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30 October 2024 | Story Jacky Tshokwe | Photo Bram Fischer
BRAM FISCHER MEMORIAL LECTURE 2024

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 to view documentClick 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.

News Archive

Prof Jonathan Jansen recipient of the prestigious Excellence in Education Award
2015-10-19

Prof Jonathan Jansen

Prof Jonathan Jansen, Vice-Chancellor and Rector of the University of the Free State (UFS), has been chosen from an exceptionally impressive pool of alumni as one of three inaugural recipients of the Stanford Graduate School of Education’s Excellence in Education Award. 

Not only did Prof Jansen obtain a doctorate degree in 1991 from Stanford University (USA), but also continued his studies there as a Fulbright Scholar from 2007 to 2008. His work as an advocate for intellectual freedom, and in leading the UFS toward racial integration, is widely recognised as a model for higher education. “Prof Jansen’s scholarship on these topics has an international audience and impact, and we are honoured to count him as one of our own,” said Dr Deborah Stipek, Dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Education and Professor of Education at Stanford University.

According to Dr Stipek, the Excellence in Education Award signals a critical step in the School’s drive to recognise, and raise the profile of, the transformative work of the alumni. The other two recipients are Helen Kim, Vice-Principal, Eastside College Preparatory School in East Palo Alto, California and Carla Pugh, Vice-Chair, Education and Patient Safety, Clinical Director, University of Wisconsin Clinical Simulation Programme.
 
"I think they made a mistake; after all, there have been so many illustrious alumni over the decades. I am, nonetheless, humbled and grateful for this wonderful act of recognition."

Prof Jansen will receive the award on 23 October 2015 at Stanford University in Palo Alto during the Graduate School of Education’s Alumni Award reception.

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