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
AWARDS Humanities is proud of its staff who received their doctorate degrees during the past year:
RESEARCH
RESEARCH Refilwe Ramagoshi
Mattias Pauwels
Jacomien van Niekerk
Silas Makhubela
Ronald van der Bergh
Herna Hall
Idette Noomé
Mariana Pietersen
Department of Visual Arts
Angelika Weber
Barbara Heinze
Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication
Department of African Languages Department of Afrikaans
Department of Ancient Languages and Cultures Department of English Department of Modern European Languages
Anna Marie de Beer
Department of Modern European Languages
Department of Philosophy Department of Psychology Department of Social Work and Criminology Department of Sociology Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology
Kerstin Tonsing
Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology
Leigh Biagio de Jager
Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology
Engela van der Klashorst
Department of Sport and Leisure Studies
Jenni Lauwrens Ensa Johnson
Liezl Schlebusch
Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication
Making a difference in the lives of women and children Dr Ensa Johnson, a staff member in the Faculty of Humanities’ Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (CAAC), received the Margaret McNamara Education Grant for women who make a difference in the lives of other women and children. Dr Johnson is one of only two South Africans who received bursaries from the Margaret McNamara Memorial Fund (MMMF) in 2015.
The grant was awarded to Dr Johnson to facilitate the completion of her PhD studies.
also developed a model for the Dr Johnson process of selecting vocabulary developed a for sensitive topics. As a followvocabulary list up to her PhD studies, Dr that children with In her thesis, entitled ‘An exploration Johnson will now investigate the communication of the common pain-related implementation of augmentative difficulties can use vocabulary typically developing and alternative communication in to express their pain children use: Implications for children hospital settings. who use augmentative and alternative communication’, she used a mixed-methods The MMMF was founded in 1981 in memory approach to develop a vocabulary list that of Margaret Craig McNamara, who dedicated children with significant communication her life to improving the lives of underserved difficulties can use to express their pain. She women and children around the world. H
UP established as African centre for Lessac Kinesensic training UP’s Faculty of Humanities boasts the first Master Teacher in Lessac Kinesensic Training outside the borders of the USA and one of only six trainers globally to receive this honour. Marth Munro, professor extraordinaire in the Department of Drama and NRF C3-rated researcher, also serves as the Director of Research at the internationally renowned Lessac Training and Research Institute based in the USA.
Honours student Carla Classen and master’s student Palesa Matabane exploring a process of contiguous continuity in ensemble during the Lessac Kinesensic intensive workshop
Prof Munro has been a Lessac Certified Trainer since 1990. Under her leadership, the University of Pretoria has become a centre for Kinesensic workshops. She explains that UP is set to become the African centre for Lessac training, entailing a comprehensive and creative approach to developing the voice and
the body in a holistic way. Originally known only to theatre professionals, Kinesensics has now become recognised as applicable to many endeavours in life, from voice and speech therapy to sports and fitness, singing training and wellbeing. Current initiatives include language acquisition and development in young children, and relations across cultures. The Department of Drama is invested in exploring cross-cultural aspects of training suitable to a multicultural student body. This includes a multilingual approach to acting, radio and voice classes by, for example, making use of students’ first languages in modes of presentation and assessment. The Department’s voice training constitutes a formal and ground-breaking interdisciplinary team-research project on cross-cultural voice training, and enhances the Department’s drive to create opportunities for students to engage with his or her own language in a training context. This project, which has been running since 2013, looks at approaches for voice training in first languages. For the purpose of the research, explorations in Setswana are developed to be incorporated into classes. Students are provided with the opportunity to give feedback.
maxi.schoeman@up.ac.za
This project examines peace and security in Africa, paying particular attention to notions of human security, while also exploring how gradations of conflict impact on the attainment of human security and peace on the continent. It moves away from the tendency in
research led by political science to focus on powerful actors and groupings such as states, institutions, and elite groupings, by rather focusing predominantly on individuals and communities affected by conflict situations. According to Professor Maxi Schoeman, Head of the Department of Political Sciences, the Peace and Conflict project is a multidisciplinary initiative that strives to involve disciplines such as social work, psychology, history and gender studies. She explains that specific research questions are asked, such as what influences have informed and shaped the most prominent peace-making approaches in Africa?; and what has been the impact on affected communities/societies?
