RESEARCH
What’s UP
Kreatiewe skrywers word by UP in gepubliseerde outeurs omskep Die Eenheid vir Kreatiewe Skryfkuns in die Departement Afrikaans lewer nie bloot net kreatiewe denkers nie, maar ook gepubliseerde outeurs, met vier meestersgraadstudente wat in 2015 gepubliseer is.
Drie gegradueerde studente het ook die kwaliteit van hul opleiding oor die afgelope paar jaar ten toon gestel deur vername literêre toekennings te ontvang. Derick van der Walt het die Sanlam-prys vir Jeuglektuur gewen vir sy roman Hoopvol, wat hy ter voltooiing van sy meestersgraad geskryf het, terwyl Mercia Schoeman die Jan Rabie Rapport-prys in 2012 ontvang het vir haar meestersgraad-bundel kortverhale, Bloedfamilie. Anneli Groenewald, ’n student van prof Willie Burger, departementshoof van Afrikaans, het in 2014 die debuutprys in die Groot Afrikaanse Romankompetisie ontvang vir haar roman, Die skaalmodel.
Eunice Basson (Leiboom) en Riël Franszen (Narokkong) se poësie is gepubliseer, terwyl Pieter Verwey (op die kortlys vir die Sanlam-prys vir Jeuglektuur in 2014) sy roman, getiteld Clint Eastwood van Wyk en die moordenaarsklok gepubliseer het. Roela Hattingh se bundel kortverhale (Kamee) is ook in 2015 gepubliseer en het heelwat lof ontlok. Vyf ander studente se werk is vroeër reeds gepubliseer en nog vier is vir publikasie aanvaar.
Prof Henning Pieterse, direkteur van die Eenheid vir Kreatiewe Skryfkuns, is ’n gepubliseerde digter en outeur van kortverhale. Hy het al die Hertzogprys, die Eugène Marais-prys en die Ingrid Jonker-prys vir sy poësie ontvang, asook die Nedbank-
Akademieprys vir Vertaalde Werk. Een van sy kortverhale is ook in September 2015 as deel van ’n versameling Afrikaanse kortverhale, getiteld Skrik op die Lyf, gepubliseer.
Volgens prof Henning groei kreatiewe skryfwerk as dissipline wêreldwyd. “Ons PhD-graad gee aan skrywers ’n voorsprong wat meestersgraadstudente nog nie het nie,” sê hy. H
Experience Humanities’ vibrant postgraduate culture
The conference showcases the cream of the Faculty’s postgraduate research, and by extension also of teaching. This year the Postgraduate Committee received an overwhelming response to the call for papers, with almost 50 abstracts submitted. H
AWARDS English and Philosophy recognised on the world stage The QS World University Rankings by Subject 2015 placed UP among the top 200 universities in the world for the subjects English Language and Literature, as well as Philosophy.
The rankings highlight the world’s top universities in 36 individual subjects, based on academic reputation, employer reputation and research impact. H
STAFF Recent NRF-ratings Congratulations to the following staff who have been recently rated by the National Research Foundation. Prof De Wet Swanepoel (Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology) received a B2 rating, while Prof Antoinette Lombard (Social Work and Criminology) received a C1 rating and Dr Ronald van der Berg (Ancient Languages and Cultures) received a Y1 rating. The B in the rating indicates researchers who enjoy considerable international recognition by their peers for the high quality and impact of their recent research outputs. The 2 in the B2 rating indicates that all or the overwhelming majority of reviewers are firmly convinced that the applicant enjoys considerable international recognition for the high quality and impact of his/her recent research outputs.
