Seminar Programme


Contemporary History and Humanities Seminars

Established in 1993, the weekly South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar is the longest running seminar series in Southern Africa and continues to draw together faculty, graduate students and research fellows from across the Faculty of Arts at UWC and elsewhere. The seminar series, which hosts local and international academics, was initiated by the Institute for Historical Research (IHR) and the History Dept at UWC. Initially the series was known as the Contemporary History Seminar. In 2006, however, when the IHR became the Centre for Humanities Research (CHR), the word ‘Humanities, was added.

The seminar series, which reflects a growing national and international reputation, is organised around a pre-circulated paper with an appointed respondent. The seminar series has been convened and chaired by Colin Bundy, Leslie Witz, Andrew Bank, Ciraj Rassool, Gary Minkley and Premesh Lalu. The current chair (2015) is Particia Hayes.

Seminars

Inaugural Seminar for the New Ecologies of the Subject research platform

A Conversation in the Humanities in Session seminar series at the Centre for Humanities Research, part of the Advanced Research Seminar.

Imagining futures: Conversations from Ireland to South Africa

This event is scheduled to take place at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary African Art on March 13, 2024, as part of the Embassy’s St. Patrick’s Day programme.

Justice and Sacrifice in the myths of Iphigenia, Antigone, and Medea

A Conversation in the Humanities in Session seminar series at the Centre for Humanities Research, part of the Advanced Research Seminar.

Patricia Parker visit

In April, the CHR had the pleasure of hosting Prof Patricia Parker (University of North Carolina) for a series of seminars and discussions in Cape Town.

The Hottest August

The CHR is co-hosting with DocFilmSA’s docLOVE free screenings program a film screening and discussion of The Hottest August, Wednesday 31 August 2022 at 18:00pm screening at the Bertha House in Cape Town.

Legacies of Enslavement in the Cape: Black Life in the Archive

Join us for Seminar 559 of the South African Contemporary History and Humanities seminar with Efuah Prah.

“Don’t speak of letters when you mean sounds”: Phonemes, diacritics, and the transcriptive acoustemology of Sol Plaatje

Dr Aidan Erasmus of the Department of History at the University of the Western Cape will deliver a paper titled Dont speak of letters when you mean sounds”: Phonemes, diacritics, and the transcriptive acoustemology of Sol Plaatje as part of the South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar.

Beyond Nostalgia: Reimagining Post-Apartheid Freedom

Founding CHR director and filmmaker Premesh Lalu will be in conversation with Rashid Lombard, Jayson King, Sylvia Mndunyelwa and Dinga Sikwebu about his new film The Double Futures of Athlone at the Encounters South African Documentary International Film Festival. The panel will be moderated by Valmont Layne.

Eduardo Mondlane: social scientist, cosmopolitan and nationalist

The South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar invites you to a presentation by professor of anthropology at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), Livio Sansone.

Re-Imagining Race through Daai za Lady & Butoh

The South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar invites you to a presentation by dancer and choreographer, theatre-maker and director, producer, and academic researcher, jackï job.

Who is the ‘community’ in Community Archaeology and what is at stake?

The South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar invites you to a presentation by doctoral candidate Robyn Humphreys.

Muslim Identity in the Colonial South Africa

The South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar series presents “Muslim Identity in the Colonial South Africa” by Halim Gençoğlu.

Land Bonds

The South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar invites you to a presentation by doctoral candidate Tara Weinberg (University of Michigan).

Our Ghosts Were Once People

The South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar invites you to a conversation with Bongani Kona on his new edited volume Our Ghosts Were Once People: Stories on Death and Dying (Jonathan Ball, 2021).

Twice Heard and Newly Told

Join the South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar on 12 October 2021 for “Twice heard and newly told,” a paper by Phindi Mnyaka.

Archival Futures and Research: Preservation, Access and UWC’s Digital Infrastructure

Prof. Patricia Hayes and Dr Valmont Layne investigate how UWC can revitalise its archival holdings for preservation, teaching, research access, and public programmes.

Everything that was made was not destroyed…

CHR Artist in Residence Juan Orrantia will present his ongoing artistic work “Everything that was made was not destroyed, but also does not exist” at the South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar on 14 September 2021.

The Long Emancipation

The South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar invites you to a discussion of Rinaldo Walcott’s The Long Emancipation on 17 August 2021.