Dr Idette Noomé of the Department of English recently completed ground-breaking research on the translation of anthropological work on indigenous law. Almost two thirds of people living outside South Africa’s cities are subject to indigenous or traditional law, and its continued application is guaranteed by the Constitution. It regulates family law and law of inheritance and succession – the things that affect people’s daily lives. Most of this law has been transmitted orally, but increasingly there is a need for written sources, as cases go on appeal to the higher indigenous courts, or even as high as the Constitutional Court. The few texts available on specific tribal law,
unique to specific areas and groups, are largely anthropological texts, and many are not available in English, or in the language of the people whose laws have been recorded. Dr Noomé’s doctoral thesis, ‘Widening readership – A case study of the translation of indigenous law’, explores the translation into English of an Afrikaans academic text in the field of legal anthropology. She wanted to discover how to produce accountable translations of such texts for different audiences to widen access to such texts. She translated 200 pages of text on Nkuna law, and interviewed the author about the text. This was a unique opportunity, as most of the elders who provided the oral information recorded in the detailed studies on indigenous law have passed away. “I believe that such texts need to be
translated into English in two forms – as academic texts for academics and members of the judiciary, and as plain English texts accessible to the general public, particularly members of the groups to whom the law relate, in this case, the Nkuna,” she says. In the Anglo-American translation tradition, translators are generally invisible, and readers favour texts that look as if they were originally written in English. However, Dr Noomé advocates that translators of such texts need to show that texts are in fact translated, and show explicitly what they have added or subtracted in translation. “This is particularly important in the post1994 South African context, in view of the power relations operative in who translates what for whom and how,” she concludes. H
Almost two thirds of people living outside South Africa’s cities are subject to indigenous or traditional law. Most of this law has been transmitted orally, but there is an increasing need for written sources in understandable language. idette.noome@up.ac.za
Choir members invited to the African and international stage Four Tuks Camerata students were selected as members of the African Youth Choir, a division of the International Federation of Choral Music (IFCM). The Youth Choir course took place in Gabon's capital, Libreville, in August 2015, where Merna Nicholls, Nomtha Gobe, Christopher Branders and Schalk Zastron joined up with singers from all over the African continent.
Dr Johnson is one of only two South Africans who received bursaries from the MMMF in 2015 ensa.johnson@up.ac.za
A Setswana workbook is also in the making. The first phase of the project was to ensure linguistic correctness of the explorations, while the second and current phase considers user friendliness, acknowledging and honouring the various Setswana dialects. When the Setswana pilot project has been completed successfully, the Department aims to develop voice training explorations in Sepedi and IsiZulu in the same way. Although UP students entering the industry will probably have an advantage over the rest, these workbooks will also be made available and applied at other tertiary institutions. “This project is about offering a service, making a contribution and instilling a sense of pride. I believe it will make a notable contribution to theatre and voice training in South Africa,” says Prof Munro. H The Department of Drama is invested in exploring crosscultural aspects of training suitable to a multicultural student body.
Cultural music was presented from countries across Africa, including two wonderful works from South Africa. The choir performed five concerts, as well as live on Gabon's National Network. The members of the African Youth Choir are selected biannually, as the course spans over two years. pamela.oosthuizen@up.ac.za
Humanities celebrates its stars The Faculty of Humanities gave recognition to its top achievers and hard-working staff at Humanities Day, held in September 2015.
The Lecturer of the Year award went to Prof Amanda du Preez from the Department of Visual Arts, while four staff members were awarded 2015 Researchers of the Year awards. They are Mr Rory du Plessis from the Department of Visual Arts, Prof Ulrike Kistner from the Department of Philosophy, Prof Antoinette Lombard from the Department of Social Work and Criminology, and Prof Corinne Sandwith from Department of English. Congratulations to these staff members for their exceptional research and lecturing output! H
marth.munro@up.ac.za
Theatre production receives Ovation Award
Peace and conflict placed under scrutiny The Faculty of Humanities’ Department of Political Sciences is making a significant and unique contribution to scholarship through the Faculty’s research theme on Peace and Conflict in Africa.
Widening readership for indigenous law
The research group is currently paying attention to social cohesion and nationbuilding as ways of promoting peacebuilding.
“We also explore the attitudes that affected communities have displayed towards peace-making efforts and initiatives, with a substantial contribution being made on issues of justice and reconciliation. Another important research question asks from what quarters leadership has emerged in the course of peace-making initiatives conducted in Africa? Has South Africa provided leadership? And if so, how did it unfold? What was the role assumed by the African Union and the regional economic communities in these conflicts?”
