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30 October 2024
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Story Jacky Tshokwe
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Photo Bram Fischer
Join us as Prof Premesh Lalu from the University of the Western Cape presents this year’s lecture, with a response from Prof Steven Friedman of the University of Johannesburg.
Lecture title: "Bram Fischer's Briefcase: What's Left of Apartheid?"
In a compelling narrative of historical irony, a briefcase exchanged between Bram Fischer and Sydney Kentridge after the Rivonia Trial was later reimagined in the 1997 theatre production Ubu and the Truth Commission, created by Jane Taylor, William Kentridge, and Handspring Puppet Company. Repurposed as the ‘Dogs of War’ puppet, this briefcase transformed into Brutus, Brutus, and Brutus – embodying apartheid’s enforcers and the unspoken tensions beneath South Africa's political history. Through the theatre lens, the lecture will explore whether Bram Fischer’s briefcase revealed apartheid as a tragicomedy that needed dismantling to foster genuine reconciliation.
Date: Thursday 14 November 2024
Time: 18:00 to 21:00
Venue: Albert Wessels Auditorium, UFS Bloemfontein Campus
Click here to RSVP before by 10 November 2024.
The Speaker
Prof Premesh Lalu is a prominent researcher and former Director of the Centre for Humanities Research (CHR) at the University of the Western Cape, which was awarded flagship status by the Department of Science and Innovation (DSTI) and the National Research Foundation (NRF) in 2016. His books include The Deaths of Hintsa: Post-Apartheid South Africa and the Shape of Recurring Pasts (2009) and Undoing Apartheid (2022). He is a respected voice in publications such as History and Theory, the Journal of Southern African Studies, and Critical Times, and serves on various international advisory boards.
The Respondent
Prof Steven Friedman is a Research Professor in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Johannesburg. A widely published authority on South Africa’s democratic transition, his work focuses on democratic theory and practice. His notable publications include Good Jew, Bad Jew: Racism, Anti-Semitism and the Assault on Meaning, and he writes a weekly column, Against the Tide, offering critical insights into South African democracy.
For further information, please contact Alicia Pienaar at pienaaran1@ufs.ac.za.
UFS cardiac team leading with project
2017-05-31
Prof Peter Schultheiss of the Charité University in Berlin,
Germany, visited the Robert WM Frater Centre for
Cardiovascular Research at the UFS for a study regarding
cardiomyopathy, a significant cause of fatal heart failure
among Africans. From the left are Dr Glen Taylor,
Dr Danie Buys, Prof Makoali Makatoko,
Prof Schultheiss and Prof Francis Smit.
Photo: Rulanzen Martin
A team of cardiac doctors associated with the Robert WM Frater Cardiovascular Research Centre at the University of the Free State’s (UFS) Faculty of Health Sciences has commenced with a pioneering research project regarding idiopathic dilating cardiomyopathy.
An Afrocentric research focus
Prof Francis Smit, Head of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the UFS and Head of the Frater Centre, describes dilating cardiomyopathy as a heart muscle disease that is quite common, particularly among people of African descent. The disease weakens the heart muscle, which in turn leads to heart failure.
“To date there is no curable treatment for this condition and 50% of patients that have shown heart failure, died within a period of five years. The causes of this condition have been unknown in the majority of patients. But over the past few years major strides have been made where virus infections of the heart muscle or myocarditis have been identified as a possible underlying cause. Various genetic diseases are also linked to it,” says Prof Smit.
International collaborations ensure success
According to Prof Smit, the project is being run in conjunction with Prof Heinz-Peter Schultheiss of the Charité University and the Institute for Cardiac Diagnostics and Therapy in Berlin, Germany.
“We have been working on the project over the past 18 months and I have twice visited Prof Schultheiss in Germany. He is now visiting us in Bloemfontein. We have established a collaborative project focused on patients in central South Africa”.
Prof Schultheiss is a world leader regarding the diagnosis, pathology and treatment of dilating cardiomyopathy, says Prof Smit.
“He brings a lifetime of research experience to Bloemfontein and is internationally renowned as the father of myocardial or heart muscle biopsies.
“His pioneering work on the discipline has led to diagnostic accuracy that has induced purposeful and personalised treatment of dilating cardiomyopathy and has brought about dramatic changes in some subsets of patients’ life expectancy and their cure.”
Solving problems close to home
According to Prof Mokoali Makatoko, Head of the Department of Cardiology, there are more than 1500 new cases of heart failure identified annually at the Universitas Academic Hospital, of which approximately 30% are attributed to cardiomyopathy. “With the use of endomyocardial biopsies the team hopes to treat viruses unique to Southern Africa as well as other underlying causes of dilating cardiomyopathy.”
Prof Stephen Brown, Head of Paediatric Cardiology at the Universitas Academic Hospital, says children suffering from this disease never reach a mature age and those under his supervision will also be undergoing these tests. Various other departments at the UFS will also participate in this project. Profs Makatoko and Brown did the first four endomyocardial biopsies under the management of Prof Schultheiss during the past week. The results will be available in the coming weeks after which the project will be officially launched and patient recruitment will start in earnest.