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17 July 2024 | Story Prof Danie Brand

The University of the Free State, through its Free State Centre for Human Rights, is pleased to present an online panel discussion titled, The Gaza crisis: How should South African universities engage with ‘pressing and urgent injustices’?   


Click to view document Join the Panel Discussion

Following the killing of 1 143 people and the taking of 247 hostages by Hamas during an armed incursion in Israel on 7 October 2023, Israel mounted an invasion of the Gaza Strip. In the ensuing bombardment and ground offensive – which is continuing ten months after the Hamas attack – Israel armed forces have killed more than 38 000 people. Hamas’ killing and continued holding of hostages and Israel’s sustained offensive – described as an ‘unfolding genocide’ and a ‘massacre’ – confront universities with an enduring question: how to engage as institutions ‘with pressing and urgent injustices’?


Join us for an online panel discussion where pertinent questions emerging from the current crisis will be discussed. Should a university such as the University of the Free State formulate an institutional response to the Gaza crisis? If so, what form should it take? Is a statement, as has already emanated from several other South African universities, appropriate and sufficient? How to deal with current ties with Israeli universities, businesses, and individual academics? Can the UFS remain silent?

Event details
Date: Monday 22 July 2024
Time: 15:00-17:00
Venue: Ms Teams
Click to view documentClick here to RSVP before 22 July 2024. 
A Microsoft Teams link will be shared for the online event.

For South African universities, the Gaza crisis is a particularly apt lens through which to consider this question. Firstly, because Israel’s invasion of Gaza also manifested as a ‘scholasticide’: a large-scale destruction of schools, universities, and other places of learning in Gaza and the killing of Palestinian teachers and academics. Secondly, because of the strong historical and current links between South Africa, Palestine, and Israel: Israel’s past collaboration with the South African apartheid regime; the South African liberation movement’s enduring relationship with Palestinian liberation; and the many uncomfortable congruences between South Africa’s history of racially determined injustice and the current ethno-/racial social, political, and geographical segregation in Israel/Palestine.

Moderator

Prof Francis Petersen: Vice-Chancellor and Principal, UFS. 

 

Speakers
Prof Kistner has held teaching positions in Comparative Literature at Wits University, Modern European Languages at Unisa, and Philosophy at the University of Pretoria and is an extraordinary professor in the University of the Free State Department of Public Law. She is currently working on intersections between political philosophy, social theory, jurisprudence, and psychoanalytic theory.

Prof Nieftagodien is the NRF South African Research Chair in Local Histories and Present Realities and is the Head of the History Workshop at the University of the Witwatersrand, where he also lectures in the Department of History. He is the co-author – with Phil Bonner – of books on the history of Alexandra, Ekurhuleni, and Kathorus, and has also published books on the history of Orlando West and the Soweto uprising, and co-edited a book on the history of the ANC.

Prof Gillespie is a political and legal anthropologist with a research focus on abolition in South Africa, particularly concerned with the ways in which criminal legal processes become vectors for the continuation of apartheid relations. She joined the Department of Anthropology/Sociology at the University of the Western Cape in 2018, prior to which she worked for a decade at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits). In 2008, she co-founded the Johannesburg Workshop in Theory and Criticism (JWTC), an experimental project tasked with recrafting the work of critical theory beyond the Global North. She writes and teaches about urbanism, violence, sexualities, race, and the praxis of social justice. 

News Archive

UFS application figures show a good upward trend
2008-10-23

Applications for admission to the University of the Free State (UFS) are showing an upward trend. In comparison with the same time last year, the total application figure has increased from 6 273 to 7 507 – a growth of 19,7%.

So far, applications for postgraduate studies are showing the biggest growth with 1 342 applications received. During the same time last year, 594 applications for postgraduate studies were received – an increase of 126%.

Prospective students have until 30 November 2008 to apply for admission. “This applies to first-time entering first-year students and senior students who have interrupted their studies for at least one year,” said Mr Vernon Collett, Registrar: Student Academic Services, at the UFS.

According to Mr Collett students whose applications for admission are received after 30 November 2008 and until 13 January 2009 will be accepted subject to the availability of place on the programme they applied for.

Applications from prospective students who wrote the Senior Certificate (prior to 2008) and who are in the possession of a conditional exemption will only be accepted until 5 January 2009.

Prospective students who want to apply must pay a non-refundable fee of R140.
The signed application form must be accompanied by a certified copy of the prospective student’s identity document or passport, a proof of payment of the application fee as well as a certified copy of their Statement of Results of their Senior Certificate.

Prospective students who are in Grade 12 this year will receive a National Senior Certificate. A certified copy of their Statement of Results must be faxed to the UFS not later than 7 January 2009.

The application form of a minor must be signed by his/her parent or guardian and the field of study should be clearly indicated.

First-time entering first-year students from the Faculties of Economic and Management Sciences and the Humanities (including Education) will be welcomed by the Acting Rector, Prof. Teuns Verschoor, on Friday, 9 January 2009 at 09:00 in the Callie Human Centre on the Main Campus.

The welcoming of students from the Faculties of Health Sciences, Natural and Agricultural Sciences, Law and Theology will take place on Saturday, 10 January 2009 at 09:00 in the Callie Human Centre.

The registration of first-time entering first-year students will commence on 13 January 2009 and that of senior students on 19 January 2009 at the Callie Human Centre according to a programme.

Students who applied for admission after 30 November 2008 and are accepted can register from 4 February 2009.

Lectures will commence on 2 February 2009 and the registration process will end on 10 February 2009. This is applicable to all students – undergraduate as well as postgraduates

Prospective students who want to apply for admission or who have any enquiries can call 051 401 3000 or visit the UFS web site at www.ufs.ac.za.

 

Media Release:
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@ufs.ac.za  
22 October 2008

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