Prof Schoeman adds that the research group is currently paying attention to social cohesion and nation-building as ways of promoting peacebuilding, with several postgraduate students exploring case studies related to social cohesion or the erosion of social cohesion. The members of the project team work closely with colleagues across the continent and also with scholars from the London School of Economics and King’s College, London.
With this ongoing project Political Sciences aims to answer these research questions to improve understanding of peace and conflict through rigorous research.
The team strives to contribute to processes of peacemaking, peacekeeping and peacebuilding on the continent. H
The Department of Drama presented an intermedial theatre production, Barbe Bleue: a story about madness, at the 2015 National Arts Festival (NAF) in Grahamstown. The production was directed by Drama MA student Gopala Davies and won a Standard Bank Ovation Award. The Ovation Awards celebrate excellence on the Fringe festival of the NAF. The production is part of Mr Davies' practice-asresearch project for his MA degree under
chris.broodryk@up.ac.za | gopala.davies@up.ac.za
the supervision of Mr Chris Broodryk and Ms Jessica Foli. Davies investigates the construction of time and space in the mode of intermediality, mapping the ways time manifests as spatial element in Barbe Bleue. Practice-as-research strengthens the Department’s goal to train artist-scholars who utilises the modes of creative and artistic work embedded in the discipline to engage with, and generate, knowledge. Barbe Bleue explores the effect of madness on a relationship. Through the combination of new media technology with The Tale of Bluebeard, the audience is taken on a comic and, at times, horrific journey through tumultuous human relationships caused by mental illness. H
The four Tuks Camerata choir members were invited to perform in the biggest choral festival in France in August 2016, as part of the festival Choralies. About 4 000 singers from all over the world participate in this event. Eight of the African Youth Choir members were selected to perform Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms as part of a ‘world youth choir’ at the festival comprising singers from all continents, and all four Camerata students were proudly selected.
Tuks Camerata’s conductor and Director of Choral Music Studies at UP, Michael Barrett, has become an integral part in building choral music on the African continent. The IFCM has approached him to act as representative for choral music in South Africa and invited him to conduct workshops and work with the African Youth Choir during the festival in Libreville. At the Youth Choir’s annual conference, the committee proposed that the next festival takes place in South Africa. H
Developing a multilingual mindset UP promotes the development and use of students' strongest languages and empowers them in English as academic language
Although multilingualism is the norm in most countries of the world, monolingualism has become the hegemonic mindset. In higher education in South African it has become imperative to give preference to a mindset that recognises our multilingual reality by drawing on students' strongest languages while supporting them to study through medium of a second language. Prof Adelia Carstens, Head of UP’s Unit for Academic Literacy, in her research zooms in on the process by which bi- and multilingual students draw on all their linguistic resources to create meaning during learning opportunities – a process that has become known as 'translanguaging'. A study was conducted in 2015, involving speakers of African languages and Afrikaans, and the majority of the respondents reported experiencing cognitive and affective benefits. This research entails a mindset shift from bilingualism to multilingualism and links to another research project in the Faculty of Humanities – the Open Education Resource Term Bank. This Department of Higher Education and Training-funded project aims to coordinate the development of terminology in the official languages at South African universities, to allow students to discuss academic topics in their mother tongue, even if classes are presented in English. Prof Adelia Carstens, who leads the project at UP together with Prof Elsabé Taljard from the Department of African Languages and Prof Mbulungeni Madiba from UCT, says the project aims to democratise higher
education. She explains that terms are traditionally created by experts and not always used by the man on the street. “Terminology should be created by experts who have knowledge of both subject content and term-formation strategies in specific languages, but these newly created terms have to be justified through use and acceptance by students and staff in academic contexts.” Prof Taljard emphasises that the notion that no terminology exists for the African languages is indeed a misconception. The problem is rather an unchecked proliferation of terminology without the necessary standardisation. “The purpose of the multilingual term bank is to aid students with the conceptualisation of key notions in the different subject fields in their home language,” she says. The main aim of the term bank is to leave a legacy, even after the three-year project period ending in 2017. “This project is bigger than those working on it, and it is a very important building block on our path to multilingualism,” Prof Carstens concludes. H adelia.carstens@up.ac.za
AWARDS Humanities is proud of its staff who received their doctorate degrees during the past year:
RESEARCH
RESEARCH Refilwe Ramagoshi
Mattias Pauwels
Jacomien van Niekerk
Silas Makhubela
Ronald van der Bergh
Herna Hall
Idette Noomé
Mariana Pietersen
Department of Visual Arts
Angelika Weber
Barbara Heinze
Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication
Department of African Languages Department of Afrikaans
Department of Ancient Languages and Cultures Department of English Department of Modern European Languages
Anna Marie de Beer
Department of Modern European Languages
Department of Philosophy Department of Psychology Department of Social Work and Criminology Department of Sociology Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology
Kerstin Tonsing
Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology
Leigh Biagio de Jager
Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology
Engela van der Klashorst
Department of Sport and Leisure Studies
Jenni Lauwrens Ensa Johnson
Liezl Schlebusch
Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication
Making a difference in the lives of women and children Dr Ensa Johnson, a staff member in the Faculty of Humanities’ Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (CAAC), received the Margaret McNamara Education Grant for women who make a difference in the lives of other women and children. Dr Johnson is one of only two South Africans who received bursaries from the Margaret McNamara Memorial Fund (MMMF) in 2015.