The C in the rating indicates established researchers with a sustained recent record of productivity in the field who are recognised by their peers as having either produced a body of quality work, the core of which has coherence and attests to ongoing engagement with the field and/or has demonstrated the ability to conceptualise problems and apply research methods to investigating them. The Y-rating refers to a young researcher (40 years or younger and within five years from PhD) who is recognised by all reviewers as having the potential to establish him/ herself as a researcher, with some of them indicating that he/she has the potential to become a future leader in his/her field. H
Volume 1, Issue 1
Humanities welcomes its new Dean Drie gegradueerde studente het vername literêre pryse ontvang
Groundbreaking MA programme broadens horizons A first-of-its-kind in Africa master’s degree programme is presented by the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Pretoria. The MA in African European Cultural Relations is an interdisciplinary programme that has attracted student interest from across the continent and regularly hosts exchange students from Europe. The 2015 intake saw students from Ivory Coast, Malawi, and Nigeria registering for this unique course. The programme also encourages UP students to spend a semester abroad, while exchange students from overseas universities also visit UP. Two local students spent a semester at the universities of Antwerp and Berlin respectively during the past year, while two students from Konstanz University in Germany are visiting UP at present.
The Faculty of Humanities welcomed Prof Vasu Reddy as Dean in August 2015.
henning.pieterse@up.ac.za
Emerging new research initiative in Humanities
In September 2015 the Faculty of Humanities hosted its first annual Postgraduate Conference, an event aimed at visibilising the Faculty's vibrant postgraduate culture. The Postgraduate Conference is an insightful, interdisciplinary occasion during which postgraduate students and staff representatives from the various departments, centres and units in the Faculty participate in panel discussions on diverse topics.
Humanities
Kreatiewe Skryfkuns lei tans 10 meestersgraadstudente en vyf PhDstudente op. Die keuringsproses vir hierdie grade is uiters streng. Die MA behels ’n portefeulje van skryfwerk (’n volledige boek), asook ’n skripsie, terwyl die PhD uit ’n uitgebreide kreatiewe manuskrip en ’n volle tesis bestaan. Hoewel daar geen lesings aangebied word nie, word tekste gedurende verpligte werkwinkels bespreek en verbeter.
The South African Observatory for Environmental Humanities is an emerging new research field, which will pay attention to indigenous forms of ecology and how these served to conserve the environment and to create a balanced ecosystem. Using as its point of departure the spiritual idea found in a number of indigenous traditional societies in Africa – that human beings are earth keepers rather than earth exploiters – the Observatory seeks to harness and mobilise indigenous forms of nature conservation as a way of engaging with the anthropocene age. “Earth keeping” does not only provide a model for preserving the earth, it is also a form of critique of those local and global practices that have contributed to the degradation of the African environment. This exciting new research field will include themes such as environmental history in Southern Africa, global capital impact, digital dialogue with the environment, governance and the environment, and agriculture and the food crisis. For more information contact james.ogude@up.ac.za or benda.hofmeyr@up.ac.za
For more information contact the members of the Programme Coordinating Committee: Stephan.muehr@up.ac.za, lize.kriel@up.ac.za and benda.hofmeyr@up.ac.za Please send contributions to kotie.odendaal@up.ac.za
At the official welcoming, Prof Reddy said that no dean will accomplish anything of significance simply alone. “Success will be measured not simply by my personal achievements, but rather by our collective commitments, and of course, our ability to work together in a common effort to achieve important goals, personally and professionally, but also for the Faculty and as a university.” He started his academic career as a lecturer in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Natal in
1993, until his promotion to Associate Professor in Gender Studies in the School of Anthropology, Gender & Historical Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Development and Social Sciences at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in 2006. Joining the HSRC in July of the same year, he served in various capacities in, among others, the Gender and Development Unit, the Policy Analysis and Capacity Enhancement Programme and finally the Human and Social Development Research Programme as Executive Director. Prof Reddy has published widely in the fields of gender studies and HIV/AIDS. He has authored or co-authored a large number of published peer-
reviewed policy briefs, chapters in books and articles in several internationally accredited journals and has been the editor, co-editor or co-author of four books, and served as lead or guest editor of several special editions of journals. He successfully completed various funded research projects and maintains a number of active research collaborations nationally and internationally, in addition to delivering numerous papers at seminars and conferences. He has maintained an active presence in professional and academic bodies, and chairs the local organising committee of the World Social Sciences Forum, which took place in Durban in September 2015. H
AWARDS National award highlights excellent scientific research in humanities at the University of Pretoria The theme for the 2015 South African WISA was ‘Science for a sustainable future’. This theme looked at the contribution made by female researchers towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), as the MDGs concluded at the end of 2015.