Flipside: The Inadvertent Archive

The South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar is pleased to announce that Kim Gurney will be presenting “Flipside: The Inadvertent Archive” on 22 June 2021 at 14:00.

Ambivalent at Jacana’s Virtual Book Theatre

Ambivalent will be featured at Jacana Media’s Don’t Shut Up virtual book theatre on Sunday, 23 May 2021.

The South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar with Carolyn Laubender

Join us for Carolyn Laubender’s paper “Travelling Analysis: Black Hamlet, Ethnopsychology, and the (De)Colonial Clinic in South Africa” at the South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar on Tuesday, 18 May 2021.

The CHR’s Lee Walters Presents at ICGC Brown Bag Series

Join CHR Doctoral Fellow Lee Walters for the University of Minnesota’s Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change (ICGC) Brown Bag Series on 30 April 2021.

The South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar Presents: Materiality, Museums, and the Production of History

Lebogang Mokwena (New School for Social Research) will be presenting “Materiality, Museums, and the Production of History” on Tuesday 20 April 2021 at the South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar.

The CHR’s Phokeng Setai Presents at ICGC Brown Bag Series

CHR Doctoral Fellow in Anthropology Phokeng Setai will be presenting at the University of Minnesota’s Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change (ICGC) Brown Bag Series.

PAN: An Intellectual History of AI

The CHR’s Professor Jane Taylor will be giving a talk as part of the HUMA Interdisciplinary Seminar Series on 8 April 2021.

Ian Baucom: History 4° Celsius: Search for a Method in the Age of the Anthropocene

Vice-Chancellor and Rector of the University of the Western Cape, Prof. Tyrone Pretorius, has the pleasure of inviting you to a conversation with Prof. Ian Baucom on 12 April 2021.

Aesthetics and Politics: A Dialogue Across Continents

Join the CHR’s Heidi Grunebaum and members of the Other Universals Consortium Aaron Kamugisha (University of the West Indies), Victoria J. Collis-Buthelezi (University of Johannesburg), and Chika Mba (University of Ghana) for an online conversation with colleagues at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi.

The Possibilities and Intimacies of Queer African Screen Cultures

Join CHR Next Generation Scholar Dr Lwando Scott in conversation about The Possibilities and Intimacies of Queer African Screen Cultures, a special issue of the Journal of African Cultural Studies, on 5 April 2021.

The CHR’s Samuel Longford Presents at ICGC Brown Bag Series

Join the University of Minnesota’s Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change (ICGC) Brown Bag Series this Friday for a talk presented by CHR Doctoral Fellow in History Samuel Longford

The South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar Presents:Other Lives of the Image

The South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar will be hosting a launch of Other Lives of the Image, a special issue of the journal Kronos: Southern African Histories, on 9 March 2021.

Foucault in Iran: Islamic Revolution after the Enlightenment

A CHR Webinar held by the Other Universals Consortium with Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi

Decolonizing Theory: Thinking Across Traditions

A CHR Webinar held by the Other Universals Consortium with Aditya Nigam

Leaving Zion

A Winter School webinar with Associate Professor Heidi Grunebaum

Publics and Policing: Spies, Surveillance, and Colonial Subjects in Anti-Colonial French Politics

A Winter School webinar with Associate Professor Nancy Luxon

The Black Aquatic: On Water, Art and Black Movement

A Winter School webinar with Professor Rinaldo Walcott

WINTER SCHOOL 2020

Exodus, Movement, a/the People: Critical Thinking and the Collective

Worldmaking After Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination

The Other Universals consortium will be hosting a webinar with Adom Getachew.

In Search of Africa(s): Postcolonialism and the Universal

The Other Universals consortium will be hosting an online seminar with Souleymane Bachir Diagne

LoKO: Seminar One

These online seminars will pursue many of the questions which we would pursue in the normal course of things; although things are anything but normal.

Seminar: Domietta Torlasco

Excerpt Rhythm Beyond Measure: Cinema and the Life of Images

Seminar: Roger Field

Intimacy and Violence

Seminar: John Ricco

Moths to the Flame: Photography and the Capitalocene

Seminar: Meleesha Bardolia

The Politics of ‘Rightful Belonging’ in Post-Apartheid South African and Post-Mabo Australian Non-White ‘Settler’ Literatures

Global Apartheid: A Genealogy of Biopolitical Sovereignty

A seminar course on Global Apartheid co-taught by Professor Cesare Casarino and Dr. Ross Truscott will take place in the first semester of 2020.