The grant was awarded to Dr Johnson to facilitate the completion of her PhD studies.
also developed a model for the Dr Johnson process of selecting vocabulary developed a for sensitive topics. As a followvocabulary list up to her PhD studies, Dr that children with In her thesis, entitled ‘An exploration Johnson will now investigate the communication of the common pain-related implementation of augmentative difficulties can use vocabulary typically developing and alternative communication in to express their pain children use: Implications for children hospital settings. who use augmentative and alternative communication’, she used a mixed-methods The MMMF was founded in 1981 in memory approach to develop a vocabulary list that of Margaret Craig McNamara, who dedicated children with significant communication her life to improving the lives of underserved difficulties can use to express their pain. She women and children around the world. H
UP established as African centre for Lessac Kinesensic training UP’s Faculty of Humanities boasts the first Master Teacher in Lessac Kinesensic Training outside the borders of the USA and one of only six trainers globally to receive this honour. Marth Munro, professor extraordinaire in the Department of Drama and NRF C3-rated researcher, also serves as the Director of Research at the internationally renowned Lessac Training and Research Institute based in the USA.
Honours student Carla Classen and master’s student Palesa Matabane exploring a process of contiguous continuity in ensemble during the Lessac Kinesensic intensive workshop
Prof Munro has been a Lessac Certified Trainer since 1990. Under her leadership, the University of Pretoria has become a centre for Kinesensic workshops. She explains that UP is set to become the African centre for Lessac training, entailing a comprehensive and creative approach to developing the voice and
the body in a holistic way. Originally known only to theatre professionals, Kinesensics has now become recognised as applicable to many endeavours in life, from voice and speech therapy to sports and fitness, singing training and wellbeing. Current initiatives include language acquisition and development in young children, and relations across cultures. The Department of Drama is invested in exploring cross-cultural aspects of training suitable to a multicultural student body. This includes a multilingual approach to acting, radio and voice classes by, for example, making use of students’ first languages in modes of presentation and assessment. The Department’s voice training constitutes a formal and ground-breaking interdisciplinary team-research project on cross-cultural voice training, and enhances the Department’s drive to create opportunities for students to engage with his or her own language in a training context. This project, which has been running since 2013, looks at approaches for voice training in first languages. For the purpose of the research, explorations in Setswana are developed to be incorporated into classes. Students are provided with the opportunity to give feedback.
maxi.schoeman@up.ac.za
This project examines peace and security in Africa, paying particular attention to notions of human security, while also exploring how gradations of conflict impact on the attainment of human security and peace on the continent. It moves away from the tendency in
research led by political science to focus on powerful actors and groupings such as states, institutions, and elite groupings, by rather focusing predominantly on individuals and communities affected by conflict situations. According to Professor Maxi Schoeman, Head of the Department of Political Sciences, the Peace and Conflict project is a multidisciplinary initiative that strives to involve disciplines such as social work, psychology, history and gender studies. She explains that specific research questions are asked, such as what influences have informed and shaped the most prominent peace-making approaches in Africa?; and what has been the impact on affected communities/societies?
