Africa’s 11 official languages.

Their main objective is to preserve and record the various indigenous languages by compiling user-friendly, comprehensive monolingual dictionaries and other lexicographic products, and to develop and promote these languages in all spheres of life.

The Minister of Arts and Culture, Dr Pallo Jordan, has lamented the fact that it is virtually impossible to find a bookstore in any of the country’s shopping malls that distributes literature in the indigenous African languages.

The minister said the capacity to both write and read in one’s home language gives real meaning to freedom of expression.

Therefore the publication of this Sesotho dictionary should be seen in the context of the development of the indigenous languages, as encapsulated in both the minister’s vision and that of the Sesiu sa Sesotho National Lexicography Unit.

The pending publication of this dictionary is the culmination of years of hard work invested in this project by the Sesiu sa Sesotho National Lexicography Unit.

“I believe that slowly but surely we have made some strides, as we have produced a Sesotho translation dictionary draft in 2006 covering letters A to Z. We have also built a considerable Sesotho corpus. But we still have a mammoth task ahead of us, because the work of compiling a dictionary does not end”, said Mr Motsapi.

“All Sesotho speakers should be involved, as the language belongs to the speech communities, and not to certain individuals”, he added.

He said given the reality that the UFS is situated in a predominantly Sesotho-speaking province and is part of its general community, it will always benefit the university to be part of the efforts of the South African nation to address the past by ensuring the development of the Sesotho language.

The unit is located in the African Languages Department of the Faculty of the Humanities at the UFS, and collaborates closely with the Language Research and Development Centre (LRDC) at the UFS to further the development of the Sesotho language. It is funded by PanSALB.

Media Release
Issued by: Mangaliso Radebe
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2828
Cell: 078 460 3320
E-mail: radebemt.stg@ufs.ac.za  
15 April 2008
 

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