Seminar: Sam Longford

Governing the ungovernable: contested legacies at the Chris Hani Memorial

Seminar: Phindi Mnyaka

Lady Kennaway: A Ship Story

Seminar: Fernanda Pinto de Almeida

Cinema desegregation and the fall of a drive-in’s ‘Berlin Wall’

Seminar: Mahvish Ahmed

Afro-Asian World-Making from the Underground in Balochistan’s Jabbal

Seminar: Rui Assubuji

Speculate – troubling reducibility and blackness

Seminar: Silvia Forni

Opening spaces: Of Africa, slow museology, and institutional undoing

Seminar: Elizabeth Harney

We the North? Caravan and the Crafting of a Multicultural Toronto

Seminar: Annelize Kotze and Bongani Ndhlovu

Subjugation, exposure and healing: Human remains, museums and indigenous communities

Seminar: Ari Sitas

Of Chata: Beginnings of a Journey

Seminar: Okechukwu Nwafor

Funeral Poster and Pre-Funeral Visual Economy in southeastern Nigeria

Seminar: Willemien Froneman

Nico Carstens, Disavowal, and the Perverted Mind of Apartheid

Seminar: Ari Sitas

Of Chata: Beginnings of a Journey

Seminar: Wilton Schereka

Speculate – troubling reducibility and blackness

Seminar: Claudia Gastrow

The Discomforts of Home: Infrastructure, Aesthesis and Political Belonging

Seminar: Edgar Taylor

Archival Futures in Uganda

Seminar: Raquel Schefer

The Representation of Ritual and Cinema as a Ritual in Revolutionary Mozambique: Ruy Guerra’s “Mueda, Memória e Massacre”

Seminar: Janne Rantala

Public memory and political ancestors through Mozambican rap music

Seminar: Robert Reid-Pharr

This Grey Gulf

Seminar: Sara Guyer

Critical Anthropomorphism After #MeToo: Reading The Friend

Seminar: Kass Banning

John Akomfrah’s Purple: Notes Towards Deciphering Habitus Beyond A Planetary Sublime

Seminar: Philipp Schorch

Two Germanies: ethnographic museums, (post) colonial exhibitions, and the ‘cold odyssey’ of Pacific objects between East and West.

Seminar: Prathama Banerjee

Sovereignty and Ascendancy: south Asian reflections

Decolonization and the Aesthetic Cold War: Towards an Intellectual History

Seminar by Professor Peter Kalliney

Seminar: Doug Mulliken

Human Violence and Technological Memory

Seminar: Ciraj Rassool

The politics of non-racialism in South Africa

Seminar: Clémentine Deliss

Manifesto for the rights of access to colonial collections sequestered in Western Europe

Seminar: Stephanie Vos

Exile and Migration: Performing Connections through the Metaphor of the Train

Seminar: Swati Arora

Left to ‘biyaasi number’: Janam, Street Theatre and Urban Space in Delhi

Seminar: Christos Lynteris

Plague and the Emergence of Epidemic Photography

Seminar: Kara Moskowitz

Decolonization, Development and the Making of Kenya

Seminar: Sarah Godsell

“What is the point?” Potentials of Decolonising History: in teacher education spaces, and school classrooms

Seminar: Aidan Erasmus

Dispatch: Eduction, Sound, and the Senses

Seminar: Jacob Cloete

The pre-circulated paper for this seminar is accompanied by a short documentary by Jacob Cloete.

Seminar: Armelle Gaulier

The Moppie Songs of the Colored Populations of Cape Town: Music and the Process of Creolization (South Africa)

Seminar: Valmont Layne

Tem Hawker, Yakhal Inkomo and the sentimental ‘avant-garde: Revisiting Cape jazz’s sonic archive’

Seminar: Redi Koobak

Seminar: Gender, Nation and War Art: Rethinking Artistic Responses to the ISAF mission in Afghanistan

Seminar: Kate Skinner

Abolde Safui

Seminar: Thozama April

Engaging the Rounds of Charlotte Maxeke’s Becoming

Seminar: Julie MacArthur

Dissident Citizens: Genealogies of Sovereignty, Violence, and Belonging along the Kenya-Somali Frontier

