Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items

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

UFS staff and students clean campus together

2011-09-02

Kovsies are not black or white, we are green, says Prof. Jonathan Jansen, our Vice-Chancellor and Rector. Here are some of the students and staff who helped to pick up garbage on our Bloemfontein Campus.
Photo: Leonie Bolleurs

A group consisting of students, staff and members of the management team of the University of the Free State (UFS) proved that they are not only talking about sustainability and the importance of keeping the campus clean, but they actually put their words to action by taking up a garbage bag and helping to pick up garbage.

According to Ms Martie Bitzer, Head of the Sustainability Committee of the UFS, the UFS followed the lead of higher education throughout the world by joining the movement for sustainability and took the plunge in addressing sustainability issues with both short- and long-term planning. One of the short-term plans is to make staff and students aware of the importance of a “green” lifestyle. This week’s activities, including the picking up of garbage and planting a tree on the Bloemfontein Campus of the UFS, is the result thereof.

Prof. Jonathan Jansen, Vice-Chancellor and Rector of the UFS, who also helped to pick up garbage, told the group of staff and students that many universities around the world are implementing sustainability initiatives and are keeping their campuses clean, because they care for the environment. He thanked the group for their contribution to this process.

“By cleaning up around us, we show respect towards ourselves and towards our campus,” said Prof. Jansen.

To encourage students to keep the campus clean, Student Affairs at the UFS will launch a competition to see which residence can pick up the most garbage on 8 September 2011. A Clean Thakaneng Bridge Campaign will also be launched later on.

Back

Economic and Management Sciences

Education

Health Sciences

The Humanities

Law

Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Theology and Religion

Open Distance Learning

Business School

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept