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Apartheid's Legacy – ghosts, psyche, and trauma

29 September 2023 | Story Samkelo Fetile

The University of the Free State (UFS) is set to host a compelling book launch event, exploring the lasting legacy of apartheid. This thought-provoking gathering is organised by the Deputy Vice-Chancellors (Research and Internationalisation; Institutional Change, Strategic Partnerships and Societal Impact), the Directorate for Institutional Advancement, and the Faculties of Law (Centre for Human Rights) and The Humanities, with a cocktail reception to follow.

The overarching question guiding the event is a thought-provoking one: Even though apartheid has formally ended, to what extent does its legacy persist? This enquiry sets the stage for an exploration of diverse facets of this legacy by three distinguished authors – Premesh Lalu, Wahbie Long, and Saleem Badat. Their recently published works, namely Undoing Apartheid (Polity Press, 2022), Nation on the Couch: Inside South Africa’s Mind (MF Books, 2021), and Tennis, Apartheid and Social Justice: The First Non-Racial International Tennis Tour, 1971 (UKZN Press, 2023), respectively offer textured insights into the enduring shadows cast by apartheid on contemporary realities.

These authors will engage in a conversation with Sarah Nuttall, Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies at Wits and the former Director of the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER), who served in that capacity from 2012 to 2022.

Date: 12 October 2023

Time: 16:30-18:30

Venue: Albert Wessels Auditorium, UFS Bloemfontein Campus

For those interested in attending, RSVP by 6 October 2023 through the event registration. For further information, contact Alicia Pienaar at pienaaran1@ufs.ac.za.

The Speakers

The speakers include Premesh Lalu, Research Professor and former founding director of the Centre for Humanities Research (CHR) at the University of the Western Cape (UWC); Wahbie Long, Professor in the Department of Psychology and Deputy Dean in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Cape Town (UCT); and Saleem Badat, Research Professor in the Department of History at the UFS, former Programme Director of International Higher Education and Strategic Projects at the Andrew Mellon Foundation in New York, and former Vice-Chancellor of Rhodes University.

As South Africa grapples with the lingering impact of its apartheid history, this event promises an insightful exploration of the continuing reverberations of this historical trauma, inviting participants to reflect on the ways in which it continues to shape the present.

News Archive

New Division of Virology to deliver crucial services for HIV diagnosis and resistance testing

2015-12-14

The establishment of a Division of Virology within the Department of Medical Microbiology, under the joint auspices of the UFS and the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS), reflects the continued growth within Virology. Dr Dominique Goedhals, Head of the Division, says the division will also provide training of undergraduate medical students, medical technologists and technicians, and registrars.

The newly established Division of Virology at the University of the Free State will be one of only five laboratories in the country to be involved in crucial diagnostic and testing services for HIV viral load monitoring, early infant diagnosis, and HIV resistance testing.

The Virology Diagnostic Laboratory serves as the reference laboratory for all HIV National Priority Programme samples for the Free State and Northern Cape provinces.

Medical staff at the laboratory will provide a 24-hour consultative service, as well as outreach programmes to district laboratories in the Free State and Northern Cape where pathologists are not available.

Dr Dominique Goedhals, Head of the Division of Virology, says this division, under the joint auspices of the UFS and the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS), reflects the continued growth within Virology.

The division will not only deliver this critical diagnostic service, but will also focus on training and teaching, as well as research.

Teaching and training activities include teaching of undergraduate medical students, medical technologists and technicians, and registrars. The postgraduate science programme has a high output of honours, master’s and doctoral students in Virology. The intern medical scientist programme is also active, with five interns having successfully submitted their portfolios since the programme was implemented in 2010.

Research activities under the Head of Research, Prof Felicity Burt, have also expanded and continue to show increases in publication output and acquisition of grant funding. Established research groups within the Division of Virology focus on vector-borne and zoonotic viruses, human papilloma viruses (HPV), and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), as well as work with a number of international collaborators.

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