Seminar: G. Arunima

Centre for Humanities Research & Department of History, University of the Western Cape South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar G. Arunima (Centre for Women’s […]

Seminar: Jonathan Cane

South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar

Seminar: Ross Truscott

Centre for Humanities Research & Department of History, University of the Western Cape South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar Ross Truscott (Centre for Humanities […]

Seminar: Digital Doomsday

A perspective from the pathology called Europe

Seminar: Premesh Lalu

The Practice of Post-apartheid Freedom

Justice After Genocide: Namibia, Germany and Colonial Amnesia

Reinhart Kössler, a German scholar who studies the consequences of German colonial rule, its impact on the descendants of victims of the genocide

Seminar: Natasha Vally

Centre for Humanities Research & Department of History, University of the Western Cape South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar Natasha Vally (Next Generation Fellow, […]

Seminar: Roger Levine

Lived Racism in Segregation-era South Africa: a research agenda and a case study

Seminar: Todd Cleveland

Centre for Humanities Research and the Department of History, University of the Western Cape South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar Todd Cleveland (Department of […]

Seminar: The Foundation

Dan Magaziner (Department of History, Yale University, USA)

Seminar: Women Miners and Mining Spaces

Centre for Humanities Research & Department of History, University of the Western Cape South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar Asanda Benya (Department of Sociology, […]

Reading Group and Seminar with Prof. Carlos Forment

Citizenship and Justice: Rethinking Political Theory and Political Philosophy.

Seminar: Cleaning the Slate of Distrust

The Vance Mission and the (Dis-)appearance of the ‘Amnesty Question’ on/from the Agenda of the Transitional Negotiations and in internal ANC

Nigel Gibson Seminar on Fanon

Centre for Humanities Research & Department of History, University of the Western Cape South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar Nigel Gibson (Institute for Liberal […]

“Freedom Within the Walls:” Thomas Mott Osborne’s Participatory Panopticon

Centre for Humanities Research & Department of History, University of the Western Cape South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar Shai Gortler (PhD Candidate, University […]

Seminar: The African Resistance Fighter Jacon Marengo

Centre for Humanities Research & Department of History, University of the Western Cape South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar Ulrike Lindner (History Department, University […]

Seminar: Hostile Visual Encounters

Seminar in Contemporary History & Humanities Special Seminar Hostile visual encounters: fighting to control photographic meaning in the DRC’s digital age. Aubrey P. Graham, 2016 […]

Seminar: State-Building and Techno-politics in Somaliland

South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar

Global Apartheid Course at the CHR

A Genealogy of Biopolitical Sovereignty February – May 2017 Centre for Humanities Research Professor Cesare Casarino University of Minnesota Interdisciplinary Centre for the Study of […]

Video: State Capture?

Earlier this year we had an important Local Government Election. Now, as we debate how to fund public higher education equitably, this seminar explores the […]

Seminar: Education or State Politics? – Elizabeth Giorgis

Education in the Social Sciences and Humanities at Addis Ababa University Dullah Omar Centre for Critical Thought in African Humanities of the Centre for Humanities […]

Discussion with Mira Nair

A discussion was held with the film director, Mira Nair, about her work and new film, “The Queen of Katwe” at the CHR on 20 […]

Seminar: State Capture?

The Dullah Omar Centre for Critical Thought in African Humanities of the Centre for Humanities Research (DST-NRF UWC Flagship) invites you to a public seminar […]

Joint Seminar: Jennifer Tucker and George Agbo

Centre for Humanities Research & Department of History University of the Western Cape South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar Invites you to a double […]

Seminar by George Agbo: The Technology of Visual Digital Activism

Centre for Humanities Research & Department of History, University of the Western Cape South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar George Emeka Agbo (History Department/Centre […]

Seminar by Shari Eppel: Bones In The Forest

Centre for Humanities Research & Department of History, University of the Western Cape South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar Shari Eppel (Director, Solidarity Peace Trust, […]

Mothers’ pensions and the ‘civilised’ black poor: the racialised provision of child maintenance grants, 1921-1940

Centre for Humanities Research & Department of History, University of the Western Cape South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar Marijke du Toit (UWC) Date: […]

Seminar by Bongani Ndhlovu: ‘Apartheid’s Golden Age’

Reconnoitring alternative forms of resistance to apartheid South Africa, c1966-1979

Seminar by Janeke Thumbran: “Sisters are Building it for Themselves:”

