Natasha Vally
Next Generation Scholar
South African Social Assistance and the 2012 Privatised National Payment System: An examination of insecurities and technopolitics in social grant administration and payment. She has undergraduate and honours degrees in mathematics and genetics and holds a Masters degree in history. She works, across disciplines, on the technopolitical in post-apartheid South Africa. Her favourite movie is Blade Runner, she awaits the sequel with anticipation.
Censorship 2.0: Hindu nationalism and media regulation in digital India
The CHR’s annual Winter School takes place between 7-11 July at the Iyatsiba Lab. Its theme for 2025 is the question of Freedom. Alongside its academic programme will be two public keynote lectures. The second will take place at the Iyatsiba Lab on Thursday 10 July and will be given by Monika Mehta.
Smuggling as Resistance: Transborder Nahua Futurisms
The CHR’s annual Winter School takes place between 7-11 July at the Iyatsiba Lab. Its theme for 2025 is the question of Freedom. Alongside its academic programme will be two public keynote lectures. The first will take place at the Iyatsiba Lab on Tuesday 8 July and will be given by Federico Cuatlacuatl.
‘5 indie art spaces in African cities worth knowing more about’, Kim Gurney in The Conversation
Kim Gurney’s latest publication for The Conversation discusses five indie art spaces in African cities worth knowing more about.
Diana Vives and The Sky Beneath at the Iyatsiba Lab
The CHR was delighted to receive The Sky Beneath (2022) by artist and sculptor, Diana Vives, at the Iyatsiba Lab in June 2025. The Sky Beneath was originally exhibited at Everard Read in Cape Town, and is now mounted in the reception area of the Iyatsiba Lab. The title of this partially submerged sphere refers to the ancient Greek philosopher Anaximander, who in the 6th century BCE radically questioned prevailing worldviews, embracing uncertainty as a path to knowledge
Encounters Documentary Film Festival highlights: The Walk and The Shadow Scholars
The CHR, UWC and the UK-SA Bilateral Digital humanities chair in culture and technics will be hosting a number of Encounters Documentary Film Festival Events at the Iyatsiba Lab, including for the Encounters Infocus Industry Programme, Deeper Dialogues, Sharper Visions – One Story at a time (see the programme below). We are also pleased to announce the screening of two Digital humanities chair supported films: The Walk and The Shadow Scholars.
Workshop Announcement: Theory in/as Practice – Practice in/as Theory, Leuphana University, Lüneburg
Theory in/as Practice – Practice in/as Theory is a workshop (19 June) hosted by “Cultures of Critique”, at Leuphana University, Lüneburg.
Artists Forum: Shakespeare to Gaza
The Artists Forum connects scholarly exploration with the CHR’s Artist in Residency programme, so as to bring artists’ and humanistic study into a more intimate adjacency
Global dis:connect Academic Advisory Board announcement
We are pleased to announce that Heidi Grunebaum has been invited to join the Academic Advisory Board of the Käte Hamburger Research Centre global dis:connect based at Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich.
A listening session with Leila Bencharnia
The Sound Working Group at the Centre for Humanities Research will host a listening session with composer, sound artist, and textile researcher Leila Bencharnia, on Sunday, 8 June 2025.
DSTI-NRF Call for Application Endorsements: UK-SA Bilateral Chair in the Digital Humanities and SARChI Chair in Visual History and Theory.
The Centre for Humanities Research (CHR) at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) invites applications from candidates seeking grantholder endorsement for DSTI-NRF Master’s and Doctoral Student Funding for the academic year 2026. Successful applicants will work alongside a team of leading researchers at the CHR under either the UK-SA Bilateral Chair in the Digital Humanities or the SARChI Chair in Visual History and Theory.