Dr Idette Noomé of the Department of English recently completed ground-breaking research on the translation of anthropological work on indigenous law. Almost two thirds of people living outside South Africa’s cities are subject to indigenous or traditional law, and its continued application is guaranteed by the Constitution. It regulates family law and law of inheritance and succession – the things that affect people’s daily lives. Most of this law has been transmitted orally, but increasingly there is a need for written sources, as cases go on appeal to the higher indigenous courts, or even as high as the Constitutional Court. The few texts available on specific tribal law,
unique to specific areas and groups, are largely anthropological texts, and many are not available in English, or in the language of the people whose laws have been recorded. Dr Noomé’s doctoral thesis, ‘Widening readership – A case study of the translation of indigenous law’, explores the translation into English of an Afrikaans academic text in the field of legal anthropology. She wanted to discover how to produce accountable translations of such texts for different audiences to widen access to such texts. She translated 200 pages of text on Nkuna law, and interviewed the author about the text. This was a unique opportunity, as most of the elders who provided the oral information recorded in the detailed studies on indigenous law have passed away. “I believe that such texts need to be
translated into English in two forms – as academic texts for academics and members of the judiciary, and as plain English texts accessible to the general public, particularly members of the groups to whom the law relate, in this case, the Nkuna,” she says. In the Anglo-American translation tradition, translators are generally invisible, and readers favour texts that look as if they were originally written in English. However, Dr Noomé advocates that translators of such texts need to show that texts are in fact translated, and show explicitly what they have added or subtracted in translation. “This is particularly important in the post1994 South African context, in view of the power relations operative in who translates what for whom and how,” she concludes. H
Almost two thirds of people living outside South Africa’s cities are subject to indigenous or traditional law. Most of this law has been transmitted orally, but there is an increasing need for written sources in understandable language. idette.noome@up.ac.za
Choir members invited to the African and international stage Four Tuks Camerata students were selected as members of the African Youth Choir, a division of the International Federation of Choral Music (IFCM). The Youth Choir course took place in Gabon's capital, Libreville, in August 2015, where Merna Nicholls, Nomtha Gobe, Christopher Branders and Schalk Zastron joined up with singers from all over the African continent.
Dr Johnson is one of only two South Africans who received bursaries from the MMMF in 2015 ensa.johnson@up.ac.za
A Setswana workbook is also in the making. The first phase of the project was to ensure linguistic correctness of the explorations, while the second and current phase considers user friendliness, acknowledging and honouring the various Setswana dialects. When the Setswana pilot project has been completed successfully, the Department aims to develop voice training explorations in Sepedi and IsiZulu in the same way. Although UP students entering the industry will probably have an advantage over the rest, these workbooks will also be made available and applied at other tertiary institutions. “This project is about offering a service, making a contribution and instilling a sense of pride. I believe it will make a notable contribution to theatre and voice training in South Africa,” says Prof Munro. H The Department of Drama is invested in exploring crosscultural aspects of training suitable to a multicultural student body.
Cultural music was presented from countries across Africa, including two wonderful works from South Africa. The choir performed five concerts, as well as live on Gabon's National Network. The members of the African Youth Choir are selected biannually, as the course spans over two years. pamela.oosthuizen@up.ac.za
Humanities celebrates its stars The Faculty of Humanities gave recognition to its top achievers and hard-working staff at Humanities Day, held in September 2015.
The Lecturer of the Year award went to Prof Amanda du Preez from the Department of Visual Arts, while four staff members were awarded 2015 Researchers of the Year awards. They are Mr Rory du Plessis from the Department of Visual Arts, Prof Ulrike Kistner from the Department of Philosophy, Prof Antoinette Lombard from the Department of Social Work and Criminology, and Prof Corinne Sandwith from Department of English. Congratulations to these staff members for their exceptional research and lecturing output! H
marth.munro@up.ac.za
Theatre production receives Ovation Award
Peace and conflict placed under scrutiny The Faculty of Humanities’ Department of Political Sciences is making a significant and unique contribution to scholarship through the Faculty’s research theme on Peace and Conflict in Africa.
Widening readership for indigenous law
The research group is currently paying attention to social cohesion and nationbuilding as ways of promoting peacebuilding.
“We also explore the attitudes that affected communities have displayed towards peace-making efforts and initiatives, with a substantial contribution being made on issues of justice and reconciliation. Another important research question asks from what quarters leadership has emerged in the course of peace-making initiatives conducted in Africa? Has South Africa provided leadership? And if so, how did it unfold? What was the role assumed by the African Union and the regional economic communities in these conflicts?”