Architecture, Self-Reliance and Trusteeship at the University of Pretoria, 1943 to present times

Seminar: The Making of MK: Whose Violence & to What End? The Debates of 1960–1 – Paul S. Landau

Centre for Humanities Research & Department of History, University of the Western Cape South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar Paul S. Landau (Department of […]

Seminar: Empty photographs: Ethnography and the lacunae of African history: Patricia Hayes

Centre for Humanities Research & Department of History, University of the Western Cape South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar Patricia Hayes (DST/NRF SARChI Chair […]

Global Apartheid – A Genealogy of Biopolitical Sovereignty

DST NRF Flagship Next Generation Researcher Dr. Maurits Van Bever Donker will be co-teaching a graduate seminar alongside Professor Cesare Casarino in the Comparative Literature […]

A Tale of Two Cities: Finding Storyville in the Archives: A Seminar by Emily Landau

The CHR DST/NRF Flagship in Critical Thought in African Humanities and the Women’s and Gender Studies Department at UWC invite you to a seminar by […]

Seminar: Portugal’s Photographic Play: Drew Thompson

Centre for Humanities Research & Department of History, University of the Western Cape South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar Drew Thompson (Department of History, […]

Seminar: The Performance of Race: Passing-Out Parades, Street Soccer, the ‘Civilized Body’, and the Creation of the ‘Perfect Other’ (c. 1940s-1960s)

Centre for Humanities Research & Department of History South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar

Virgil Slade (Department of History

Seminar: The Practice of Post-Apartheid Freedom

Centre for Humanities Research & Department of History, University of the Western Cape South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar Premesh Lalu (Centre for Humanities […]

Seminar: The Postman and the Tramp: Commitment in an Age of Cynicism

Centre for Humanities Research & Department of History, University of the Western Cape South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar By Toral Jatin Gajarawala (English […]

Other Universals Public Lecture: “Sylvia Wynter’s Black Metamorphosis and the World We Live In”

Other Universals presents a public lecture by Dr. Aaron Kamugisha (Cultural Studies, University of the West Indies) on "Sylvia Wynter's Black Metamorphosis and the World […]

Seminar: Stasis Anxiety: Contemporary Fictions of South African ‘Waithood’

Centre for Humanities Research & Department of History, University of the Western Cape South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar Andrew Van der Vlies (Department […]

Seminar: Traversing the Social

Centre for Humanities Research & Department of History, University of the Western Cape South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar Ross Truscott, Maurits van Bever Donker, […]

Seminar: Mueda Massacre: The Musical Archive

Centre for Humanities Research & Department of History, University of the Western Cape South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar Mueda Massacre: The Musical Archive […]

Seminar: The Varieties of Secular Experience: Magical Thinking, Occult Economies, and Puppetry

Centre for Humanities Research & Department of History, University of the Western Cape South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar" The Varieties of Secular Experience: Magical […]

Panel Discussion on Richard Turner’s Eye of the Needle

The CHR DST NRF Flagship for Critical Thought in African Humanities and the South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar invites you

Seminar by Heidi Grunebaum: “No Consolation:The Poetics of Lament and the Insistence of Complicity”

Senior Researcher in the Flagship for Critical Thought in African Humanities Heidi Grunebaum will deliver a seminar at the Department of English at Stellenbosch University […]

Seminar: Exalted Faces and Awkward Bodies: ‘Third Wave’ of Protests in Africa, Political Imaginations and Global Sociology

Centre for Humanities Research & Department of History ( UWC) South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar Speaker: Ruchi Chaturvedi (Sociology, UCT) Date: 8 March […]

Seminar: Emerging Possiblities – Diaspora engagement and the global initiative on Somali refugees

Centre for Humanities Research & Department of History (UWC) Speakers:   Dianna Shandy (Center for Integrative Leadership, University of Minnesota and Macalester College) Shobha Das (UNHCR) Date: 23 […]

Seminar: Epistemological restlessness. Trajectories in and out of history

Centre for Humanities Research & Department of History ( UWC) South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar Speakers: Leslie Witz, Jung Ran Forte & Paolo […]

Lecture in African Humanities and Letters Hassan El Geretly Neo Muyanga

On 20 February 2015, the Centre for Humanities Research hosted the first Distinguished Lecture in its African Humanities and Letters Lecture Series for 2015 at […]