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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

Staff experience running in the shoes of students

2014-07-29

Photo: Sonia Small

From having to upload money on a card and buying lunch at Thakaneng Bridge to naming the SRC members, some UFS staff members got to experience life as a full-time student on our Bloemfontein Campus.

During their 2014 Purpose Summit on 22 July, staff from Student Affairs competed against each other in an Amazing Race.

“We got to see how students actually run around on campus each day,” said Elize Rall from Residence Life. “We always hear from parents how their children have to go from one place on campus to the other to get things done … and now we know what they are talking about.”

Staff who attended the summit was divided into teams during the morning’s practical session. Similar to the popular television programme, The Amazing Race, there were quite a few checkpoints – often with some formidable challenges and quizzes.

To make their tasks even more difficult, the participants were forced to take the route students with disabilities would have taken. This means: no stairs could be climbed and no curbs could be jumped – they could only use ramps and elevators.

"The experience was extra-ordinary," said Lerato Masapo from Residence Life. "I learned a lot and I didn't realise how difficult it was for our disabled students to move around the campus.

"What struck me the most was the distance between every building and how far the students had to walk to reach certain places. This made me realise the importance and responsibility on us as staff members to know our environment and assist students accordingly in that regard."

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