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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

Kovsie first-year wears green and gold for softball

2011-03-28

Jeneva Knell
Photo: Nangamso Koza

Jeneva Knell, a first-year residing in Madelief Residence on our Main Campus, has not only made her parents and community proud, but the university too – her second home, as she calls it. Jeneva has made history at the UFS by being the first student to receive national colours for softball. She joins a very long list of Kovsies who have made us very proud by earning green and gold.

This petite 18-year-old hailing from Kempton Park was tasked with a difficult choice last year as she filed her application forms to universities. She chose Kovsies, even though she was aware that it did not cater for softball players, something she is working hard at ensuring it change. “Sacrificing what I loved most was worth it. I wanted to be part of the changes at the UFS,” Knell says.

Her softball career started in Grade 6. Jeneva now proudly boasts the Benoni Rays Club’s colours, the club that produced the star she is today. “My coaches played a major role in turning me into a sports personality. A lot of hard work, sacrifices, dedication and team work are crucial for one to achieve those colours,” she responded.

“This is the greatest achievement I have ever attained. I feel very blessed. Without my mother’s love and support I would have never achieved this,” she said.

With the upcoming Junior Women’s World Championship in Cape Town, Jeneva is working hard at excelling and making the university proud.

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