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The University of the Free State’s Bloemfontein campus played host to the English Academy of Southern Africa’s (EASA) annual international conference on 7-8 December 2023. Attracting 35 delegates from Canada, the UK, Nigeria, Botswana, and South Africa, the two-day conference delved into the theme, “Ways of Reading: Literature and Literacy,” with a diverse group seeking to unravel the intricate relationship between literature and literacy.
The proceedings were inaugurated by Prof Vasu Reddy, emphasising the importance of exploring how literacy shapes our modes of attention, both culturally and socially. He expressed his faith that the conference would be “generatively disruptive,” noting that “where there is disruption, there is also growth.”
Featuring two eminent keynote speakers, the conference saw Prof David Attwell, Emeritus Professor at the University of York (UK), discussing the connection between translingualism and creativity in a lecture titled, “A Ventriloquial Literature: The Art of ‘Throwing the Voice’ in the South African Canon. On the second day, Dr Karen Jennings, author of the Booker Prize longlisted novel An Island, reflected on “how place and identity are crucial to the act of creation,” with her talk whimsically titled, “Bums in the Ground.”
Delegates approached the conference theme in various ways, with some exploring how specific writers or critical movements have shaped scholarly reading habits. Others highlighted the significance of literacy for social justice. This diversity extended to the interdisciplinary nature of the conference, bringing together scholars working in language practice, literary studies and even the medical humanities.
Convened by Dr Rick de Villiers, a senior lecturer in the Department of English and the regional vice-president of EASA, the conference delighted in attracting scholars from different backgrounds and stages of their careers. “We had a wonderful mix of established and early-career scholars. The atmosphere was rigorous and robust but collegial throughout.”
Speaking on behalf of EASA, Dr De Villiers extended gratitude for the financial and administrative support from the UFS, particularly the Department of English.
UFS International Studies Group makes history come alive globally
2015-07-15
The UFS International Studies Group comprises students who are top achievers drawn from South Africa, Southern and Central Africa and even further afield.
Photo: Charl Devenish |
Headed by Prof Ian Phimister, the UFS International Studies Group comprises six master’s, twelve PhD and twelve postdoctoral fellows who concentrate their research endeavours on African, Imperial and Global History. All of these students are top achievers drawn from South Africa, Southern and Central Africa and even further afield. This group, now only in its third year, presents a phenomenal research output with an international reach.
In the course of the past year alone, five PhD students secured fully-funded invitations to conferences and research seminars in South Africa, Britain, as well as the Netherlands. Our researchers have been publishing articles globally and securing visiting fellowships and research awards.
Dr Clement Masakure and Dr Rosa Williams won funding to present papers at the International Network for the History of Hospitals. Tinashe Nyamunda won a prestigious three-month Cadbury Fellowship at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom. Anusa Daimon has been selected as a 2015 Harry Guggenheim award winner, which covers workshop attendance in Nairobi, Kenya.
From among the group, twelve articles have been published or accepted for publication in refereed scholarly journals, as well as four chapters in edited books. Book reviews written by these highly-motivated graduate students, have appeared or will appear in leading national and international academic journals. Remarkably, seven book reviews appearing in one particular issue of African Studies Review, were written by this group. Four scholarly monographs have recently been published, or soon will be. One PhD student is the joint editor (with a senior Canadian academic) of a forthcoming study on Zimbabwe’s controversial Marange diamond mining industry.
Another outstanding researcher, Dr Lindie Koorts, won the award for the best debut writer at the 2014 Woordfees for her book ‘DF Malan and the Rise of Afrikaner Nationalism’ – the first non-fiction writer to achieve this. Her book now appears on the longlist for the 2015 Alan Paton Award.