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Alumna Antjie Krog keynote speaker at UFS conference

22 November 2022 | Story Gerda-Marié van Rooyen

Antjie Krog at UFS — The award-winning writer, Antjie Krog, will be the keynote speaker at the International Hybrid Conference from 24 to 26 November 2022. This conference is a joint venture of the University of the Free State (UFS) Centre for Gender and Africa Studies and the War Museum.

The award-winning writer, Antjie Krog, will be the keynote speaker later this week at an International Hybrid Conference titled, The Unsung Heroines and Youth of South Africa: Violent Histories and Experiences of South African Women and Children during Wars, Conflicts and Pandemics. This conference – a joint project of the Centre for Gender and Africa Studies at the University of the Free State (UFS) and the War Museum – starts on Thursday 24 November and will be hosted at the War Museum in Bloemfontein and broadcast online. The three-day conference overlaps with the global 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence and aims to assemble historians, academics, and other scholars researching the violent histories of not only women and children in the South African War but in other wars, conflicts, and pandemics as well.

Prof Krog, an Extraordinary Professor in the Faculty of Arts at the University of the Western Cape, poet, and author of Country of my Skull (among other books), is an alumna of the UFS, where she completed a BA degree with Afrikaans, Philosophy, and English. She will deliver her keynote address, Survival, Complicity, and Race: (Im)possibilities of Narrating and Interpreting Rape in Havenga Affidavits, on the first day of the conference.

Prof Heidi Hudson, Dean of the Faculty of the Humanities at the UFS, will deliver her keynote address on Friday (25 November 2022). Prof Hudson is considered a specialist in feminist security studies. Her keynote address is titled Disciplinary and other stories: From women’s peace movements to the Women, Peace and Security ecosystem.

Several historians, academics, and scholars will either present their research or attend the conference. The conference aims to gather various stakeholders who are researching the violent histories of not only the women and children in the South African War, but other wars, conflicts, and pandemics in South African history dating from precolonial times to the World Wars, Apartheid, to the present. Each of the eight sessions over the first two days will conclude with time set aside for discussion.

The conference programme includes a visit to the art exhibition Unsung Heroes at the Oliewenhuis Art Museum on Friday after the last session. On Saturday, conference attendees can look forward to a tour of Bloemfontein. Click here for more information or send an email to vicky@anglo-boer.co.za.

News Archive

GMO Testing Facility receives visit from Norwegian Embassy and other government departments

2009-04-23

The GMO Testing Facility in the Department of Haematology and Cell Biology of the University of the Free State (UFS) recently received a visit from representatives of the Royal Norwegian Embassy, the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) and the National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI). The GMO Testing Facility provides diagnostic detection and quantification of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in grain and processed foods for the food industry in South Africa. Prof. Chris Viljoen who is the Director of the facility, recently received a grant of R3,284 million for research on the biosafety of GMOs in South Africa. The grant forms part of a collaboration agreement between South Africa and Norway. The delegation paid a courtesy visit to the facility to discuss the project as well as visit ongoing field trials. Here are, from the left, front: Mr Shoni Munzhedzi, Chief Director for Biodiversity Management at the DEAT, Ms Theressa Frantz, Director for Applied Biodiversity Research at SANBI, Prof. Letticia Moja, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the UFS, and Prof. Chris Viljoen from the university’s GMO Testing Facility; back: Mr Tim Lund, Counsellor to the Royal Norwegian Embassy, and Prof. Teuns Verschoor, Acting Rector of the UFS.

Photo: Stephen Collett

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