Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Previous Archive
17 July 2023 | Story NONSINDISO QWABE | Photo Supplied
Buhle Hlatshwayo
Buhle Hlatshwayo has been selected for the 2023 Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant (FLTA) Programme.

Buhle Hlatshwayo, a master’s student on the UFS Qwaqwa Campus, has been selected for the 2023 Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant (FLTA) programme. Despite initially doubting herself, she took a leap of faith and applied for the programme, which turned out to be a successful decision. The Fulbright Programme is a prestigious scholarship programme that provides opportunities for international educational exchanges. The programme’s overarching aim is to enhance intercultural relations across more than 160 countries.

Hlatshwayo will be teaching isiZulu at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, for an academic year. She leaves South Africa at the end of July.

Hlatshwayo is currently pursuing her Master of Arts with specialisation in English on the UFS Qwaqwa Campus, where she also completed her undergraduate and honours degrees in the same field. Her research focuses on East African Arab migration narratives to the Global North, with a focus on exploring the legacies of colonialism. She is also a learning facilitator in the same department.

A prestigious opportunity 

A friend and colleague, Mxolisi Mabaso, encouraged her to apply, knowing her desire to explore opportunities abroad. 

“I am still in awe of how this opportunity came about, especially because someone else saw potential in me while I didn’t believe in myself. My good friend pushed me to apply, because he knew I always wanted the opportunity to go abroad. I am thrilled and honoured to be part of this prestigious programme. I am looking forward to experiencing the US culture and ways of being.”

On her love for English, Hlatshwayo said she has always been fond of the subject but never considered it as a potential career path. After completing her undergraduate degree, Dr Kudzayi Ngara, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of English on the Qwaqwa Campus, encouraged her to pursue an honour’s degree in English, which ultimately shaped her academic journey.

Professional and personal growth awaits

While in the US, Hlatshwayo said she is looking forward to immersing herself in American culture and pursuing courses in American studies. She aims to learn more about diverse cultural backgrounds and share her South African heritage and cultural values with the international community. She said this exchange of experiences and ideas will broaden her horizons and contribute to her academic and professional development.

“The opportunities would not present themselves if you were not capable. If you know your goals, seize any opportunity that will enable you to get there. I was not granted this opportunity because I’m smarter than everyone else, but because of how I articulated my genuine motivations with future goals and how the Fulbright programme will help me achieve them,” she said.

News Archive

Award-winning photographer exhibits ravages of war, 25 May 2016 until 17 June 2016
2016-06-02

Description: Unsettled exibition Tags: Unsettled exibition

The ruins of the Dimbaza Border Industrial Park built
in the 1970s as a source of cheap labour for industrialists
and ostensible employment for Ciskei Homeland citizens.
This industrial zone collapsed after 1994.
Photo: Images courtesy of the Galerie Seippel. 
All images © Cedric Nunn

Cedric Nunn’s latest photographic exhibition, Unsettled: One Hundred Years War of Resistance by Xhosa Against Boer and British, opened on 25 May 2016 at the Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery of University of the Free State, and will run until 17 June 2016. Since 2014, the exhibition has travelled through South Africa and the USA as well as Germany.

The photographer, documentary film-maker, and artist’s photographic journey was launched in the early 1980s in Durban. In 2011, he won the first FNB Joburg Art Fair Award.

Narratives of the victors and the vanquished

Unsettled deals with the nine wars that Xhosa people were subjected to between 1779 and 1879 in their fight against Afrikaner and British colonial settler forces. Nunn’s art seeks to instigate social change, and highlight lesser-seen aspects of society.

The work emanated from his awareness of a notable gap in the telling of this piece of South African history, as well as the fact that, to date, little has been done to memorialise these acts of colonial aggression and Xhosa resistance. He decided to document the land where these struggles took place.

“Through revisiting this painful past in the contemporary scenes of today, this work attempts to place the present in its factual context of dispossession and conquest,” said Nunn.

Unsettled
forms the first component of what will be a trilogy. The next component will address the legacy of colonial dispossession through “bringing ‘the first inhabitants’ back into the picture by giving a select number of self-describing Khoi, Griqua, and San or Bushmen a contemporary face and presence”. The final component will look at slavery.

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