READ MORETechnics & Urban workshop takes off
“They conduct their lives with a wry resilience. They have a front row seat to the apocalyptic – birds falling out the sky – but they go on, with a cruel optimism towards the everyday within the age of extreme climate change. To translate that into formal strategies is the work of documentary.” READ MOREPublication Announcement: New Contrast, Issue 212, In Memory of Diana Ferrus and Zoë Wicomb
We are pleased to announce the publication of New Contrast’s 212th Issue, In Memory of Diana Ferrus and Zoë Wicomb, which includes contributions from Premesh Lalu who holds the UK-SA Bilateral Chair in Culture and Technics at the CHR, and Bongani Kona (Department of Historical Studies, UWC).READ MOREHumanities in Sesssion, Artists’ Forum: Underwater Cables & Global Digital Infrastructure
This session, titled ‘Underwater Cables & Global Digital Infrastructure’, will be led by Ian Purnell, and Southbound Studio members, Kamil Adam Hassim, and Benji Anstey, who will be in conversation with the CHR’s Premesh Lalu.
There is a double bind to writing about performance art, or live art as it is also called. Generally speaking, live art involves combinations of the body, time and space.
The CHR’s Valmont Layne will be giving a keynote at ‘The Klopse/Minstrel tradition as intangible heritage’, a seminar organised by the Salt River Heritage Society.
We are delighted to announce that the Centre for Humanities Research and the W. E. B. Du Bois Centre at the University of Massachusetts have recently signed a Memoranda of Understanding.
The African Critical Inquiry Programme is pleased to announce the 2026 Ivan Karp Doctoral Research Awards to support African doctoral students in the humanities and humanistic social sciences and invites proposals from scholars and/or practitioners in public cultural institutions in South Africa to organise a workshop to
take place in 2027. ACIP is a partnership between the Centre for Humanities Research at the University of the Western Cape and the Laney Graduate School of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia (USA).
The Centre for Humanities Research at the University of the Western Cape adds its voice to many others who are deeply concerned about the cancellation of Gabrielle Goliath’s Elegy that was officially selected for the South African Pavilion at the Venice Biennale of 2026.
The African Critical Inquiry Programme (ACIP) is pleased to announce that the 2026 ACIP Workshop will be Revisiting and Reimagining “Imvo Zabantsundu”.
‘Every Artist Must Take Sides – Resonances of Eslanda and Paul Robeson’, launched on 14 November 2025 at the Akademie der Künste (ADK). It is a project by the Akademie der Künste in collaboration with the CHR, and the Haus für Poesie, Berlin.
The Centre for Humanities Research (UWC) and the Encounters South African International Documentary Film Festival cordially invite you to the final session of ENGAGE/REFLECT/CREATE: The CHR-Encounters Documentary Series, a monthly screening programme which will run until December 2025.
Lester Kiewit speaks to Premesh Lalu, a UWC research professor, on the lessons we can learn from the Trojan Horse Massacre in 1985, as well as the misconceptions about those at grassroots level fighting the apartheid machine with intellect and limited resources.