Nosipho Gxekwa

Master’s Fellow: UK-RSA Bilateral Digital Humanities Research Chair in Culture and Technics.

Nosipho Gxekwa is an English master’s candidate at the University of the Western Cape, having graduated with an honours degree in English from the same institution. She considers herself a historian of expression with her current academic interests centring around the intersections between language, history and identity, particularly how literature allows one to take the emotive pulse of individuals and communities at historically important moments. She believes that this provides a unique perspective on our collective past, aids in reconciling with our present and gives a voice to the voiceless.

Currently, her Master’s research seeks to look at the representation of women in waiting within South African literature. This lens is pertinent at a time when the marginalised seek to recover and reconcile with their histories and look beyond, aiming to reveal how literature offers an opportunity to bring to light this silenced archive, capturing the complex spirits found in the waiting.

She is also the General Learning Assistant for her department, a budding writer, filmmaker, and editor for the rising Open Mic Creative Writing Journal. After her master’s, Nosipho plans to continue with her studies with the hope of completing her PhD and launching her career in academia, fulfilling the dream she has had since she was eleven. If nothing else, she hopes to carve for herself a space where she can acquire some peace, love, strength, serenity and discipline. And the money to support it.