Maurits van Bever Donker

Associate Professor
Research Manager

Maurits van Bever Donker’s research specialisations are in Black Consciousness Philosophy, Postcolonial Theory and Aesthetics, African Philosophy and Literatures, and Contemporary South African and African History. He is the co-Principal Investigator for a project on “renewing the archives at UWC” and a lead researcher on “Communicating the Humanities” together with Prof. Patricia Hayes and Prof. Premesh Lalu, respectively, and on “Desiring the Postapartheid,” which was funded by the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies. For the last four years he has held a research leadership and management role as the Research Manager in the CHR, where he convenes the Centre’s fellowship programme, which aims to develop the next generation of university educators in Africa. This includes the development and teaching of an annual directed reading programme, the development and teaching of a joint graduate seminar between UWC and the University of Minnesota on Global Apartheid, and providing mentorship to postgraduate students, as well as doctoral and masters supervision. Maurits van Bever Donker manages and plans the existing grants in the Centre and helps to drive the grant writing process to secure future funding, while advancing his own research. As a researcher and lecturer in the humanities and interpretive social sciences, he has taught at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels in South Africa and the USA, and he is an editorial board member (and acting as one of the chief editors) for the international peer-reviewed African studies journal Afrika Focus. His current book projects are titled Texturing Difference: Black Consciousness Philosophy and the Script of Man and Technically Human. Prior to taking up the position as research manager, he was a Next Generation Scholar at the CHR.

PUBLICATIONS

Books, Edited Collections, Special Issues of Journals

• van Bever Donker, Maurits. Texturing Difference: ‘Black Consciousness Philosophy’ and the ‘Script of Man,’ Commonalities (under revision).
• van Bever Donker, Maurits, and Ross Truscott (eds), Kronos: Journal of South African Histories, Special Issue What is the University in Africa for?, 2017.
• van Bever Donker, Maurits, and Ross Truscott (eds), Social Dynamics: A Journal of African Studies, Special Issue Apartheid and the Unconscious, forthcoming 2022.
• van Bever Donker, Maurits, Ross Truscott, Gary Minkley, and Premesh Lalu (eds), The Remains of the Social: Desiring the Postapartheid, Wits University Press, 2017.

Book Chapters

• van Bever Donker, Maurits. “Ethical Injunctions” [abridged], in Premesh Lalu and Noëleen Murray (eds), Becoming UWC: Reflections, Pathways, and Unmaking Apartheid’s Legacy, Centre for Humanities Research UWC, 2012.
• van Bever Donker, Maurits. “The Principle of Insufficiency,” in Maurits van Bever Donker, Ross Truscott, Gary Minkley, and Premesh Lalu (eds), Remains of the Social: Desiring the Post-apartheid. Wits University Press, 2017.
• van Bever Donker, Maurits. “Producing Concepts for the Possibility of Freedom,” in Gomes, C and Abreu, C (eds), Public Humanities: Thinking Freedom in the African University. CODESRIA, 2021.
• van Bever Donker, Maurits, and Ciraj Rassool. “South African Apartheid: The White Man Must Govern,” in Apartheid: the South African Mirror, ACTAR: Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, 2007. 
• van Bever Donker, Maurits, Ross Truscott, Gary Minkley, and Premesh Lalu. “Traversing the Social,” in Maurits van Bever Donker, Ross Truscott, Gary Minkley, and Premesh Lalu (eds), Remains of the Social: Desiring the Post-apartheid. Wits University Press, 2017.

Articles in Peer-reviewed and Accredited Journals

• Truscott, Ross, and Maurits van Bever Donker. “What is the University in Africa for?” Kronos: South African Histories, vol. 43 (2017), special issue What is the University in Africa for? http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2309-9585/2017/v43a2
• van Bever Donker, Maurits. “Ethical Injunctions: The University of the Western Cape in the face of the ‘here and now.’” Social Dynamics: A Journal of African studies, vol. 38, no. 1 (2012) https://doi.org/10.1080/02533952.2012.698948
• van Bever Donker, Maurits. “The ‘Rough Edge of Deterritorialisation’: Contemplation.” Parallax, vol. 22, no. 2 (2016) https://doi.org/10.1080/13534645.2016.1175071
• van Bever Donker, Maurits. “Welcome to Our Hillbrow: Learning to ‘learn to live’ in the wake of Apartheid.’ Dissidences: Hispanic Journal of Theory and Criticism, vol. 4, no. 8 (2012) https://digitalcommons.bowdoin.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1043&context=dissidences