Prof Schoeman adds that the research group is currently paying attention to social cohesion and nation-building as ways of promoting peacebuilding, with several postgraduate students exploring case studies related to social cohesion or the erosion of social cohesion. The members of the project team work closely with colleagues across the continent and also with scholars from the London School of Economics and King’s College, London.
With this ongoing project Political Sciences aims to answer these research questions to improve understanding of peace and conflict through rigorous research.
The team strives to contribute to processes of peacemaking, peacekeeping and peacebuilding on the continent. H
The Department of Drama presented an intermedial theatre production, Barbe Bleue: a story about madness, at the 2015 National Arts Festival (NAF) in Grahamstown. The production was directed by Drama MA student Gopala Davies and won a Standard Bank Ovation Award. The Ovation Awards celebrate excellence on the Fringe festival of the NAF. The production is part of Mr Davies' practice-asresearch project for his MA degree under
chris.broodryk@up.ac.za | gopala.davies@up.ac.za
the supervision of Mr Chris Broodryk and Ms Jessica Foli. Davies investigates the construction of time and space in the mode of intermediality, mapping the ways time manifests as spatial element in Barbe Bleue. Practice-as-research strengthens the Department’s goal to train artist-scholars who utilises the modes of creative and artistic work embedded in the discipline to engage with, and generate, knowledge. Barbe Bleue explores the effect of madness on a relationship. Through the combination of new media technology with The Tale of Bluebeard, the audience is taken on a comic and, at times, horrific journey through tumultuous human relationships caused by mental illness. H
The four Tuks Camerata choir members were invited to perform in the biggest choral festival in France in August 2016, as part of the festival Choralies. About 4 000 singers from all over the world participate in this event. Eight of the African Youth Choir members were selected to perform Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms as part of a ‘world youth choir’ at the festival comprising singers from all continents, and all four Camerata students were proudly selected.
Tuks Camerata’s conductor and Director of Choral Music Studies at UP, Michael Barrett, has become an integral part in building choral music on the African continent. The IFCM has approached him to act as representative for choral music in South Africa and invited him to conduct workshops and work with the African Youth Choir during the festival in Libreville. At the Youth Choir’s annual conference, the committee proposed that the next festival takes place in South Africa. H
Developing a multilingual mindset UP promotes the development and use of students' strongest languages and empowers them in English as academic language
Although multilingualism is the norm in most countries of the world, monolingualism has become the hegemonic mindset. In higher education in South African it has become imperative to give preference to a mindset that recognises our multilingual reality by drawing on students' strongest languages while supporting them to study through medium of a second language. Prof Adelia Carstens, Head of UP’s Unit for Academic Literacy, in her research zooms in on the process by which bi- and multilingual students draw on all their linguistic resources to create meaning during learning opportunities – a process that has become known as 'translanguaging'. A study was conducted in 2015, involving speakers of African languages and Afrikaans, and the majority of the respondents reported experiencing cognitive and affective benefits. This research entails a mindset shift from bilingualism to multilingualism and links to another research project in the Faculty of Humanities – the Open Education Resource Term Bank. This Department of Higher Education and Training-funded project aims to coordinate the development of terminology in the official languages at South African universities, to allow students to discuss academic topics in their mother tongue, even if classes are presented in English. Prof Adelia Carstens, who leads the project at UP together with Prof Elsabé Taljard from the Department of African Languages and Prof Mbulungeni Madiba from UCT, says the project aims to democratise higher
education. She explains that terms are traditionally created by experts and not always used by the man on the street. “Terminology should be created by experts who have knowledge of both subject content and term-formation strategies in specific languages, but these newly created terms have to be justified through use and acceptance by students and staff in academic contexts.” Prof Taljard emphasises that the notion that no terminology exists for the African languages is indeed a misconception. The problem is rather an unchecked proliferation of terminology without the necessary standardisation. “The purpose of the multilingual term bank is to aid students with the conceptualisation of key notions in the different subject fields in their home language,” she says. The main aim of the term bank is to leave a legacy, even after the three-year project period ending in 2017. “This project is bigger than those working on it, and it is a very important building block on our path to multilingualism,” Prof Carstens concludes. H adelia.carstens@up.ac.za
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