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Shining a light on student protest – join the discussion

24 May 2022

The Faculty of the Humanities will be hosting a round-table dialogue on ‘Humanistic Perspectives on Student Protests in South Africa’, an important discussion on a matter that is currently in the spotlight at the UFS and other institutions nationally. Both students and staff are invited to attend in-person or virtually.

The dialogue aims to discuss ‘humanistic perspectives’ on student protests and includes, among others, the following topics:

• Dynamics of student protests

• The relationship between politics and protests

• Why protests are a challenge for the higher education secto

• Possible responses to protests by universities.

Event details

In-person venue: Equitas Auditorium
Online platform: Microsoft Teams
Date: 30 May 2022
Time: 14:00-16:15

Moderator:

Dr Grey Magaiza

Panellists:

Prof Francis Petersen (Rector and Vice-Chancellor

Prof Sethulego Matebesi (Department of Sociology)

Prof Nyasha Mboti (Department of Communication Science)

Prof Joy Owen (Department of Anthropology)

Prof Colin Chasi (Unit for Institutional Change and Social Justice)

Mr Motlogeloa Moema (Student Affairs)

Opening remarks:

Prof Chitja Twala, Vice-Dean: Faculty of the Humanities

Closing remarks:

Prof Heidi Hudson, Dean: Faculty of the Humanities

News Archive

UFS starts lecture series on reconciliation and empathy

2012-02-28

Attending the inaugural Dialogue between Science and Society lecture were from left: Profs Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Jean Decety,Dr Melike Fourie, a researcher at the University of Cape Town, and Prof. Driekie Hay, Vice-Rector: Academic.
Photo: Johan Roux
28 February 2012

The University of the Free State has begun with the first of a series of lectures that will deal with issues of humanity.

The Dialogue between Science and Society Lecture series, hosted by Prof. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, will bring together different disciplines such as Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Neuroscience and Literature to explore the broad field of reconciliation and empathy.

Prof. Jean Decety, a leading scholar in the social neuroscience of empathy at the University of Chicago delivered the inaugural lecture on 23 February 2012. He spoke about the social neuroscience of empathy and moral reasoning.

Drawing lessons from US president Barack Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope, Prof. Decety opened his speech with a quote on empathy as the glue that makes much of social life possible. He said a feeling of empathy means putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes. Prof. Decety discussed in depth the link between empathy and helping, saying that it linked to morality.

Prof. Gobodo-Madikizela, author of the bookA human being died that night: a South African story of forgiveness, on her interviews with convicted Vlakplaas murderer Eugene de Kock, recently joined our university.

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