Prof Lombard has a particular research interest in how social work, social enterprises and entrepreneurship interact to affect poverty and inequality
Prof Lombard, a C2 NRF-rated researcher since 2010, focuses her research on social and economic development, and inclusion through a human rights lens. Her research contributes to the achievement of the MDGs by linking social and economic development strategies and interventions to reduce poverty and inequality among vulnerable people – in particular women and children – in a broader community context. Her research contributes to debate and development of anti-poverty strategies and interventions in creating
Prof Antoinette Lombard, Head of the Department of Social Work and Criminology in UP’s Faculty of Humanities, received national recognition for her contribution to scientific research in August 2015. She was selected as the second runner up in the category Humanities and Social Sciences for the Distinguished Women in Science Award (WISA) by the Minister of Science and Technology, Naledi Pandor. opportunities for women to secure household income that facilitates food security and access to education, health facilities and shelter. She also studies the structural injustices that underpin the adversities of women and children, their right to social protection, and their right to development and social and economic inclusion. She has a particular research interest in how social work, social enterprises and entrepreneurship interact to affect poverty and inequality. In 2013, Prof Lombard received the James Billups International Consortium for Social Development Leadership Award. She boasts more than 50 publications, including journal articles, six book chapters, and a book on
community development, and has presented 41 international conference papers. Ten doctoral and 46 master’s degree students have completed their postgraduate studies under her leadership. She is also the International Association for Schools of Social Work’s (IASSW) chair of the Global Agenda for Social Work and Social Development, representing schools of social work on international and regional level. The Faculty of Humanities Dean, Prof Vasu Reddy, says that the nomination recognises Prof Lombard’s solid scholarly output in the context of science and development and confirms that the social sciences and humanities are being taken seriously. H
antoinette.lombard@up.ac.za
Researcher of the Year award received by celebrated Humanities author Prof Corinne Sandwith of the Department of English in UP’s Faculty of Humanities has received the award for Researcher of the Year in the Languages cluster for her research on South African intellectual history. In 2014, Prof Sandwith published World of Letters: Reading Communities and Cultural Debates in Early Apartheid South Africa. Part intellectual history and part critical biography, the book unearths a hidden history of readers, reading and cultural debate in South Africa in the 1940s and 50s. Giving privilege to the voices of those on the margins, it seeks to reconstruct the traces of an alternative South African ‘reading community’.
An important focus for this historical reconstruction are the archives of the dissident press – left-wing newspapers such as the Guardian, ‘little magazines’ such as Trek and Fighting Talk and small-scale community papers such as Torch and The Voice of Africa. The author also sought the traces and fragments of public cultural debate in a variety of social forums including discussion groups, theatre organisations and book clubs such as the South African Left Book Club. Prof Sandwith explains that what is suggested by this history, is the existence of a vigorous, non-academic and, above all, public discussion of literature and culture in pre- and early apartheid South Africa. “Also significant is the way in which questions of a more political nature were refracted through the medium of culture. In other words, the
‘This thoroughly absorbing and astutely argued book contributes substantially to our understanding of the world of (English) letters in South Africa from around the middle of the 1930s to the late 1950s’
way in which cultural discourses doubled as a form of political expression,” she notes.
What also surfaces in this study are a host of readers, editors, critics and other cultural – Peter McDonald, St Hugh’s College, Oxford. intermediaries – such as A.C. Jordan, Dora Taylor, Jack Cope and Ben Kies – whose lively cultural interventions form a significant part of South Africa’s literary-cultural and socio-political heritage. The book has been heralded by critics as compelling, lucid and engaging, set to make an important contribution to South African studies. H
‘This project is long overdue. This is the first in-depth analysis of the entire corpus of liberal and left-wing literarycultural writings in this period.’ – Archie Dick, University of Pretoria.
corinne.sandwith@up.ac.za